And now, here's the PaleyFest interview with Seth Meyers, who happens to be my current fave late night host if you don't count people named Jon or John…

Michael Ryan wrote to ask…

I recently picked the new soft cover collections of Kamandi and, as I was when I bought the original issues off the newsstand, I'm struck by the Joe Kubert covers on the last seven issues (#34 to #40) of Jack's run on the book.

While Joe's art can be quite loose, these covers seem to me to be overly sloppy or at least rushed. Joe's covers start with Gerry Conway taking over the editorial and eventual writing duties on the book. Joe certainly knew how to draw powerful covers and did hundreds, if not thousands, for DC and they trusted him to produce images that would sell books, but his Kamandi covers are not his finest work, IMO.

Perhaps I'm just being overly critical, but is there a story behind this that I've missed you telling before?

Here's my answer but first, I should answer another question. A lot of folks have written to ask why Joe Kubert was suddenly doing the covers on Jack Kirby comics. The answer is that back then at DC, all covers started with either a rough sketch by Head Honcho Carmine Infantino or with a rough sketch by someone else and that sketch was approved, perhaps after modification, by Infantino. Sometimes, as I've explained here, the cover was designed before the insides of the book were drawn or even written. Sometimes, it was done after. I believe these were all done after.

Jack was working for DC on a contract that called for him to finish one issue of something and then immediately start on something else. So as he neared the end of one story, he'd call up Carmine's office and ask "What do you want me to do next?" Carmine would check the schedules or have someone else check the schedules and Jack would be told to next do an issue of this or that.

Near the end of his contract, they had him backlogging issues of Kamandi. And when that contract expired and he stopped working for DC, there were many issues for which Carmine had never gotten around to designing covers for or having Jack design something. So they had Kubert do them.

I have nothing but admiration for Joe Kubert as an artist but I would agree with you that those covers were not his best work. And I think if you look over all the covers on all the DC books from that period, you would find a lot of very talented artists doing not their best work. The firm no longer had the services of Neal Adams or Nick Cardy as cover artists and Infantino seemed to have forgotten all he'd learned over the years about designing attractive covers. They'd also adopted a new cover format with an ugly banner across the top and…

Well, I just think DC was putting out a lot of weak comics then with a lot of weaker covers. Kubert was pretty unhappy that his Tarzan series was failing and a lot of other comics in the line weren't doing so well. Infantino knew that his bosses weren't too happy with him. He was fired not long after. It was not a good time for the company and I think it showed in their comics.

Devin "Legal Eagle" Stone discusses the legalities (or lack thereof) of protests on college campuses. This ties in with something we were discussing earlier on this blog — how some people somehow forget that the First Amendment is only about government restrictions on free speech. One of these days, I may write a blog post here about my experiences on both sides of the protests over the Vietnam War when I was attending U.C.L.A.. I was one of those rare animals — a person who actually had their mind changed…

If anyone doubts my claim that Rudy Giuliani is in a ridiculous amount of trouble, read this.

Longtime readers of this site long ago got sick of me plugging my pal Frank Ferrante and his wonderful Groucho show. He does it all over the country but rarely in Los Angeles. But here's some news: Frank will be Grouchoing for one show only on Sunday afternoon, September 29 at the El Portal Theater out in North Hollywood. Details and tix are available on this page. Don't miss this opportunity! The theater only holds 360 people so a sellout is pretty certain.

The Paley Center for Media houses the world's largest collection of old TV shows and stages events to study and celebrate the form. It's probably best known these days for its annual Paley Fests which used to honor programs that had withstood some real test of time but now are devoted mainly to what's hot at the moment. They recently had events for, among other current shows with big, ticket-buying fan followings, Young Sheldon, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Loki, The Morning Show and Family Guy.

Today and tomorrow, I'm posting the videos of two of these programs about programs. Here's the PaleyFest interview of Stephen Colbert and tomorrow, I'll post the one with Seth Meyers…

Here at this blog, we are very interested in the great writer-singer of very clever songs, Tom Lehrer. So Mark Crowther (a reader of this blog) sent me this link to this article about…well, it's not all about Tom Lehrer. It's by and about a fan of his who cobbled up a live show of Lehrer material and who wonders excessively why Mr. Lehrer, instead of writing and performing more, retreated to a life outside the public eye and show biz.

I dunno why either. I doubt we'll ever know. All I know is that whenever Tom Lehrer leaves us, he'll have left us a lot of wonderful songs for which we should be grateful.

A few days ago, Jordan Williams wrote to ask — well, here: I'll let you read it for yourself…

In your blog post today, you mentioned dining at the Russian Tea Room in New York in 1983. What was it like? I ask because for years and years, I heard about that place and how it was the greatest place to eat in the world and all the famous people ate there. I was dying to go but it wasn't until years later that I finally managed it and I was so disappointed. Was it wonderful in 1983?

I'm not the guy to ask, Jordan. Between my food allergies and my very limited palate, I try to avoid fancy restaurants that other folks may love. I was out that evening with a bunch of executives from the Group W Television company and since they were on expense accounts, they wanted to go to someplace expensive and trendy. I will admit it was an interesting outing, though not because of the food.

The maître d' who seated us made a point of telling us he was putting us in the "Tootsie booth," so-dubbed because a key scene in the movie Tootsie was filmed there with Dustin Hoffman and Sydney Pollack sitting where we were seated. In the booth next to us, Walter Cronkite was dining and across from us was one in which Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was eating a very rare, expensive caviar.

I know that because someone in our party pointed to Ms. Onassis and told our server, "I'll have what she's having." That lady in our party was considerably surprised at what she got and further surprised — "horrified" would be a better word — at what it cost. As she ate food she didn't enjoy very much, she told us she was worried that her employers would berate her for spending so much on dinner. (I don't know if they ever did.)

Me? I ordered the chicken kiev and sat there, eating it Famous Person Adjacent…about as close to "classy" as I've ever gotten. My food was…okay. Nothing special. It struck me that the only notable thing about the restaurant was who else was dining there while you did. Perhaps that has changed since 1983.

I couldn't help but overhear a few conversations at Mr. Cronkite's table. He was dining alone but folks kept stopping by to say hello and I guess they just wanted the bragging rights — "I spoke with Walter Cronkite the other night." Two of the tablehoppers I overheard said something complimentary to Mr. Cronkite and then buttoned it with his famous sign-off line, "…and that's the way it is." Mr. Cronkite chuckled politely as if no one had ever thought to say that to him before.

Once, I heard Don Adams, the star of Get Smart, say, "The great thing about having a famous catch phrase is that you get to use the same joke over and over. The bad thing is that every friggin' person you meet think they're so goddamn clever to throw it back at you." Mr. Adams had about eight of them so he knew of what he spoke — and no, he did not use the word "friggin'."

But like I said, I'm not the guy to ask about the cuisine there. I never enjoy the food at fancy, famous places where the alleged Upper Class flocks to chow down. Back at the time of this story, The Russian Tea Room was "the" place to dine in New York but I would have much rather been at the Carnegie Deli. There, I could have had a terrific corned beef on rye and a knish. And if anyone famous was at the next table, it was only Jackie Mason.

If I had to bet money — and I don't — I'd bet that Donald Trump will be found guilty in the Hush Money trial. And the main thing that makes me think that is that he obviously thinks that. He's ramping up his hysterical excuses about why the trial is rigged, unfair, a Witch Hunt, etc. He hasn't started attacking the jury yet because they haven't voted yet.

Cartoonist Russell Myers has been formally recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for the "Longest running daily cartoon strip by a single author." This is for producing the Broom-Hilda newspaper strip since April 19, 1970 — a feat which I believe was called to the world's attention by this blog back in this message.

It seems unlikely anyone will wrest the title away from him in the few decades. I don't know who the next contender would be but Russell ain't stopping now. And even if he quit or died tomorrow, he still has a year or two of Broom-Hilda strips in inventory.

Speaking of dead cartoonists: The Guinness folks currently recognize Johnny Hart as the "Most syndicated living cartoonist" and their listing says…

Johnny Hart, creator of The Wizard of Id and B.C., is the most syndicated living cartoonist with both these cartoons syndicated in 1,300 newspapers each, giving his work a combined total of 2,600 syndicated outlets.

I don't think this was ever a valid record because, first of all, the way syndicates count newspaper strip placements involves counting daily strips and Sunday strips as two separate sales. If the Picayune Post-Dispatch carries a strip seven days a week, the syndicate counts that as two newspapers, not one. One newspaper that carried B.C. and The Wizard of Id both daily and Sunday would be considered four newspapers. So the total number of papers carrying Hart's two strips has really always been way less than 2,600.

Secondly, I believe Charles Schulz and Jim Davis, creators of Peanuts and Garfield respectively, have both at times appeared in more newspapers with one strip apiece than Johnny Hart has with two. Of course, Charles Schulz no longer qualifies as a "living cartoonist"…

…and since his death in 2007, neither does Johnny Hart.

This is about powerful people preying on powerless people…and I was about to finish this sentence with "for sex" but it applies in some non-sexual ways as well. Back when we were talking here about Harvey Weinstein, I wrote the following…

A large part of the reason Weinstein finally got exposed was that certain of the women he mistreated were or have become Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino — ladies who have become successful enough that they're not afraid they'll lose everything if they go on the record. Unknowns could and would be accused of lying to get attention and/or money. Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't need either. If he was only abusing unknowns, I bet he'd get away with it forever. I am reminded of how there were a lot of stories around about cartoonist Al Capp exposing himself to women and trying to blackmail them into sex. Many dismissed those accounts as lies until Goldie Hawn went public with the story of her unsavory encounter with Mr. Capp.

Ms. Hawn went public in a 1985 interview in Playboy and I think it kind of nudged open the door a bit — not nearly enough, of course — for later, more effective revelations about what too many powerful men have gotten away with for far too long. I know it did a lot to stop some folks from thinking what Mr. Capp did was in the category of harmless pranks or acceptable conduct. A lot of us wrestle with the problem of how to reconcile our thoughts about people who did things to be admired while also doing things that should have put them in prison. Al Capp was the first person who presented me with that conundrum.

On a recent podcast with Conan O'Brien, Goldie told the story of her — shall we say? — "encounter" with the creator of Li'l Abner and it's not a pleasant story to hear. It can and should make you uncomfy. But if you want to hear it, it's in this video excerpted from a longer conversation. Thanks to Ben Varkentine, a loyal reader of this site, for alerting me to it…

In case you didn't see Jon Stewart last night, here's one of the most important things anyone has had to say about "Cancel Culture"…

From last night's Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez offer a tune from the current (but closing in July) revival of Merrily We Roll Along. In fact, it's my favorite tune from my next-to-favorite Sondheim show, my first being A Funny Thing…

I said in this post that Maureen Arthur had originated the role of Hedy LaRue on Broadway in How To Succeed In Etc. and that is not so. I found this out because I have this friend, Jim Brochu, who knows so much about Broadway, he could probably tell you the name of the guy who painted the line down the center of that street. He wrote to set the record straight.

Virginia Martin — you can probably figure out which one she is in the above photo — was the first Hedy LaRue. Maureen Arthur was a replacement and she played Hedy in the movie version. The other actors I mentioned having seen in the National Touring Company of the show were also replacements on Broadway. The management on this blog (i.e., m.e.) regrets the error.

Meanwhile, there are now articles online that delve into what really went wrong in the Red Lobster chain and it ain't, as we suspected, that too many people paid too little for too many shrimp. You can read what actually happened here, here, here and probably a dozen other places.

Like many of you, I was sad to hear that the Red Lobster chain is in trouble and is closing locations. So far, they're not closing the one closest to me — which is not close enough for me to visit as often as I might — or the one in the Valley where Harlan Ellison and I used to have dinner. It wasn't that close to his home either but it was worth driving the distance.

I just don't like that so many restaurants that serve simple, basic seafood seem to be closing. The McCormick & Schmick's chain, which used to be all over Southern California, is down to one eatery. Fortunately, it's in Anaheim a few blocks from WonderCon so I can eat there every few years. The one in the San Diego Omni across from Comic-Con closed along with all the others. The Enterprise Fish Company in Santa Monica went outta business. The Blue Plate Oysterette near my house closed. There are a few others.

Yes, there are still places where one can get seafood but they all seem to trick and fancy the fish up. You can't get a plain piece of halibut or tilapia at most of 'em. It comes only in an avocado and jalapeno ceviche with Cajun spices or something. I just want a piece of fish grilled or fried without undue decoration.

What went wrong for Red Lobster? Most of the news reports say that their "Endless Shrimp" offering, which was apparently a loss-leader, led them into too much loss. That explanation sounds — you'll excuse the expression — fishy to me. You don't start closing otherwise viable businesses just because you mispriced one popular menu item. You correct the pricing and keep the doors open. Today, someone posted this on Instagram or X or somewhere…

A hedge fund bought the company, sold off all the land Red Lobster restaurants are located on, leased the land back to Red Lobster, and jacked the rent. Just so you know what is really going on here.

I don't know the gent who posted this or how much he knows about the situation but doesn't it sound like something like that was the cause?