Let's update some recent stories here…
Some of us are still fighting to save Andre's, a wonderful little Italian cafeteria I've been going to since I was about the size of one serving of their lasagna. The owners of the shopping center where Andre's is located are trying to get the city to let them turn it from a small shopping center into a huge one, and Andre's would probably disappear in the conversion. If you live in Los Angeles and have never been there, here's the scoop on Andre's while it lasts. It ain't fancy and it gets real crowded weekend evenings around suppertime. But you will never find a better plate of pasta or certain other Italian entrees at those prices.
The latest news on the possible stoppage of its extinction is that there is no latest news. But the Kmart that makes up a third of the mall on Third Street is closing, probably in November. You can just imagine how poorly a department store has to be doing that they don't even expect decent sales at Christmas. Anyway, that closure makes what the owners of the shopping center wish to do feasible since they couldn't tear down the Kmart building while it was still under lease.
As we mentioned here, the Kmart/Sears chain is in trouble. Its stores have been collapsing at about the same rate as Rudy Giuliani explanations. Here's the latest list which closes 33 Sears and 13 Kmart stores. The one on Third Street is on it.
In the meantime, the owners of Andre's are opening a new version of it under another name out in Canoga Park, near the intersection of Sherman Way and Topanga Canyon Boulevard. I'll tell you about it when it opens. It is, alas, about an hour's drive from me so if we do lose Andre's, it won't be much of a substitute.
I said that with the passing of the lovely Russ Heath and the lovelier Marie Severin, the only person living "who worked on the classic EC comics" is Angelo Torres. Des Devlin wrote in to remind me that when Wally Wood was drawing stories for those books, he is said to have received occasional uncredited assistance from his then-wife, Tatjana. She is still with us so if you want to count her, it's fine with me.
Bill Mullins calls to my attention that Frank Bolle, who is also happily still with us, did one story in 1948 for War Against Crime, an early comic from the same publisher. I wouldn't count that book as one of the "classic EC comics" but again, if you want to, don't let me stop you. Bill also notes that it's rumored that Jules Feiffer worked on a few of those early books but that's unverified and I wouldn't call those "classic EC comics" either.
Lastly on this topic, a number of you wrote in to suggest I'd forgotten Al Jaffee, who is 97 and, amazingly, still drawing for MAD. I didn't forget him. He didn't work on the "classic EC comics." He worked on MAD. If I was going to count guys who worked on MAD as a magazine, there are quite a few of them like Mort Drucker and Arnie Kogen and Frank Jacobs and I don't know where the cut-off point would be.
Finally: A few folks have written in to ask why I haven't written anything about the sad news that comedian Tim Conway is largely incapacitated due to some condition in the Dementia family. I haven't written anything because it's sad news and everyone knows it's sad news and I have nothing to add to that. Very funny man. Very funny. But you already knew that.