The 2024 Comic-Con International in San Diego officially sold out last weekend. There may be a few opportunities in the coming months to score badges but for the most part, the con is sold out.

The two biggest complaints I hear about Comic-Con are probably "It's impossible to get tickets" and "It's too crowded."  Those kind of cancel each other out.  If they made more tickets available, it would be even more crowded.  Or if it was less crowded, it would be even harder to get tickets.  Some folks don't seem to grasp that buildings have capacities and fire laws.

A friend I know asked me, "Wouldn't it be great if they could somehow double the size of that convention center?"  Well, maybe.  But they'd also have to double — preferably, more than double —  the number of available hotel rooms and parking spaces and places to eat and also widen the roads in and around that area and get the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner to put on about twenty more train cars and airline tickets to San Diego that weekend are already hard to get just before the con…

…and there would still be people who couldn't score badges and the prices would probably be even pricier. It's just a basic fact o' life: Disneyland is always crowded and always expensive. You may not be able to get a ticket to the Super Bowl and if you can, it'll cost you a bloody fortune. Times Square is packed on New Year's Eve. Some stores have long lines on Black Friday.  Las Vegas just had its big Formula One Grand Prix race in November and you don't want to know what a mess that was.

And way more people will always want to attend Comic-Con than that convention center can hold.

Which brings me to the third complaint: "There isn't enough at Comic-Con about comic books." I think there's always a lot of it and some people just don't notice it or don't like that there's nothing about the particular comics that interest them. Before I delve more deeply into this topic, I want to quote something I wrote here after the 2009 Comic-Con…

One [guy] actually came up to me on Sunday and started bitching about all the focus on the movies and the Hollywood celebs and such. Now, my attitude about the Comic-Con (oft-stated) is that the con is really a dozen or more cons rolled into one. There's an anime con in that building, an animation art con, a small press con, a Golden Age comics con, a gaming con, etc. Some of them don't interest me in the slightest so I sidestep those aisles and find the con I want to attend. I always seem to be able to find it. Unless you're dying to attend a sparsely-attended gathering, the one you seek is in there somewhere. Don't let all those other conventions annoy you or distract you.

But this guy was upset that so much of the Comic-Con wasn't about comics and he felt, I guess, that I'd concur and would rush off to do something about it…maybe throw Robert Downey Jr out of the hall or something. Instead, I told him about that great panel we did on the Golden Age of Batman with Jerry Robinson, Sheldon Moldoff and Lew Schwartz. If you're interested in the history of comics, it doesn't get any more historical than that. I then said to this fellow who was complaining about the con not being about that kind of thing, "I didn't see you there."

And so help me, he replied, "I couldn't be there. I had to get in line to see the 24 panel with Kiefer Sutherland."

For those who don't know: Moldoff, Robinson and Schwartz were the three main artists who ghosted for Bob Kane from Batman's inception until the mid-sixties.

For many years at Comic-Con, I interviewed folks like that either individually or on the annual Golden Age Panel. At one point, I renamed it The Golden and Silver Age Panel because we were running out of folks who qualified under the old name. Eventually, we stopped the panel altogether because there were simply not enough folks to put on it. Most had passed away and the few who remained were unwilling, or maybe just unable to travel to the con.

This year, I had the pleasure — and it really was one — to interview Barbara Friedlander, who worked on DC's romance comics from around 1964 until 1970. I suspect that of the 130,000+ human beings who were in that convention hall that weekend, she had the oldest credits in mainstream comic books. If there was anyone else, I can't think of who it could have been.

The scary thought is to wonder who was in second place: Name the person who attended that con who had the oldest credits in mainstream comic books after Barbara. I have the chilling feeling it may have been me. I got in in 1970.

Now, of course, it's possible to do panels about comics before 1970 by having scholars and folks who grew up on those comics talk about them. There are such panels, some very interesting…but they rarely draw huge crowds. A bunch of guys like me talking about Will Eisner is not the same as the panels we used to do with the real Will Eisner.

And, yes: We do draw a pretty large audience each year for the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel.  But there aren't many people in comic book history who attract that kind of attention without being present. Steve Ditko is probably on that list…but even if you'd staged a panel about Mr. Ditko's work when he was alive, he wouldn't have been there.

So you might say, "Well, how about panels with folks who wrote and drew comics in the seventies and eighties?"  A fine question…and I have to tell you that for several recent cons, I tried to put together panels for the seventies and I've given up.  I didn't even attempt it for this last con but during those four days, I'm pretty sure I didn't run into enough with the right work experience to fill out a seventies panel.

There actually are some reasons for that. Right now, a lot of such folks are making some good money by attending for-profit conventions. Comic-Con International is a non-profit affair. They pay absolutely no one an appearance fee to attend. They only pay for transportation and lodging for a very small number of invited guests each year. They do not give lots of famous people lots of free exhibit space to sell autographs and photos. Some cons even guarantee their celebrity-type guests will make X dollars in sales. Comic-Con doesn't do that.

I'm not knocking either kind of con one bit. I like that friends of mine have the source of income and attention they get at most other cons. But most other cons need celebrity guests to draw attendees. Comic-Con International sells out instantly each year before they've announced a single guest. In fact, their invited guests are selected mainly because the con wants to honor and promote those people, not because any of them has a hit movie or a top-selling comic book. It's a different game altogether.

Still, there will always be plenty of people at the con who do comics and next year, there will be more actors and movie stars because there won't be a strike. Because it's Comic-Con International. Some of us just plain want to be there even if there's no money in it. It's that kind of experience.

Here at newsfromme.com, we love old photos and videos of Las Vegas. Here's some great home movie footage from 1962…

I'm taking this Thanksgiving Day off by encoring what I posted here on Thanksgiving Day of 2017, reflecting on Thanksgiving Day of 2016…

I spent Thanksgiving of last year with my dear friend Carolyn, well aware that it would be her last Thanksgiving. Suffering with Stage 4 cancer, she knew it too but she was still hoping for a miracle of indeterminate origin. It was like a game we all play in some form: Once you admit bad news out loud or even to yourself, you feel like you're closing off all possibility of that miracle.

She spent the last ten months of her life in a building that was part Skilled Nursing Facility and part Assisted Living Home. It was very nice for what it was but the meals were not good and they were not in alignment with the diet Carolyn felt she should eat. Either I or my assistant John would bring her food, or sometimes I could arrange to have a restaurant deliver. I bought her a little refrigerator for her room so she could store leftovers and food which did not require heating.

Now and then, she felt well enough that I could take her out to a restaurant. Last Thanksgiving Day, we planned to do just that. I made a reservation at a very nice cafe for 4 PM but by 1:30 or so in the afternoon, it was obvious Carolyn was in no shape to leave the place where she was living. I made a dozen phone calls and finally found a restaurant that was willing to make up two turkey dinners "to go" that were configured for her dietary requirements and my food allergies. When I got to the Assisted Living Home with them, the nurses were clearing away the last of the meal they'd served the residents and patients there. It was obviously better chow than what I'd brought and it would have been fine for both Carolyn and me.

Most of the residents there were effectively alone in the world. They had each other, sort of, but there weren't a lot of relatives around. More than a few of them told Carolyn that they envied her having me visiting her several times a week and seeing how John would bring her whatever she needed. She was probably the youngest resident in her part of the complex and when she was well enough to leave her room and walk (or be wheelchaired) around, the sunniest and cheeriest.

Carolyn was simply the kind of person it was impossible not to love, even if all she'd done to deserve it was to smile in your direction. During her final weeks when she never left her bed, let alone her room, the others there would stop me in the hall and ask with true concern, "Is she any better?" The answer was always no. In her last week or so, it got around the building that the wonderful lady in room 305 wouldn't be living there or anywhere much longer. When they saw me in the halls then, they didn't inquire. They just nodded in sympathy.

I was lying in bed this morning thinking how last Thanksgiving was, to use an overused phrase, the Beginning of the End. It was around then that Carolyn dying became something that could happen shortly instead of off in some indeterminate and fuzzy future. Her very wise Palliative Care Doctor told me she would probably be unable to walk by the beginning of February and unable to talk by the beginning of March. The end, he said, would come in mid-March. If you added two weeks to every projection, he was right on target.

Every time he told me something like that, I couldn't help but think of the joke about the doctor who told a man he had six months to live and then, when the man couldn't pay his bill, the doctor gave him another six months. My thoughts shifted, as I'm told thoughts usually do in these situations, from "I don't want to lose her" to "I hope for her sake it's over soon." I was not unaware that her passing, sooner rather than later, would be for my sake, as well. You try not to connect your comparatively-mild problem with what the sick person is going through but since you suffer together over the same thing, it's silly to deny the link.

From Thanksgiving of 2016 until it was over are easily the saddest four months of my life. I hope they always will be because I'd hate to think I have four sadder months in my future.

Today, I am thankful that I had her in my life for almost twenty years. I am also thankful that her death was not much, much worse for her because it certainly could have been — and again, for me as well as her. But overwhelmingly, of course, for her.

We were talking here about the shooting locations for Albert Brooks' 1991 film, Defending Your Life. And lo and behold, I receive this from Jason Roberts…

I wanted to chime in about your posts on Albert Brooks and Defending Your Life. I have a unique perspective on the subject as I worked on the movie as a Production Assistant. I also was in the movie twice but got cut out of one of the sequences. I attached a photo of the cut scene below (I'm the one sitting next to Albert). My remaining part was that of the hands that buckle Albert into his tram at the end of the movie.

I remember specifically one notable inside trivia location, where all of his workplace scenes were shot at Albert's brother Cliff Einstein's advertising offices at Dailey and Associates, where he was the CEO at the time. Also the sushi restaurant was shot at a place on Ventura Blvd. in Encino that Albert used to frequent as he lived in the area at the time.

The fountain scene where he has "brain envy" was shot by city hall in downtown L.A. at the Grand Park outdoor mall area. I am sure if I watched the movie again I could recall more of the places we filmed at.

Thanks for sharing all of your thoughts on the movie. That and the documentary brought up a lot of memories.

Thanks for sharing those memories, Jason. I'm not quite sure why but the movie struck a special chord with me, moreso than Mr. Brooks' other films, most of which I also liked a lot. I recall seeing it at a Writers Guild screening during one of those rare moments when we weren't all out on strike.

Afterwards, everyone was outside on the sidewalk — not picketing but discussing the movie with great enthusiasm. I think the "you can eat all you want" aspect of it registered big with some folks but it did get some of us talking about times in our lives when we felt shamed to be as cowardly as we'd been. It also seemed to inspire a few people to want to go get sushi but I think Brooks would have been pleased with either reaction.

Brian Dreger read this post here and then wrote to ask…

I very much enjoyed your recent article about seeing Don Rickles. I laughed so much. I could almost imagine sitting at the table with you guys experiencing that and processing it all as it was going down!

But it reminds me of something I've always wondered about Vegas shows: who chooses the opening act? Is it the casino/hotel or is it the headliner? Did Don Rickles really pick that less-than-stellar singer? If so, does he have to pay her out of his profits? How does that work? It would seem to me that some headliners would not want someone too spectacular because they might overshadow them. But if they pick someone who is kind of a dog, then their entire show suffers — so does the Casino/Hotel arrange that and therefore the headliner can wash his and/or her hands of whole opening act if it is a disaster?

The answer is that it works all different ways. Sometimes, the headliner picks his or her opening act. Sometimes, the hotel does. Sometimes, a headliner has a long-term relationship with an opening act and when the hotel books the headliner, it's understood the opening act comes along with them. Sometimes, the headliner might be touring with an opening act. I don't know if he still does but Johnny Mathis toured for years with the very fine comedian Gary Muledeer.

The hotel might sign an opening act to play X number of weeks a year and then try to pair them up with a headliner. Sometimes, an agent or manager will put together a package of opening act and headliner, then sell it/them to the hotel as a duo. After The Golddiggers became part of Dean Martin's TV show and Dean played the MGM Grand or Bally's (same hotel with a name change), some version of the Golddiggers troupe opened for Dean.

But most of this is past-tense because headliners rarely have opening acts these days…or if they do, it's often that the headliner is booked and the headliner chooses (or even pays directly) the opening act. And sometimes, it isn't the hotel in any of the above arrangements; it's some company that is "four-walling" the showroom, which means that they make a deal with the hotel to program the showroom. Two or three times — none of which reached fruition — I was asked to write a show for Vegas. I was not asked by someone who worked for the hotel. I was asked by someone who was putting together a package to try and sell to a hotel.

Elsewhere on this site (here) I linked to a video of comedian Pat Cooper who used to go on talk shows and complain about not being hired or treated well as an opening act. I don't think his rants made a lot of sense. No matter what he said he was bitching about, what he was really bitching about was that a lot of hotels in Vegas didn't want to hire Pat Cooper or a lot of stars didn't want him opening for them.

But the short answer to your question is that it works (or works) all different ways.

Steve Young was one of the reasons David Letterman was on the air as long as he was. Steve was a writer for Dave's show on NBC and then at CBS, coming up with clever bits from 1990 to 2015. Occasionally, he was even on the show as seen in the clip below. One of Steve's overwhelming interests was and is the subject of Industrial Musicals — shows, often of Broadway caliber and sometimes produced with Broadway pros — performed at trade shows and employee conventions.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch this clip of Steve guesting on Dave's show to promote a book he authored on the subject…

The book was followed by a film called Bathtubs Over Broadway which I recommended to you back in this post. And what's Steve doing now? Well, he's still a much-in-demand writer but he also tours with a live show about his passion and if you're in or near Los Angeles, you can see it on Sunday night, December 3 at Dynasty Typewriter, which is a trendy theater on Wilshire near downtown L.A. A lot of top comedians have been playing there lately.

Tickets, if they aren't already sold out, are available here. And if Los Angeles is just too far for you, Steve will soon be appearing with his show in San Francisco, Hartford and other cities. Keep an eye out on this page to see when he's coming your way. (He's in Asheville, North Carolina next Sunday!)

Here's Devin "Legal Eagle" Stone talking his usual mile-per-minute about the recent courtroom moment when Donald Trump took the stand.  It did not — surprise, surprise! — go well for the man. But then again, I suspect Trump and his attorneys have given up all hope of winning this trial. All Trump cares about now is broadcasting the idea to his followers that the trial is rigged, an innocent man is being hung by evil liberals and they must donate to his campaign and vote him back into office to put an end to this kind of injustice.

Seth Meyers had a good line tonight in his "A Closer Look" segment. Talking about Trump's claim that the judge in his current trial is biased, Meyers said, "Trump can't get that simple fact through his brain. Maybe you could claim bias once or twice but you can't claim bias literally anytime you ever lose anything anywhere."

Anyway, here's Mr. Stone. In the non-YouTube, ad-free version of this, he goes a little farther saying now bad Trump's legal strategy is…

Among the many things that some people believe without the slightest bit of evidence is that there is no such place as Wyoming. Apparently, there are websites and online discussion forums devoted to this theory. It seems to me this would be a pretty easy thing to prove or disprove…and if it could be proven, the Democratic party would have done so by now and eliminated two Republican senators, one Republican Congressperson and three electoral college votes that always go G.O.P.

What interests me about this is that according to the Associated Press and to the website Big Think, I am responsible for this strange belief because of a segment I wrote in a cartoon in 1989…

Oddly enough, the theory that Wyoming does not exist may have originated with a 1980s television cartoon. In an episode of Garfield and Friends that aired in 1989, the titular cartoon cat explains to an audience that the square on the map labeled "Wyoming" does not denote a real place, but rather expresses an Italian word for "no state here."

Wyoming is not an Italian word and Garfield did not help map the United States. Nonetheless, the movement either began or gained national exposure at that time, when it implanted into the passive minds of kids watching television who grew up to be adults who ponder the reality of state borders on the internet.

That's what the Associated Press said and they're never wrong except for most of the time. Here's the segment in question. Perhaps the stark, realistic statement of facts by the animated talking cat convinced some people it was a serious documentary…

And yes, that's Gary Owens as the announcer. Thanks to Taylor Ramsey for telling me about this…and y'know, this whole thing with people believing Donald Trump is a good, honest man who won the 2020 Presidential Election is starting to make a little more sense to me.

By now, I assume most of you have seen Defending My Life, the profile of Albert Brooks done by Rob Reiner. Either that or you don't care, in which case skip this item. I watched it a second time the other night, showing it to a friend…and noticing a few things I hadn't noticed the first time around. I liked the film but I kinda wish Mr. Reiner had had a lower budget.

When you're talking about someone like Albert Brooks, you don't need to keep cutting every minute to some other comedian telling us he's funny. You have videotape of Albert that proves that. Maybe a little more of that and a little less of Brian Williams and Neil DeGrasse Tyson?

And I had this thought: One of the reasons, I think, that awards shows like the Emmys and Oscars have declined so much in ratings is that America is getting tired of hearing famous multimillionaire performers talking about each others' greatness. There were a few moments in this film that reminded me of Sammy Davis Jr. talking about Frank Sinatra — the kind of thing they used to parody on The Sammy Maudlin Show on SCTV.

But I'm probably nitpicking here. It's a very good film — the kind where the worst thing you can say about it is that it should have been longer.

Someone wrote to ask me if there's a place to view the videotape of Albert's father, Harry "Parkyakarkus" Einstein performing at a Friars Club dinner and then dying right after. I'm pretty sure there is no videotape. There's a widely-circulated audiotape but the dinner was not filmed and all the visuals of the incident in the documentary were cobbled up using footage and stills, mostly from other events. (There's a quick still shot of Einstein sitting on a dais between Nat King Cole and Stan Freberg but it's not from the night of Mr. Einstein's final performance. It's from a dinner for the artists heard on Capitol Records.) Here's the audio of Harry Einstein's last monologue…

Someone else wrote to ask about the little menu jingle that Parkyakarkus performed often on his radio show. In a 1999 Playboy interview, Brooks recited it thusly…

We're going to have sirloin steak and tenderloin steak, good piece lamb chop, great big pork chop, nice fried onions, fresh peeled scallions, french-fried potatoes, lettuce and tomatoes, string beans, baked beans, hup beans, too; cookeral, hookeral, chicken stew; mackerel, pickerel, haddock, tripe; lobster, oyster, shrimp or pike; hot pies, cold pies, soft pie, mud pie, ickleberry, bermberry, stroomberry, too; stiff cream, whipped cream, plain cream, no cream; squashed-up apple, coconut, custard; mustard, ketchup, chili, salt and pepper and a pickalilly.

And lastly, regarding the video of locations used in the filming of Defending Your Life, my pal Douglass Abramson has an addition…

I can add one to the list. The transportation hub, where the souls are put onto the shuttles that will take them onto their next stop; where Brooks chased down Streep's tram, was filmed in the dead center of Mile Square Regional Park, in Fountain Valley, CA.

The filming didn't occur during the two years I lived a block away from the park, but all of my friends who did live in the area during filming, said that they had so many lights in the filming area, most of the rest of the park was fully illuminated all night long by what today would be classified as the production's light pollution. Unfortunately, it took place during a period of Southern California cold weather, so no one really got to take advantage of it.

And one other thought I had: I didn't recognize that the scene in the comedy club was filmed at The Comedy Store, even though I'm quite familiar with that building. It's interesting to me that they chose to do it there since it's not a complex set and it could probably have been built on a soundstage for very few dollars…and that way, they wouldn't had the hassle of renting and shutting down a business, going on location, bringing in all the equipment and extras and lights, etc.

I think they chose to do it there because the Comedy Store can be a really, really cold and depressing place with its black walls and stark decor. With the right person at the microphone, it can also be a very fun place to be in spite of the ambiance. But it does have the feel of a place you'd go after you died for real and not just on stage. I don't know if Albert Brooks ever performed there. He was famous for not "breaking in" his material before performing it on television. But he must have been there and a lot of his friends worked that stage and talked about it. I wonder if that's why they shot there.

Thanks, Douglass and everyone else.

Because of the new documentary on him, folks are talking a lot online about Albert Brooks and the films he made. I liked all the ones that didn't have the word "Muslim" in the title but my favorite is probably Defending Your Life. I've seen it a few times and I sometimes wondered where they'd filmed certain scenes. I recognized the Federal Building over on Wilshire in Westwood and a few others but I felt like I should be able to recognize more. A couple of 'em looked so familiar…

Well, a gent who goes by the name Jordan the Lion tracked down some of those locations and he takes us to them in this video. If you haven't seen the movie — or haven't seen it in a long time — don't watch this. Instead, watch the movie and then watch this…

A number of folks have written to ask me if I had anything to do with the new Garfield movie, the trailer for which is now online. Typical is this one from "Frank D"…

I saw a trailer for a new Garfield movie and immediately thought is this something Mark has done? I know you have thoroughly refrained from plugging any of your current work but as soon as I saw the trailer you just came to mind.

No, I had nothing to do with the new Garfield movie…nor, to answer a question others have asked, am I bothered by that. I mean, I loved writing that cat for all those years and I'm sad if that was the end of it…but I always knew it would end and am surprised/pleased it lasted as long as it did. I'm the guy who coined the oft-quoted-within-the-industry line, "Never get possessive about characters you don't own."

When we write others' properties, we're baby-sitters. We are not the parents nor, even if we do a great job of baby-sitting, do we become the parents. We're baby-sitters and it's real easy to change baby-sitters or even for the parents to not need one any longer. Name almost any character who's been around long enough to be passed from writer to writer to writer. I know someone who wrote that property for a long time and was very proud of the work they did on that property…

…and then it came as, if not a shock then at least a little jolt to realize someone else was suddenly in charge of "their" character. I had a friend who was so "into" writing Superman that for a time whenever anyone else did, he reacted at least a little like a man discovering that his wife was sleeping around.

I was maybe the fortieth or fiftieth person to write Scooby Doo and never for a moment the only one. There have been hundreds since and there will he hundreds more. You have to think of these kinds of assignments in that context.

Josh Woolf sent me these two very simple questions…

Would you please list all 13 Marx Brothers movies going from your favorite to your least favorite?  And what is your favorite scene in any of their films?

And here are my simple answers as of this moment. It could change within the hour…

Please note that any film on this list could easily swap positions with the one over it or the one under it.  I'm not strident about my Marx Brothers rankings.

And of the many scenes in them I love, if you force me at gunpoint (or even squirt gunpoint) to name a favorite, I would have to go with the Maurice Chevalier scene in Monkey Business.  It's one of those scenes that's funny just to consider the premise of it: "In order to get off this ship, we will all have to pretend to be the same person even though everyone knows that none of us could possibly be that person and to prove we are that person, each of us will have to sing one of his songs."  And they kind of get away with it. They do get off the ship.

Las Vegas used to be my second home but even before COVID, my interest in being there was diminishing due to it becoming way more expensive, way more "tourist-trappy" and way more crowded. I'm especially glad to not be there this weekend when the big Formula 1 event is taking place. Much of the town — the areas where I'd be if I was there — has been completely remodeled with grandstands and new roads and structures designed to prevent you from getting even a glimpse of the race through the streets unless you've purchased a very expensive ticket.

On Vegas chat boards, I see a few people saying this is or will be the greatest thing to happen to Vegas ever…but the majority seem to hate, hate, hate the whole thing and there are oodles of complaints about what it's doing to the town. My favorite Vegas reporter, Norma Geli, went to the Thursday night festivities and somehow managed to have a full video report up on YouTube this morning at about 8:30 AM — a feat of speed more impressive than anything that's liable to take place on the track this weekend.

She thought the first night was a disaster. But being a Vegas disaster, it still had massive crowds and plenty of food and drink. Here is her report…

In 2013, Billy Joel was doing a Q-and-A (and played a few numbers, I think) at Vanderbilt University. A student named Michael Pollack raised his hand and asked if he could accompany Mr. Joel on "New York State of Mind" and to the delight of the audience — and one supposes, to the shock of Michael Pollack — Joel said "Okay." This video is of that unplanned moment and I've gotta say: Billy Joel looks like the greatest of sports for going along with it and praising the kid for his piano playing.

I posted a link to this video here shortly after it happened but YouTube took it down. So who put it back up? Billy Joel. It's on his personal channel. So here it is again…

And now you might be wondering whatever became of Michael Pollack. Well, he hasn't done much…just written or co-written songs recorded by Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Celine Dion, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5, Ari Leff, Kelly Clarkson, Jason Mraz, Backstreet Boys, Lizzo, Jonas Brothers, Meghan Trainor, Demi Lovato, Michael Bublé, John Legend and Selena Gomez. You can read more about him on his Wikipedia page. Here he is talking about that moment that changed his life…