In 1969, a Los Angeles-based mail order firm called Marvelmania International issued a line of merchandise based on Marvel Comics properties. Marvelmania was not a division of Marvel. It was an outside company that had acquired the rights to do what they did and they did not do it well or honestly. The gent who owned it had a tendency to not send customers the items they ordered, not send Marvel the royalty payments they owed and not pay the folks who worked for them for the work they did for them. I was briefly one of those people and so was Jack Kirby.

They hired Jack to draw all sorts of material for them and he was paid…well, I would guess about 5% of the money they owed him. And if that estimate is wrong, it's because it's too high. I fared a little better because I worked in the office and it was a little harder to not pay me — though God knows, they found ways. I quit a few months before the whole operation collapsed in a flurry of legal actions but while I was there, some interesting items were produced.

One was a line of posters, four of which were drawn by Jack. He actually drew eight for the line but they only printed four of them and one was a great image of the Fantastic Four. You can see it if you click here.

I get a lot of questions about these posters so here are some of the answers. The poster was designed, penciled and inked by Jack. The poster line was colored by Marvel colorists in New York and we were told that Marie Severin had worked on them. It's probable but not definite that she colored this one. The guy I replaced at Marvelmania did the paste-up, placing the Fantastic Four logo on the drawing and also affixing a little photostat of Jack's signature which went on all the posters he drew for them. I was assigned to get the piece ready for the printer.

At the time, I was seventeen years old and still learning about production and printing. It was because of this poster that I learned a valuable lesson — one I'm not sure is still true in the age of computers but it was sure true in the seventies. It was that no matter how you notated changes or wrote out detailed instructions or told the printer in clearly-enunciated language of his native tongue what to do, there was only about a 50% chance they would actually be done. (That estimate also may be high.)

The fellow who had pasted the Fantastic Four logo onto Jack's artwork had taken a stat of that logo as it appeared on a cover, had it photostatted to the proper dimensions and had carefully cut out each letter individually so he could overlap them on the art. But he made a mistake and pasted the "S" in "Fantastic" upside-down. Also, the logo he used was from a cover so it had the Comics Code symbol overlapping the top of the final "C" in that word. If you look, you can see the the perforation pattern of the Comics Code "stamp" as part of the "C."

I painstakingly retouched another stat of the "C" to fix it and told the engraver to (a) strip it in so the "C" would be complete, (b) invert the inverted "S" and (c) reverse the black line on Jack's signature to white lettering so it would be more legible against the dark green background the colorist had selected. That colorist — who was probably but not definitely Marie — had affixed a note to ask for that. I made that note larger and pasted notes on all the changes into the margins of the art and I verbally told the engraver to make those changes before printing and he swore he would and, of course, didn't.

Being new to this kind of thing, I was surprised. After a few years of dealing with printers and engravers of all kinds, I came to almost expect it. I hope it's not as common now.

When the printer proofs arrived at Marvelmania, I was annoyed and there was brief talk of demanding the plates be remade at the engraver's expense and corrected. Since however the owner of Marvelmania was way behind paying the engraver for work done, that didn't happen and the errors remained. Later on, that engraver was one of the main creditors whose lawyers closed down Marvelmania…which was probably a case of throwing good money after bad since those creditors never collected a dime of either kind of money.

So that's that story. I'm working this weekend on my big, huge, long-awaited biography of Jack Kirby and I have loads of Marvelmania stories in there, many of which you won't believe. No, I can't tell you when this book will be out but I've been working a lot on it whenever I can get my mind off that person we're not mentioning on this blog this weekend.

I watched The Art of Love on my newly-repaired DVD player last night. I liked it but nowhere near as much as I did when I saw it in a theater in 1965. The story is a little too contrived and the romantic twists of which characters fall in love with each other felt very "written" to me and unnatural. Dick Van Dyke and James Garner play two "friends" and I put that word in quotes because they don't treat each other very well in this film.

Also, it was a bit of stretch to cast Elke Sommer — who in '65 was 25 years old and one of the most beautiful women on the screen — as a young lady who was despondent because she couldn't find a man to love her. If I was a young woman back then watching this, I would have said to myself, "Wow! If no man wants her, what hope is there for the rest of us?"

But there are some very funny scenes and it's always a joy to watch Mr. Van Dyke move and stumble and trip and just act with his whole rubbery body. So I really can't dislike it but 68-year-old me didn't enjoy it as much as 13-year-old me did.

A few weeks ago, I re-watched The Thrill of it All, which was made two years earlier at the same studio (Universal) with the same director (Norman Jewison) and another script by Carl Reiner, and again with James Garner, in this case with Doris Day. It was a better entry in the lightweight screwball comedy category, meaning that the story was totally illogical and silly but it somehow didn't matter. You can order The Art of Love if you like but if you're in the mood for James Garner in that kind of thing, buy The Thrill of it All.

The odd thing is that while they're both written by Carl Reiner and he's in them both, The Thrill of it All feels more like an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show than The Art of Love even though The Art of Love actually has Dick Van Dyke in it. Go figure.

Old Business: Yes, my Amazon order arrived today at the proper address. I know you were all so concerned.

And back in this message, I asked for help with my Sony DVP-CX995V DVD Carousel Player — an antique model that holds and plays 400 DVDs. Mine had stopped working and they don't make them or anything like them these days. Many of you sent in suggestions for which I thank you…and I especially thank Mike Frank, who referred me to a local video repair company — George Meyer AV — who got it up and running perfectly again.

Over the weekend, I intend to use it to watch The Art of Love, a just-released DVD that I mentioned in this 2014 post and in this one from earlier this year. It's a 1965 comedy starring Dick Van Dyke and James Garner that I recall enjoying a lot in 1965 and I haven't seen it since.

Let's see if I like it in 2020. If you want to take the gamble that you will, it's now out on DVD (order here) or you can wait 'til I review it here in the next few days.

Okay…before I move on, is there any more Old Business? No? Well, then let's turn to…

New Business: So there are a lot of questions buzzing around. The Trump folks are refusing to be specific about how often he was tested, when his last negative test was and exactly when he first tested positive for that disease he said affects almost no one. Is there any other explanation for that secrecy other than that it would make him look terrible if we saw how many people — including maybe Joe Biden — he risked infecting after he knew?

And is there any other explanation for Lindsey Graham refusing to be tested other than the fact that if he was known to have tested positive, it might screw up the Supreme Court nomination?

I continue to track the polls by consulting The Economist, where they just downgraded Trump from having a 9% chance of winning the electoral college to 8% and his chance of winning the popular vote from 2% to 1%. If the polling has even a 1% margin of error, that means all of us are more or less tied with him on the popular vote thing. If you want to read how bad things have been lately for Trump polling-wise, read Charlie Cook.

I'm going to try for one of those Trump-free weekends I used to do here. I know I won't succeed but I'm curious as to what will force him back into the active portion of my consciousness. Let's see how long I can hold out.

This is for the 3,208 of us on this planet who have never seen the musical of The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and friends. We probably should. It has already achieved the mantle of Longest-Running Musical Ever on Broadway and shows no signs of closing. At the time all shows in Manhattan shut down in March, it had logged 13,370 performances. When Broadway reopens — which now will not be before May 30 of next year — it will reopen and this show may run another 13,370 performances.

The current runner-up is the revival of Chicago, which ran 9,692 performances before the lockdown. Here's a stunning thought: If Phantom did not reopen and Chicago did — which is extremely unlikely — Chicago would have to run for around another nine years just to get the tying run on base. The Lion King is not far behind…and has about the same chance of besting Phantom.

So there aren't many of us around the world who haven't seen this show somewhere. This weekend, you have a chance to see it for free in your own private Fortress of Solitude. Sir Andrew and his company have put a fine (I'm told) video of the show online for 48 hours, three of which are already up as I post this.

This is a British staging from 2011 at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the show and it features Ramin Karimloo, Sierra Boggess and Hadley Fraser. At the end, there's a curtain speech by Mr. Webber and some additional performances by folks who were in earlier productions, including the first. If you're never going to see the show in a theater, this might be the best you'll ever do — but hurry because it goes away soon…

The Mother Jones site has compiled this timeline of the spread of COVID-19. It's long but it's worth going through, day by day, watching an amazing array of statements by our leaders which with the little bit of hindsight we now have, look irredeemably wrong.

One might forgive a lot of the mistakes of a scientific nature. The virus was new and it was not possible to know for sure everything people demanded to know about it when they demanded to know about it. The cautious statements — the ones qualified with the caveat that more research was needed and that some counsel was tentative — look very wise now. So many which were presented with absolute certainty — apart from "wear a mask," "wash your hands" and "socially-distance" — were absolutely wrong.

This is not the time to get angry at or to try and shame the folks who thought the whole thing was a hoax and they certainly didn't need to wear one of those stupid masks. We need those people to back down from those positions and do what real experts have said since about the second week of this catastrophe. If they stubbornly insist to gather in unmasked groups and to scream at Costco greeters who won't let them in with nude faces, they could keep this thing going for a long time.

Jordan Klepper at a Trump rally. You can't write this stuff. Well, you could but nobody would believe there are people like this…

The return of Newman…

• There's a new Saturday Night Live this weekend. Wonder if Lorne Michaels has tried to get Joe Biden to come on and debate Alec Baldwin.

So I was expecting a delivery of three items from Amazon today and, sure enough, one of their drivers delivered 'em at 8:17 this morning and even took the above photo of them. The problem: That's not my house. I don't have hedges like that.

The address on the order was correct.  The guy (or maybe it was a gal) just left them on someone else's porch.  Meanwhile, a lady who works on the Amazon Customer Support Line (and who might have learned English as a fourth or fifth language) assures me replacements will be delivered tomorrow to where I actually live.  If that's your home in the above photo, I hope you enjoy your free gifts, especially the extra-long Lightning cables.

It's been so long since I've posted one of these that I probably need to explain. When I get real busy, I declare a Mushroom Soup Day on this blog. It basically means "Don't expect a lot of content here today." There may be some but — no offense — I'm putting one or more pressing deadlines ahead of entertaining you, dear readers. You might just have to find something else on the Internet to read. I've heard there are interesting things on other websites though, God knows, I haven't seen any.

In the meantime: I have marked my ballot and am deciding whether to mail it or drop it off somewhere. You'll never-in-a-skillion-years guess how I voted for President.

I recommend reading this article by Matt Yglesias. Basically, it says that Republicans have some pretty unpopular political goals and the reason they can have them and still win some elections is that people don't believe anyone could really have those goals. But they do.

Keith Olbermann, who has been doing naught but sports, dog adoptions and lifeless James Thurber readings for lo these many years, is getting back into the news/commentary biz with a series of daily webcasts. This is probably part of a plan to get some non-web job somewhere. Here's a link to the first one which I kinda liked but not enough to make it Today's Video Link. I find myself generally agreeing with what the man says but not with how he says it. I don't even like being bullied into believing what I already believe.

I have decided to stop writing negative reviews on websites that ask you to rate goods or services. Amazon routinely deletes all the ones I post, no matter how polite or reasonable they are. The other day, I wrote a Google one about Simply Stamps, an online company that makes rubber stamps. They made $73.90 of their self-inking variety for me and I ended up throwing them away. So I guess someone figured it was okay to discard the online review I wrote. I don't think this has ever not happened to me with an online negative review. Bye for now.

Fact-checking on the Pence-Harris rasslin' match: Politifact, The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post.

Has there ever been a presidential election that was moved by the running mates debating? The only moment from any of them that most people remember is Lloyd Bentsen telling Dan Quayle "You're no Jack Kennedy"…and the ticket Quayle was on won that election. The one I just watched won't set a new precedent.

Both candidates dodged questions. Pence wouldn't say how his administration would protect pre-existing conditions if the Affordable Care Act goes down. Harris wouldn't say if Biden would pack the Supreme Court. Neither one would say what their home state should do about abortion if Roe V. Wade is overturned…though I think with that one, their answers would not have been surprises.

It seemed to me Kamala Harris was playing the game from the position of someone who's way ahead and the goal was not to create a big controversy that might shake things up. They have to be happy in the Biden camp with how things are going right now. And it felt like someone — gee, I wonder who — told Pence to keep hammering her and interrupting and not letting her finish sentences.

The one moment where I went "whoa" was when Harris pointed out that the Trump administration has appointed fifty judges and not one of them has been black. That struck a blow, especially since she was sharing a split-screen with the whitest man in America.

Other than that, let me be the one-millionth person on the Internet to say that I think the debate was won handily by that fly that landed on Mike Pence's head. All the jokes are just too, too easy.

James Corden pretends he's Paul McCartney and Donald Trump and that he's playing the piano, all at the same time…

In November of 2018, Randy Rainbow took a song from Wicked and turned it into a plea to vote. Now, the folks who wrote Wicked and many of the people who've performed in it have done their own version of Mr. Rainbow's idea…

I sure don't get what's going on with this guy — and of course, by "this guy," you know exactly who I mean. The big $2 trillion buck stimulus package is supported by, like, three-quarters of the U.S. population and Trump's biggest selling point with voters was a feeling many had that he knew how to fix the economy…and now he's killed any stimulus pack for the time being. Joe Biden, of course, heartily supports the deal Trump says he won't address until after the election.

And today, after slamming the door shut so loudly that the stock market plunged, he's trying today to pry it open a crack. So what was the point?

Meanwhile, his position on masks is opposed by around 70% of the country — might be 80% by now — and he's doubling-down on it. He stands as inarguable proof that he couldn't handle the coronavirus problem in his own life but, sure enough. he's insisting he's had it right all along and can save all of us.

He sure sounds like a person full of experimental drugs. But then, he always did.

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller is the latest Trump crony to test positive for COVID-19. I had Rudy Giuliani in the pool.

I'm going to watch the Kamala/Pence smackdown or debate or Plexiglass display or whatever it is tonight. Eric Levitz has some interesting thoughts about what these two people represent.