"Louie" wrote to ask…

I have a million questions but here is one that has vexed me since I began my fascination with our shared love as a four year old in 1976 falling in hopeless love with Wonder Woman:

Who designs logos and how? The artists or the letterers? What is the process like? Who decides it's time to change a logo? For example, I assume that in the early 70s, the Fantastic Four logo was changed twice in an attempt to reconfigure after Kirby and then Lee left. But even the minor changes always fascinated me…for instance when the F.F. logo dropped the shadows around the letters and the "the"…were these things decided by committee or on the fly? And back to the F.F., was the original logo modeled after the Twilight Zone lettering?

Some of my favorite covers involved making the logo part of the action…like that Neal Adams X-Men cover and the Batman-Blockbuster cover.

Anyway thank you sir for a fascinating blog all these years.

Generally speaking, the editor is the person with the final say on things like logos. They can be designed by anyone involved in the work, though until fairly recently, most companies had one person who did most of the work on most of the logos. In the fifties and sixties, for example, most of the logos on Harvey Comics were the handiwork of a man named Otto Pirkola and most of the ones on A.C.G. comics were by Edmond Hamilton. Those two gents did art production work for their respective companies.

In the fifties and sixties (and even before), most of the logos on DC Comics were the handiwork of a master designer named Ira Schnapp. He did not have final say. He consulted with editors and the guys in DC's Production Department surely had something to say about most of 'em. A lot of Marvel logos of the sixties were designed by Production Manager Sol Brodsky working in tandem with letterer Artie Simek under the final supervision of Stan Lee.

Brodsky and Simek did the original Fantastic Four logo and, concurrently, the logo on another Marvel book, Amazing Adult Fantasy. They had pretty much the same design…and yes, a logo on the TV series The Twilight Zone inspired the look. The stories in Amazing Adult Fantasy also represented an attempt to do something a bit like The Twilight Zone. Brodsky told me that was what Stan wanted.

To interrupt myself briefly: I should explain here a problem with discussing things like this: Titles do not always mean the same things at different companies or even at the same companies at different times. Someone with the title of "editor" might have total control over the creative content or not. That title might even be ceremonial.

In 1970 when I first met Stan Lee, almost the first thing he said to me (and my partner then, Steve Sherman) was that he was so busy, he didn't have time to read half the comics they were putting out. He was officially the editor but someone like Roy Thomas, for example, was really doing that job on some books. Carmine Infantino's title at DC changed several times but no matter what it was, from the moment he moved into management there until the moment he left the company, he had final authority over covers…and therefore, logos.

Infantino replaced Schnapp with (mainly) Gaspar Saladino who later wound up designing a lot of logos for Marvel also. A lot of professionals consider Saladino the all-time logomaster though I personally preferred Schnapp or Simek.

In any case: These days, a lot of different people design logos and some specialize. Sometimes, artists design logos for their books. Sometimes, editors do. Often, one person will more-or-less design a logo and then a professional letterer will execute the final version the way Brodsky worked with Simek. I designed and executed several of the logos on comics I worked on. It varies.

If you want to know more about logos — a lot more — the expert you seek is Todd Klein, who has designed a lot of the best logos on comics of the last few decades. More important for your purposes is that he has made an exhaustive study of logos of the past and you can access it over on this page. Matter of fact, you can learn just about everything there is to know about the lettering of comic books somewhere on Todd's site.

I have received more evidence and now it appears that the first year that the event we now know as Comic-Con International inhabited the new San Diego Convention Center — where it convenes to this day — was 1991. That's right: 1991. I'll say it once more, this time in boldface: 1991.

I have adjusted dates on this website accordingly. I believe this is the final word on the subject….but I've been wrong before.

No matter how many problems you have, you probably don't have as many as Alex Jones; not unless you're Donald Trump or Rudy Giuliani, at least. The Legal Eagle explains why Mr. Jones is in a mess from which he may never be able to extricate himself…

An awful lot of folks sent me messages telling me with great certainty when Comic-Con moved into its present location, the San Diego Convention Center. Unfortunately, a lot of these folks who were absolutely certain were certain about different years. Most insisted that I trust their memories but one, Gary Sassaman, sent actual proof. I knew someone would and I was pretty sure it would be Gary, who was at various times the guy in charge of programming and/or publications and/or the website for the con. He's retired now from all that but still aids the cause of Comic Book History with his website, Innocent Bystander, which I recommend to anyone who shares our interest in that subject.

Based on Gary's actual proof, I have revised my chronology of the events we now call Comic-Con International. The first year the con was in its present location was 1992 and I have also changed the name of its previous venue from "(Old) San Diego Convention Center" to "Convention and Performing Arts Center," which is probably a more accurate — and certainly less confusing — name for that hallowed hall. I corrected a few other minor things while I was at it.

Also as you may have noted, I have changed the heading on this website. For a few months now, it's been a Sergio drawing of me with my injured ankle elevated as beautiful nurses attended to my every need. I've decided I've healed enough to stop displaying that header. I hope I will never have need of it again. And to be honest, I never had nurses like those.

UPDATE THE NEXT MORNING: Nope. It was 1991.

Sorry to hear that the Henson Lot in Hollywood (aka The Chaplin Lot, The Red Skelton Lot, The CBS Lot, The A&M Records Lot and a few other names) is for sale. And I'll be even sorrier if the purchaser rips the whole thing down and puts a shopping mall in its place, which sadly may make the most financial sense.

This article will give you a good overview of the history of the facility which was, as you'll see, built in 1919 to serve the needs of Mr. Charles Chaplin. Located on La Brea Boulevard near Sunset, it's in a spot where you wouldn't expect a studio with all that history to be…and there's a lot more of that history than is commonly known. For instance…

When Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera left MGM and set up their own studio to make cartoons, that's where they first rented offices. They later housed artists in buildings across the street and produced their first TV shows from both locations before building their big building up on Cahuenga Boulevard.

I've visited that lot many times — sometimes for business-type meetings because a number of producers rent space there, sometimes because that's where they do Puppet Up! That is, of course, the adult/improvised puppet show that The Henson Company puts on now and then in the big studio there. Tickets are now on sale for performances in late July and early August and I'm curious how and when a sale of the studio will affect Puppet Up! That of course may depend on whether there ends up being a Target store, an Olive Garden and a Sephora on that hunk of real estate.

There are just so many great stories about that lot. For instance, the linked article says that "Red Skelton bought the studio in 1960 and dubbed it Skelton Studios…Skelton sold the studio in 1962 to CBS, which shot Perry Mason there from 1962 to 1966."

That's true but there's more to the story. Skelton reportedly bought the place over the warnings of his financial advisers because he just couldn't resist owning — and putting his name on — the place where Chaplin made Modern Times and other classics. Obsessed with the idea that the future of television was in color, he also purchased three rental remote vans which had full color videotape capability.

It was only after they were delivered that a problem turned up: Because they were so long, there was no place to park them on the studio lot. They had to be parked on La Brea Boulevard, each occupying two or three parking spaces, and during the hours that the parking meters were in operation, someone at the studio — it was occasionally Red himself — had to go out and put coins in those meters every two hours.

Mr. Skelton was losing a fortune on the place and facing the very-real possibility of being the only person starring in a popular weekly television series to go broke. He was also fighting with CBS.

They wanted him to do his weekly half-hour show from Television City at Beverly and Fairfax for better production values. He wanted to do it from his studio because…well, because it was his studio and that saved him money. Finally, they solved the problem thusly: To keep him on the air, CBS bought the studio from him and to justify and recoup the expense, his show went from a half-hour to an hour. He thereafter did it from Television City and they put Perry Mason (and other shows) into what had been the Chaplin/Skelton lot.

There are a lot of stories like that and I suppose they'll survive even if the studio doesn't. But it would be nice if the studio did.

The theater at Malibu High School is now named the Arlene and Dick Van Dyke Theater in honor of You-Know-Who and his wife. Last weekend in said theater, there was a show to make the renaming official and to raise bucks for the Van Dyke Endowment for the Arts, which aims to fund arts education in Malibu public schools. Jason Alexander was the emcee of the show and at the end, he led all the participants in a rousing rendition of "Let's Go Fly a Kite."

I wasn't there but I have been to several events where Dick performed and that's usually the closing — everyone on their feet singing that song. There's something very magical and warming about singing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" with Dick Van Dyke.

Arlene is the lady in the long dress to the left of Dick. Most of the guys behind him are members of The Vantastix, which is Dick's singing group. And the fellow in the checked coat holding a derby is my buddy Charlie Frye, whose magic and juggling videos I've often featured on this blog. He and his wonderful wife Sherry, who you can barely make out near him, were among the performers for the event and you may be able to recognize other folks…

I've received a number of e-mails disagreeing with me on the year that the San Diego Comic Con moved from the old San Diego Convention Center to the new San Diego Convention Center. And it sure would be a lot easier if all these correspondents agreed with each other but they don't.

So I may have the year wrong, in which case I will make the correction. But it'll be a little while before I have time to do the digging necessary to arrive at an unquestionable answer. If any of you have solid proof and could send it my way, you could save me a lot of time.

The other day in this post, I said that this year's Comic-Con International would be the 56th one and therefore my 56th one. It no longer says that in that post because I received a flurry of e-mails from folks who said my count was off.

This prompted me to try to recall how I'd arrived at the number I cited and I realized how: Someone — an acquaintance of mine — told me that number and I just assumed it was correct.  I forgot that I have acquaintances who don't know what the hell they're talking about.

I decided to do some research and my own math and in so doing, I realized why there's a confusion.  Here is my list…

1. 1970 – Golden State Comic Con – U.S. Grant Hotel
2. 1971 – Golden State Comic Con – Muir College, U.C.S.D. Campus
3. 1972 – San Diego's West Coast Comic Convention – El Cortez Hotel
4. 1973 – San Diego Comic-Con – Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina
5. 1974 – San Diego Comic-Con – El Cortez Hotel
6. 1975 – San Diego Comic-Con – El Cortez Hotel
7. 1976 – San Diego Comic-Con – El Cortez Hotel
8. 1977 – San Diego Comic-Con – El Cortez Hotel
9. 1978 – San Diego Comic-Con – El Cortez Hotel
10. 1979 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
11. 1980 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
12. 1981 – San Diego Comic-Con – El Cortez Hotel
13. 1982 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
14. 1983 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
15. 1984 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
16. 1985 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
17. 1986 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
18. 1987 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
19. 1988 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
20. 1989 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
21. 1990 – San Diego Comic-Con – Convention and Performing Arts Center
22. 1991 – San Diego Comic-Con – San Diego Convention Center
23. 1992 – San Diego Comic-Con – San Diego Convention Center
24. 1993 – San Diego Comic-Con – San Diego Convention Center
25. 1994 – San Diego Comic-Con – San Diego Convention Center
26. 1995 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
27. 1996 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
28. 1997 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
29. 1998 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
30. 1999 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
31. 2000 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
32. 2001 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
33. 2002 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
34. 2003 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
35. 2004 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
36. 2005 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
37. 2006 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
38. 2007 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
39. 2008 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
40. 2009 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
41. 2010 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
42. 2011 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
43. 2012 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
44. 2013 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
45. 2014 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
46. 2015 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
47. 2016 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
48. 2017 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
49. 2018 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
50. 2019 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
51. 2022 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center
52. 2023 – Comic-Con International – San Diego Convention Center

So what's the confusion?  I can explain.  My list does not include the one-day "test" con they held in 1970 before the first "real," multi-day convention, the three-day bonus con they held in November of 1975, the two "at home" cons in 2020 and 2021 or the "back from COVID" event they held in November of 2021. If you want to count any or all of them, you can say there have been 52, 53, 54, 55, 56 or 57 of these gatherings.

Take your pick.  The convention operators ignored the test con and the bonus con when they celebrated the 2019 event as Comic-Con #50 so I didn't count the test con or the bonus con either.  I didn't count the two "at home" ones because we were all "at home" and I didn't count the November 2021 one because it was labeled as a Special Edition.  Unless someone finds fault with the above list, I'm sticking with this year's being #53.

One of the routines that took Bob Newhart to stardom…

Jonathan Chait explains why Donald Trump's latest economic proposals are just another part of the G.O.P. crusade to make sure that the richest people pay less tax and the poor and middle class pay more. 'Twas ever thus.

Steve Benen says that Trump wants business leaders who fail to support him to be fired. How does Benen know this? Because Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Business Executives and Shareholder Representatives should be 100% behind Donald Trump! Anybody that's not should be FIRED for incompetence!"

And Eileen Sullivan brings us the latest on Rudy Giuliani's crusade to see how much legal and financial trouble a man can be in at one time. Go, Rudy!

Comic-Con International has announced me as a Special Guest for this year's event which convenes in a little over a month. I'm not sure what's so special about me being a guest there because it's, like, the fiftieth time.

Actually, if you're interested in the stats, this will be the 54th of these conventions. That's not counting the one-day "test" con they held in 1970 before the first "real," multi-day convention. It's also not counting the three-day bonus con they held in November of 1975 and the "back from COVID" event they held in November of 2021.

It will be my 54th convention and I will be hosting fourteen panels over the four days. Before someone asks: My record was hosting sixteen and appearing on one other at the 2008 Comic-Con. As you can see, I've cut back in my old age.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is making the rounds promoting his autobiography which I intend to read. I think the man is a genuine hero who has been accused and attacked by politicians who "are angry at him for being a doctor instead of a politician." What I just surrounded with quote marks is not my phrase. It's what one of my doctors said to me when this country was in the depths of the novel coronavirus. He likened the situation to when patients get mad at him for telling them what the test results say as opposed to what those patients want to hear.

He went on: "Politicians are like spoiled children when someone outranks them on something. Well, doctors usually outrank non-doctors when it comes to matters about medicine." I was reminded of that when I read this piece about Dr. Fauci's recent interview with MSNBC host Ari Melber…

According to Fauci, Trump got the idea that COVID could be treated with hydroxychloroquine — an off-patent antimalarial used for autoimmune diseases — from Fox News' Laura Ingraham. This was despite warnings to the contrary from global health officials; eventually, according to Mediaite, the drug was linked to nearly 17,000 deaths across six countries during the pandemic.

"But I had to continue to tell the truth," Fauci told Melbar. "And he said, 'Why do you keep doing this to me?' Because it's the truth. I'm telling the American public the facts. Hydroxychloroquine doesn't work."

I have doctors I trust and I don't mean that they're infallible. They're just right way more often than, say, a layperson no matter how many online articles he or she has read. And they're right way more often than Laura Ingraham or Donald Trump. If you'd like to join me in Dr. Fauci's memoirs, here's an Amazon link.

The new all-cartoons/all-the-time channel MeTV Toons launches next Tuesday with what is truly an all-star lineup. If they were programming for me, I'd hope to see fewer cartoons I own on DVD, fewer recent ones and some more obscure programs. But (wisely) they aren't programming for me and I expect to see some of the less-seen, non-superstar cartoons hidden on shows on their schedule like Cartoon All-Stars.

And you also have shows like Popeye and Pals that, along with the spinach-devouring sailor, will be showing non-Popeye Max Fleischer cartoons. Or The Woody Woodpecker Show running non-Woody Walter Lantz cartoons or Casper and Company running vintage Paramount cartoons with or without that friendliest of ghosts. Also, check the schedule for Totally Tuned In, which has cartoons from the Columbia studio like Mister Magoo and The Fox and the Crow. You haven't seen those often, have you?

That oughta please everyone…well, everyone who can get the channel, that is. Here's a place to search and see where it might be available in your market and if that fails you, try this list. If no local station carries it, it's on at least two streaming networks — Frndly TV and Philo — and I'll be watching it on Frndly. Oughta be a treat.

I have, you may be surprised to learn, a Willie Mays story. It's one of the many, many things in my life I owe to a wonderful man I worked for named Lee Mendelson. You can read all about Lee here but if you don't have time to click, just know that for many, many years, he was the producer of the Peanuts and Garfield cartoons.

Years ago when I was still working for him, Lee's production company hit some nice, round number anniversary and Lee decided to have a big celebration. He made up a list of people who had contributed to its success and he flew us all to Sebastopol, California for a big party and paid for everything. I mean, he paid our meals, our airfare, our transportation from the airport to a hotel, suites at that hotel, everything. Saturday night, there were buses to take us from the hotel to a local country club for the party itself.

Mike Peters, who draws the comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm, and I rode the bus together to the club. When we walked in, we saw two men standing at a bar talking: Charles Schulz and Jim Davis. Mike said, "Wow! The two richest cartoonists in history!" I think Lee had even paid their ways there…although Schulz probably just drove or took a taxi over from his ice rink.

The party was filled with people you never heard of and I'd never heard of. At one point, Lee took me around and introduced me to some of them. I only remember the name of one of those people so I'm going to make up names for the others. You'll recognize the one real name in what follows.

Lee said, "Mark, this is Harvey Fenstermacher. Harvey was the cameraman on the first documentary I made in 1962…"

I said, "Nice to meet you, Harvey."

Lee said, "And Mark, this is Sam Shlabotnik. Sam was the lawyer who helped me arrange financing to open my first office…"

I said, "A pleasure to meet you, Sam."

Lee said, "And Mark, this is Murray Whatshisname. Murray was the liaison to Coca-Cola when I sold A Charlie Brown Christmas to CBS…"

I said, "The pleasure is all mine, Murray."

Lee said, "And Mark, this is Willie Mays."

I said, "Homina-homina-homina…"

It was Willie Mays. Willie Freakin' Mays — and Lee introduced him to me in the same matter-of-fact tone as he'd introduced his cameraman, his lawyer, his liaison to Coca-Cola. Okay but this was Willie Mays. I am not an expert in any sense about baseball. The last time I really followed it was when I collected the trading card that illustrates this post. But even I know that if you were in a room full of baseball history obsessives and you said Willie Mays was the greatest player of all time, no one would give you much of an argument.

And there he was in person, tolerating me shaking his hand for an abnormal length of time while I tried to think of something coherent to say to him. I gathered he was used to reactions like mine.

Lee went on to introduce me to his barber and his insurance man and his dentist and to Tommy Smothers and a few more folks who'd been important to him in his life but I made a point of later getting back to Willie Mays. I apologized for my stammering reaction and he couldn't have been nicer. I told him that when my father once took me to a Dodgers-Giants game at Dodger Stadium when I was ten, we and everyone in our section of the bleachers was, of course, hating on the Giants…

…but we couldn't hate on him. I think I said, "…though we were all disappointed that you caught every one of those long flies to center without slamming into any walls."

He chuckled politely and said, "Well, I had my off days…"

And that was about all he said. Mr. Mays was not a great conversationalist. I guess when you're the greatest baseball player of all time, you don't have to be.

The Arby's up on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood has closed or is about to close. I was never wild about their food there but for about two years, I was often on the KTLA lot a block away, writing (mostly) variety shows for Sid and Marty Krofft. When in need of a fast lunch, that Arby's was the best option. The other eateries within walking distance of the lot either did not meet my food-allergy-driven needs or were not the kind of places one could dash in and dash out quickly with something edible.

So I went to that Arby's often — once with two of the Bay City Rollers. Thus, I had the full experience of hanging out with two rock stars, the Rollers being rock stars in the same sense that what Arby's sold us were roast beef sandwiches.

Arby's has a scant presence in Southern California. I've been in other cities where they seem to exist at every freeway off-ramp. Near me, not so much. With the Hollywood one shuttering, the nearest Arby's to me is eight miles off — not far from LAX. I've driven-thru a few times in the past few years and I dunno if the chain has improved its chow or the one in Hollywood was just not one of the best ones but I liked what I got at the eight-miles-away one a lot more.

I also developed a fondness for the company because of the way they handled the Jon Stewart matter. During his first hitch on The Daily Show, Mr. Stewart often made out like an Arby's was the worst-possible place one could get alleged food. Someone at Arby's corporate level was wise enough to go along with the joke. They sent free meals to the Daily Show office, named a sandwich in his honor and in 2015 when he stepped down from that program, went to the expense of making a special one-time commercial to air during his final broadcast…

How can you not feel at least a little friendly towards a company like that? They may not have the meats but they have a sense of humor.

I haven't had an Arby's sandwich in years. For some reason, none of the ones in L.A. have any sort of delivery option, not even via a third-party service like Doordash or Grubhub. Even while the Hollywood one was open, I could get delivery from McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Chick-Fil-A, Subway, Five Guys, Ono Hawaiian and hundreds of other restaurants — some a lot farther away than that Arby's on Sunset — but not Arby's. Jon Stewart, telling all of America their food might make you ill, got free delivery but I can't even pay for it. It's just not right.