Devin Stone, the "Legal Eagle," breaks down the latest legal woes of Donald Trump — and they are many. A lot of this reminds me of back during Watergate when every day's news brought more headaches for Richard Nixon. One of his supporters complained to columnist Jimmy Breslin that the press was covering the case against Nixon but not presenting the case for the 37th President. And Breslin replied, "That's because there really isn't one."

Trevor Noah announces he's stepping down from his post hosting The Daily Show. I don't know why I don't watch it more often…

Well, I do. With John Oliver and Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert and Samantha Bee and Randy Rainbow and one or two others, I kind of get my fill of political comedy. But when I do tune in the post-Stewart Daily Show, I always see good, smart comedy. I feel that way about Samantha Bee's show, too.

No word on when Mr. Noah will depart or who'll get the chair. If I were Comedy Central, I'd give Jordan Klepper yet another chance at helming his own show…

• The people of Florida are fortunate they have a president who wouldn't think for a second of withholding federal aid to a state that he didn't carry in the last election.

That's my pal Keith Scott and that's the front cover of Volume 1 of a two-volume set of books you must have if you're interested in animation history…especially the history of cartoon voices.

Keith knows a lot about cartoon voices because he has one. Actually, he has many. He's one of the busiest voiceover actors in Australia, heard on plenty of cartoons. He does many original voices and also is called on to replicate the voices originally performed by guys like Mel Blanc, Daws Butler and Bill Scott (no relation) who have left us. He's also an impressionist and entertainer and as if that weren't enough, he's also an accomplished historian.

He wrote The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, a Flying Squirrel, and a Talking Moose, which is the definitive book on Jay Ward's animation empire. And the reason it's the definitive book is because Keith did such a thorough job that there hasn't been much room for many other books about the studio that brought us Rocky & Bullwinkle. In the unlikely event you're interested in that topic and don't have that book, you can order a copy here.

And now Keith has two new books out — Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, 1930-70. The Golden Age of which he writes spans the years when cartoons were made to be shown in theaters…made by Disney Studios, Warner Brothers, Max Fleischer, MGM, Walter Lantz and many others. Keith has researched this topic so well that he identifies…

…well not every cartoon that every American studio made for theatrical release in those years. There are a few mysteries and a few educated guesses but I think he nails down about 98% of them. Volume 1 is mostly narrative text and in it, Keith goes through every studio and discusses what they made and who they employed to speak for their characters. Volume 2 is mostly lists, going studio by studio, cartoon by cartoon.

I get lots of e-mails asking me if I know who did such-and-such a voice in such-and-such a cartoon. Well, those correspondents can stop asking me and look it up in Keith's indispensable reference books. I am so happy to have these, I can't tell you.

Before you read this, I order you to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9 and Part 10. Only one more to go after this…I think. I hope.

I've been telling you a number of things that went wrong during my brief period as writer (sometimes, writer-editor) of Blackhawk. I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that it was a bad experience or that I regretted signing on. Absolutely not. The things that went wrong simply make for more interesting and generally funnier anecdotes. Most of it went very right.

The majority of my delight came from Dan Spiegle, who drew most of the pages and drew them better than I would ever have imagined. He was not flashy. He was just a solid storyteller who was an expert at setting the mood of every scene and putting the proper expression on every face. He also drew the airplanes and other military hardware with a flawless precision. I loved working with all those guest artists we had doing the Detached Service Diary stories but I think — no, I know I enjoyed working with Dan even more.

As I mentioned, when he finished the artwork to an issue, he did not send it off to DC in New York. He sent it to me and I was like a little kid unwrapping a Christmas present I knew would be splendid.

During the period I worked on Blackhawk, I was also usually working on two other comic books each month — with Sergio Aragonés on Groo the Wanderer and with Will Meugniot on DNAgents. Those were three very different comic books from three very different publishers, and the way in which I worked with each artist was completely different. But there were a few things they had in common, starting with the fact that those three artists were all good friends of mine and we talked all the time.

I have done comic books where I had little to no contact with the artist. I wrote a script, handed it in to an editor and the editor then sent it to the artist. Often, I did not see the finished art before publication. If I wanted to suggest a change, even in my own dialogue, it was too late. In some cases, I did not know the artist personally and/or when I wrote the script, I didn't even know who the artist would be. I could not tailor my script to the strengths of the artist nor could we work out a means of collaboration that took his strengths (or even mine, if any) into consideration. Sometimes, the results were good but I think the odds were better when I knew the artist and we weren't doing something sneaky behind an editor's back if we communicated or, God forbid, had lunch together.

Will Meugniot, being a solid professional and a real smart guy, could have drawn the kind of script I gave Dan Spiegle — a full script with every panel described, every line of dialogue already written — but it would not have been the best way for the two of us to work together. Will liked to have more input into the story and had lots of very good ideas. With him — and most of the other artists who drew DNAgents later — I would discuss the story ahead (usually) and then provide a pretty detailed outline, including panel-by-panel breakdowns; i.e., what I thought should happen in each panel.

The artist was then free to introduce his own ideas into the plot, rearrange or combine panels, improve on my pacing or even call me up and say, "I have a whole different idea for this sequence" and I'd write the dialogue after he'd penciled the story.  That would not have worked with Dan. It was the best way to work with Will. And the way I worked with Sergio — the way I still work with Sergio — would not work with any other artist because no other artist has precisely the same skill set as Sergio. Someday, I shall write here about that.

And at the same time I was working on Blackhawk, DNAgents and Groo, I was also writing variety shows and cartoon shows for TV. Those jobs meant collaborating with a lot of different people, sometimes dozens. On some shows, there were six or seven people who had some form of the word "producer" in their titles. There were network people. There were sometimes other writers. There were directors and art directors and Standards and Practices representatives and film editors and composers and arrangers and if it was a cartoon, loads of artists, some of whom were in faraway countries and didn't speak English.

There were also actors. One of the great thing about writing for a comic book like Groo is that Groo doesn't come up to you and say, "I don't like this line you wrote for me!" Comic book characters do what they're told.

After a hard day of dealing with umpteen zillion people on a TV show, I can't tell you the joy I had of opening a package from Dan Spiegle where whatever I wrote was fully realized, just the way I imagined it…or better. My collaborators on the stories I did for Blackhawk with Dan numbered as follows: (1) Dan, (2) his daughter Carrie, who lettered, (3) whoever colored the comic and (4) really no one else.

No, the money wasn't as good as in TV but if you're a professional writer, I don't think you can be happy if there are no other considerations in your work besides what you're paid.

On Blackhawk, DC left me largely alone…something that wouldn't have happened if I'd been doing a book with Superman or Batman or any other top-selling feature that others were also writing or wanted to write. But there are, of course, downsides to being on the book no one else cares about. Those comics don't sell great. We were selling better than DC had initially expected a new Blackhawk series to sell but there was an ever-so-slight downward tilt to those sales.  We all know where that leads.

I'll write more about this in the next and probably-final chapter but I'll close this one by telling you about one of the few things I came up with to maybe, just maybe nudge the sales of the comic up a bit…

One day, I found myself writing a three-part ABC Weekend Special for guess-which-network. They flew me back to New York for two-or-three meetings over four-or-five days so I had plenty of time to go see friends and shows and hang around the DC offices. I talked a bit to the sales folks about what could be done to boost Blackhawk sales but their answer was, basically, nothing. Those who were reading the comic said they really liked it but most said it was going to sell what it was going to sell and that was it.

I had one tiny thought…which is one more tiny one than I usually have.  I went to see Julius Schwartz, who was then editing the Superman comics. I knew Julie very well — too well at times — and he'd often asked me to write for his books. They mostly featured the kind of characters, as noted above, where everyone in the company has firm ideas about how the character should be depicted and you had to coordinate with six other writers who were writing their versions of the character so he'd be the same guy in your stories.

Or you'd write a scene where the character eats prunes and you'd get a call from Nelson Bridwell, the in-house authority on continuity.  Nelson would tell you, "No, no…we did an issue nine years ago where that character specifically said he doesn't eat prunes."

I'd also found Julie to be a little intimidating. He was editing a book called DC Comics Presents and in every issue, Superman appeared with a different DC property. Almost every DC character who'd ever had their own comic (and many that didn't) had guest-starred in it — everyone except the guys from Blackhawk. Thinking a Superman-Blackhawk crossover might make someone think my comic was actually part of the DC line, I went in and suggested it. Julie said, "Let me think about it. Come back in a little while."

In a little while, he told me, "I just ran it past the sales folks and they said your book's not selling all that well." I said, "You just did a crossover with The Atomic Knights, who haven't appeared in new stories since 1964. How's their comic selling these days?" (Note to those who'll otherwise write in: I know the history is a little off. But the line worked at the time and that's all I cared about.)

Julie admitted I had a point, then asked, "But who could draw a story like that?" I was prepared with an answer for just that question. DC was somewhat fussy about who drew Superman back then. Certain artists weren't preferred for such an assignment but among the guys who were, you had Ross Andru and Irv Novick. Both drew Superman to the company's satisfaction…and both had a background in war comics so there was no question they could handle that aspect of the Blackhawk content. I mentioned those names to Julie and he practically leaped out of his chair.

"Omigod!" cried the editor. "I have to have a script for Irv Novick next Monday!" As I mentioned here several parts ago, certain DC artists had contracts that guaranteed them steady work and Irv Novick was one of those guys. In fact, I believe Irv was the first freelance artist who'd ever had one of those contracts with the company. Julie asked, "How fast could you get me a script? Have you got a plot?"

I told him I could have a finished script for him in three days. "And yes, I have a terrific plot," I fibbed. "I'll tell it to you as soon as I get back from the men's room!" Then I went to the DC men's room and quickly thought up what I hoped he'd think was a terrific plot.

He did. We talked through it, he okayed it and I went to work. For the next three days, whenever I wasn't in a meeting at ABC or going to Broadway shows or eating at Peter Luger's Steak House in Brooklyn — all of these, of course, being of greater importance — I was poaching at whatever vacant desk I could find at the DC offices. Wandering like a nomad from workspace to workspace, I wrote the script on these things they had there back then called typewriters.

The first day I was back in Los Angeles, I got a call from him saying he was very happy with it and would make only minor changes.  That pleased me greatly.  He also talked me into writing another script for DC Comics Presents, this one teaming Superman with Kamandi.  After that, he offered assignments interfacing Superman with DC characters I either didn't like or had never read so I begged off further jobs. In hindsight, I wish I'd done a few more for him. He was much easier to work with than I'd expected.

As things turned out, he unintentionally double-crossed me a little. Irv Novick drew the Superman-Blackhawk script right away but Julie didn't schedule its publication in DC Comics Presents for eight or nine months, putting everything else he had in the works, including the Kamandi story, ahead of it. By the time it came out, sales on Blackhawk had slipped another notch and one other thing had happened that I'll tell you about in the next and final part. If crossing over with The Man of Steel had any sales impact on Blackhawk, it was way too little/way too late.

Click here to, at long last, jump to the final chapter.

It's hard today to think about much beyond those poor folks in Florida, which is being battered and/or submerged by Hurricane Ian. It's going to be sunny and 90° in Southern California today and I really hope I don't hear anyone complaining about the weather. Since this blog can do nothing to help Tampa and the surrounding communities — except suggest donations to Operation USA — we shall try to be a place to get your mind off that. But don't pretend it isn't happening.

If you're interested in attending Comic-Con International in San Diego next July (the 20th through the 23rd to be exact), keep an eye on their website and pages like this one. They're making some changes in the procedure via which folks can obtain badges and it certainly won't hurt for you to understand the process and to keep aware of key dates.

Because I get this question a few times a week in e-mail: I have absolutely no plans to attend any conventions anywhere the rest of this year, nor does my partner Sergio Aragonés. The Pandemic has instilled in me a great love of not being far away from home for very long. I expect that attitude to fade but it'll take time. Also, the invites I've received lately from conventions all expect me to go to a lot of trouble and expense to get there…and then they'll give me a table where I'll sell so much merchandise and so many autographs that it'll be well worth my investment. Trouble is: I don't sell merchandise or charge for autographs and the current business model for convention appearances presumes I do. Which is fine, especially when I don't want to travel. The next con at which Sergio and/or I may appear might be WonderCon Anaheim, next March 24-26.

The next part of the Blackhawk and me series — probably the next-to-last installment in that series — will be posted here later today. Hope you like it. I honestly didn't expect it to run half this long.

In 1965, the Quaker Oats Company introduced two sugary cereals — Quisp and Quake — with a series of animated commercials produced by Jay Ward's studio. Bill Scott. who was more or less the creative head of the operation, wrote, produced and did voices in most of them. I do not recall tasting either product but I sure liked the commercials, which were produced with the same comic sensibilities that Ward's crew had brought to Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle and not nearly enough others.

The commercials also employed the main stock company voice actors from the Ward cartoons. Paul Frees was the announcer. William Conrad, who usually was the announcer, was the voice of Quake. Daws Butler was the voice of Quisp. Scott did many voices and if there was a female in the commercial, it was June Foray. Even back then, I was impressed that they spent the money to have five actors in a one-minute cartoon. Frees, Butler and Scott could each easily have done all the male roles by themselves.

Neither cereal was that huge a success. In 1969, the Quake character was redesigned, slimmed-down and given an Australian accent. Three years later, the commercials asked kids to vote which one they liked better and Quisp trounced Quake. Quake cereal was discontinued…or rather, replaced by Quake's Orange Quangaroos which featured a kangaroo character on its boxes. It barely lasted four years before disappearing from shelves.

Quisp was on most shelves until 1979 or thereabouts. Since then, Quaker brings it back every now and then for a while and it's available online from the factory. If you're dying for a box, you can order it here.

Here are six of the commercials…

There's plenty of disturbing news around, much of it weather-related…so I get angrier than I might otherwise at the pain that's man-made, like Ron DeSantis's stunt shipping immigrants to Martha's Vineyard. It was born of the same infuriating mindset one sees in some of the comment threads on news stories about how those people were treated. DeSantis and those commentators don't seem to think those people were people, just props.

Here's an account that purports to be from one of those who were tricked into going to Massachusetts with the expectation of jobs, salaries and a place to stay. It's ugly to think that the stunt DeSantis masterminded (or at least endorsed) would get someone votes in today's America. I'd like to think this is still the country that embraces what The Statue of Liberty stands for.

• And it's also turning into a very good week to not be Roger Stone…proving that you should never trust a guy who has Richard Nixon's face tattooed on his back.

Everyone seems to have something to say about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his "stunt" (that's what it was) of moving Texas immigrants to Massachusetts. The wisest thing I've heard was said by Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg…

I usually agree with everything my pal Paul Harris writes but I'm not sure if I agree or not with this article of his. It's about how Apple has a not-yet-released movie starring Will Smith and if and when (it's probably a when) they're going to release it. I don't think it's a question of how long Smith should be "canceled" because of that Oscar slap. It might be a question — which no one can answer for sure until they do release it — of how much Smith has lowered himself in some eyes and how much his box office power has been diminished.

We have no proof that it's been diminished at all. And if/when it is released, its box office returns may not be an indicator of that.

Maybe I'm atypical of moviegoers — I know I don't see as many as some people — but I never had the slightest desire to see a Will Smith movie. I think he's a terrific actor and I thought King Richard was a great movie and he was great in it. But I wanted to see the movie, not Will Smith. There are certain movie stars who define the kind of movie they're usually in. That happens less and less these days. It's been a long time since Clint Eastwood made the kind of movies that caused people to say "Let's go see the new Clint Eastwood movie" because his name meant an action film with lots of shooting and brutality. "Let's go see the new Steve Martin film" once denoted a certain kind of comedy.

Whether people will go to see the next Will Smith movie will depend on a couple of things but a big one is whether it's any good. Every big star makes some that don't attract an audience and if Emancipation (about which I have heard almost nothing except that Apple's afraid to release it) comes out and its box office disappoints, that might be because audiences are shunning the slapper…or it might for the same reason that no one went to see Moonfall. It wasn't because Halle Berry had slapped someone at the Oscars. It was because no one wanted to see that movie.

But it might just be because some people just have a more negative view of Mr. Smith than they used to. If Bill Cosby were to do a new tour with his comedy act, a lot of people might boycott him on principle but a lot might just say, "I don't think I can laugh at that man anymore." Which is everyone's right. I think less of Will Smith as a human being because of his actions but I'm not sure that would stop me from seeing a movie he was in which I heard was real good. I wouldn't go to see it because he was in it and I wouldn't not go to see it because he was in it. I'm sure I've enjoyed a lot of movies whose casts included people who'd done things I thought were awful. I even liked the Naked Gun movies O.J. was in.

I guess I agree with Paul because I think Apple should just release the film and be done with it. I just don't think, not that Paul seems to, that its ticket sales will be any kind of referendum on how America feels about an actor slapping another human being. Maybe it'll stand or fall on its own merits as a film.

I don't know who made this or who's in it. I only know this is the right time for it. "Shanan Tovah U'Metukah" means "Happy New Year!" (Thank you, Shelly Goldstein!)

• It looks like it's going to be a very good week to not be Alex Jones, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump or any of Trump's kids except maybe Tiffany.

Over two dozen readers of this site have sent me some version of this photo of a piece of candy corn (my least favorite thing to eat) decorated to resemble my least favorite former president. I am posting this here in the hope that doing so will stop people from sending this image to me.

Before you read this, you'll want to have read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9. Whew!

Alex Toth was one of the ten-or-so best artists ever in comics.  He may even have been in the Top Five. But he was a difficult man to work with, which is why he never worked for one editor or one employer for very long. It was that way with his career in comic books and also in his more-lucrative career in TV animation. Three times during my own, briefer period of working for Hanna-Barbera, I walked down to Alex's office to see if he wanted to go to lunch and I found out he'd quit.

When he was at his best, no one was better…and even at his worst, he was better than a lot of folks at their best. But, well…

As I mentioned eight hundred chapters ago here, Alex was in genuine awe of the work Dan Spiegle was doing on Blackhawk. Alex did not like most of what was then being done in American comic books and would go on long tirades about terrible artwork he saw on certain books, some of which looked jes' fine to me. But he sure liked Spiegle, a contemporary of his who worked in some of the same traditions. There was a period when both men were working on similar material for Dell Comics. Until experts straightened it out, the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide identified a number of Dell books drawn by Dan as by Alex and vice-versa.

After Wildey and Sekowsky began working on Detached Service Diary stories for Blackhawk, Alex told me he wanted to do one…but he had conditions. He wanted to pencil-only, which was okay, even though there was a good chance he'd hate whatever the inker did. I asked him to give me the names of a few inkers he liked and I'd try to get one of them but he said, "No, I want to see what someone new will do with my pencils. DC always gives my work to Frank Giacoia and I love Frank but I'm tired of him. You pick someone new you think will do a good job." He also wanted to do the story "Marvel Method."

Others will tell you there are two ways of writing a comic book. There are actually quite a few but some people in the field only know of "The Full Script Method" and "The Marvel Method." In "The Full Script Method," the writer composes a script that specifies the number of panels on each page, and what the artist is to draw in each of those panels.  Then the writer also writes out the captions, word balloons and sound effects. The artist then follows those instructions…not that he or she can't occasionally fiddle with this or that to make it better.

"The Marvel Method" is called "The Marvel Method" because, though it was employed here and there earlier, it was popularized when Stan Lee worked with guys like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko in the early sixties. It's usually described roughly as follows: "The writer writes out a plot outline and then the artist decides how to tell that story in panels, draws it out that way and then the writer composes the dialogue to fit the pictures." That's how a lot of writers who were not Stan Lee have since done it, and sometimes their written outlines are very detailed.

Stan's weren't, especially when working with Kirby or Ditko or any artist he thought was really good at plotting out a story. Often, he'd let them devise the entire plot and then, verbally or with notes, they'd explain the story to him and he'd write the copy. And when he did have input before drawing commenced, it would usually be in a story conference with the artist, the two of them exchanging ideas, and then the "outline" would often be verbal, not written.

There are pros and cons of both methods and of the others. I am of the opinion that the effectiveness of each has everything to do with the particular strengths of the writer and artist involved…and often with the nature of their relationship. I think a lot of poor stories have resulted from a tag-team employing the wrong method.

There are artists who do not do well working "Marvel Method" and any writer who's worked a lot that way can tell you painful tales of trying to dialogue pictures that simply weren't telling the story he or she wanted to tell. I have occasionally been placed in the position of having to write dialogue on pages that did not display any story I could fully comprehend but I didn't have the time and/or the power to have the pages redrawn. I was not Stan Lee, the editor-in-chief of the company, and not every penciler is Jack Kirby.

Actually, no one is Jack Kirby these days and some people who can draw very nice pictures don't have a great sense of plot or storytelling. And every so often, you encounter one who doesn't care. I once had to write the copy on pages drawn by an artist who admitted to me that all he cared about was the art looking cool so he could sell the original art for more money. If the story didn't make a lick of sense, readers would blame the credited writer, not him. (Don't try to figure out which story it was. I was happily not the credited writer on it. I was ghosting for a friend who couldn't figure any coherent narrative either but didn't have the power or time to demand redrawing.)

In these articles, you have seen me rave about the skills of the main Blackhawk artist, Dan Spiegle. He was amazing. But he did not do well working, as some writers and editors tried to force him into, "Marvel Method." Some of the best artists in comics were roughly analogous to Laurence Olivier. Lord Olivier was hailed as one of the greatest actors of his century but he had no gift for improvisation. He could brilliantly interpret any script he was given but he had to have it all written down for him.

I got the best out of Dan by giving him a complete, full, everything-spelled-out script with occasional rough sketches. I did not specify camera angles very much because he was better than me or anyone in his selection of them. But it was like they tell young film directors: There's such a thing as giving your actors too much direction and such a thing as giving them too little. A good director knows how much to give and it may not be the same amount with every actor.

Toth was on a kick to work "Marvel Method." A few years earlier, we'd done one successful (I thought) collaboration with him working off my full script. This time at his insistence, I gave him an outline and then I discussed the story with him. He assured me he liked the plot and then went off to draw it all out in pencil.  Soon after, he turned it in to me, saying he had a great time and was eager to do another.

Here's where it all went off the rails. When I sat down to go over it…well, it was the story I'd outlined and it was the story we'd discussed…but only sort of. There was, of course, nothing wrong with the drawing. Alex Toth simply did not do poor drawings. But it was what he'd drawn that gave me a problem. To tell a certain story, you need to convey certain information and he had just not conveyed certain story points in his staging, nor had he left me opportunities to insert them into the dialogue. To make what I hope will be my last movie analogy here, it was like he'd filmed my screenplay but he'd replaced certain key scenes with improvisations of his own.

I went painstakingly over the pages and made notes of panels I felt I needed Alex to revise. It wasn't much — way less than a half-hour of work for a guy as fast as he was — but I was somewhat scared to ask him. I'd heard him carry on about idiot editors and stupid producers who demanded what he thought were inane changes. But what had to be done had to be done. I drove to Hanna-Barbera, all the time mentally rehearsing the calm, respectful way I could explain to Alex why he had to redraw what I needed him to redraw.

When I got there, his office was empty and someone told me he'd just quit again.  I'd missed it by minutes.

I decided that on my way home from H-B, I'd stop at Alex's house and make my little speech. But before I left to do that, Don Jurwich came into my office. Don was the current producer of Super-Friends, a series Alex had largely designed and for which he still did a fair amount of artwork — model sheets and storyboards. He asked if I was available to write an episode of the show and before I could even answer, he told me what had happened with Alex.

Alex had been drawing storyboards for the series. Storyboards, in case you've never seen them, are like comic books with the dialogue under the panel instead of in word balloons. They're a visualization of the material and every artist who thereafter works on that episode is following the staging and camera angles indicated by the storyboard artist. Alex was a very, very good storyboard artist.

But in this case, he'd also taken it upon himself to play story editor. He found major faults with the script and in boarding it, he'd rewritten a few large chunks of the story including the dialogue that went with those chunks. Let us call that "Script A." He handed in that storyboard for Script A and before he went over the board, Don gave Alex the next episode, which we shall call "Script B."

Alex read it over, thought B was worse than A, and sent it back to Don with the following note…

In the meantime, Don had examined the board for Script A. Thirty minutes or so before I found Alex's office empty, Don was in it telling Alex that he'd have to redo most of the storyboard for Script A. The network had approved it as written and much Hanna-Barbera money had been spent to have the show's large voice cast come in and record all the lines, including the ones Alex had then changed. Everything had to be put back the way it was…

…and it was, though not by Alex. He'd started yelling at Don and Don had started yelling back…and I later heard the story from Alex and his account matched exactly, differing only in recollections of which of the two men had hurled which profanities and threats of physical violence at each other.

As Don told me his version, I suddenly decided this might not be a great day to go to Alex's home and ask him to redraw pages on that Blackhawk story.

If I'd had a week or two to let him cool down, I might have but I didn't. I had an inker waiting and before it went to him, I had to get it lettered. I'd promised Alex someone who wasn't Frank Giacoia and hadn't inked his work before. There were plenty of good people in that category and one of them was Steve Leialoha. Steve was (and remains) a superb artist and as such is always in-demand. But when I called him in San Francisco and offered him the chance to work with Alex Toth, he couldn't say no. He told me, "I have a little window of opportunity open." If I could get him the pages by a certain date, he would be thrilled to ink them.

So I went home and did the best job I could at writing captions and balloons that would make the story make sense. I just read it again for the first time in many years and I did a worse job than I remembered…and I remembered doing a pretty poor job. I also — with a chutzpah I couldn't summon up today if my life depended on it — did a little repenciling of a few things. No one has ever noticed but I, an artist about a thousandth as skilled as Alex Toth, changed a few things Alex drew.

I would not do that today. I did a lot of things back then I would not do today, along with some I couldn't do if I wanted to.

I sent the pages and my script off to DC Comics in New York with a note to have them lettered and sent to Steve Leialoha and I gave them his address. An assistant back there had them lettered and then gave them to Frank Giacoia to ink.

No one told me this. I found out on the day before Steve's "window of opportunity" opened and he phoned to ask me when he'd be getting the Toth pages to ink. I called New York and found out that Frank had already done that. When I asked the assistant there why Frank and not Steve, I was told, "Frank came by and he really needed work. That was the only thing we had around to give him." Ernie Colón was still the editor of Blackhawk then and he'd okayed it even though he'd also okayed sending the job to Steve Leialoha. Steve, thankfully, forgave us both.

I don't think I ever made those mistakes again, at least not all on one story. I also never wrote an episode of Super-Friends. The regular writer had a contract to write them all and that was fine with me. I'm not so sure I could have lived up to Alex's recommendation in that drawing so even later when that writer didn't have all the episodes locked up, I declined other offers to write for the show.

And perhaps because of that, I managed to stay friends with Alex after that Blackhawk story, though I don't think we ever mentioned it. Maybe that's another reason we stayed friends. My visits with him increased for a time after his wonderful wife Guyla died in 1985 and he went through periods of wanting to be alone, alternating with periods of very much wanting not to be alone. But the more we talked, the more we had arguments — often about politics — and I increasingly felt a friendship-ending one was coming.

Also, Alex had enablers for his darker hermitic periods — fans who did his shopping so he didn't have to actually leave his house. I was thinking that those of us doing him favors like that were not doing him any favors, and that those who were telling him over and over what a friggin' genius he was were making it harder and harder for him to just sit down and draw a comic book. I finally decided to end our conversations and my visits before things turned ugly.

Some time after Alex passed in 2006, Howard Chaykin wrote in an article, "I am and have been for many years an avid admirer of the work of Alex Toth. I knew him — not all that well, but well enough to realize at a certain point that avoiding contact with Alex Toth was a positive and healthy lifestyle choice." I knew Alex for a longer time than Howard did and it took me longer to arrive at the same conclusion. But I think I also had some better times with Alex. The non-complaining Alex could be as fine a human being as he was an artist.

In 2015 as the first step in fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming Robotman, I had my right knee replaced. During the operation, I somehow picked up an infection and they had to go back in and change out the metal gizmo they'd put in there. This was about as much fun as you'd imagine.  And then after I was discharged from a rehab center, a male nurse came to my home every day for two weeks to give me a shot of some antibiotic I couldn't pronounce. Naturally, he noticed all the comic books on the shelves and on the walls and everywhere.

He said to me, "I had a patient ten or fifteen years ago who had comic books all over his home. I think he wrote or drew them or something. But he was the angriest man I ever met in my life. Every time I was there, he was yelling and cursing about something."

I then asked this male nurse, "Uh-huh. And how long did you treat Alex Toth?"

He laughed, amazed that I'd guessed correctly. Then I told him, "That man just might have been the most talented human being you will ever meet. Or at least inject."

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