The Writers Guild of America is still on strike. Yes, there is a deal that our negotiators seem proud to present to us and yes, all picketing has been canceled for now. But there's still a process of approvals and acceptances that the offer must go through and this is how it always works. Some folks out there seem to think that if the offer were any good, we would have accepted it and gone back to work immediately. Nope. We always have to go through the process.

Some folks also seem to have unreal expectations about the offer. It may well be a very good offer but it cannot possibly match some fantasies I'm reading. Remember that all negotiations in every walk of life are based on the principle of Barely Acceptable. If I'm trying to buy your car and we're haggling, my goal is to offer you what you'll consider Barely Acceptable. That may be a very good amount for you but it will not be way more than you were willing to take.

And of course, let's remember that our friends at SAG-AFTRA are still on strike. A settlement with the writers may (I underlined "may") provide the basis for a settlement with the actors on some issues but actors have some issues that don't impact writers and vice-versa. Some things in our deal may be, to use the term folks use in this kind of bargaining, precedential. But not everything will be.

Also, the actors just voted by 98% to go on strike against video game companies if ongoing negotiations are not successful. So there may still be labor unrest in the entertainment field for a while. That's just how it always is in any industry that employs people who expect to be paid what they're worth and treated accordingly.

Martin Scorsese has directed some of the best movies ever made and most of them convey some powerful message with skill and depth. So it's odd that when he complains about "comic book movies" and says they're a danger to the whole concept of cinema, I have no idea what the f-word he's saying. That is unless he's saying that everyone should be making Martin Scorsese movies and I don't think it's that.

I also can't believe he thinks that any force in the world can stop the film studios — including the ones that fund and distribute Martin Scorsese movies — from making whatever the public is paying to see. At the moment, that list includes what he calls "comic book movies" and so it will be until enough of them lose money that the studios turn to something else.

He also seems unaware that the studios are making plenty of films that in no way fit any definition of "comic book movies." Plenty of them were up for Oscars last year. Plenty will be up next year. Here's a list of some of them for this year…

Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, Poor Things, Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers, Past Lives, The Zone of Interest, Origin, Maestro, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Color Purple, Ferrari, Anatomy of a Fall, May December, The Bikeriders, The Iron Claw, Air, Saltburn, Dumb Money, Rustin, All of Us Strangers, Freud's Last Session, Napoleon, The Burial, American Symphony, Fair Play, BlackBerry, Priscilla, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Wish, The Taste of Things, Nyad, The Boys in the Boat, Fingernails, She Came to Me, Asteroid City, A Little Prayer, The Teachers Lounge and The Royal Hotel.

There are a couple of things in there you might call "comic book movies" but not many. Then I think back to past years when it seems like half of what the movie studios were making were imitations of Porky's, Smokey and the Bandit and Halloween. Did all those movies warp an entire generation's mind of what a movie could or should be?

Mr. Scorsese is acting like "comic book movies" are some new thing. Just to take a some-time-ago decade at random, the highest grossing movie of 1980 was Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back. The highest-grossing movie of 1981 was Superman II. The highest of 1982 was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the highest-grossing movies of the following years were Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Batman.

I dunno about you but I'd call most of those "comic book movies." And now here we have Scorsese saying of the current flock, "The danger there is what it's doing to our culture…because there are going to be generations now that think movies are only those — that's what movies are." Me, I think we've always had a movie industry that put forth a significant number of movies about which one could sound that alarm. I don't get why that's a problem now.

I miscounted. Today is the last day of our little telethon. The staff of newsfromme (which consists wholly of me) thanks all of you who've donated to the cause, which is to prevent me from being tempted by all these e-mails I get from folks who want to advertise on this site and/or send me "paid content" posts to run.

At least one said they'd pay me well for displaying a post they wrote but I had to agree to not let on that it was sponsored and that I didn't write it and I would have to allow the impression that I diligently used their product and recommended it highly…but they wouldn't tell me what the product was. Oh — and I would have to commit and sign a contract before they'd tell me what the product was. I said no, of course. With my luck, it would have turned out to be some brand of cole slaw…

This is from The Ed Sullivan Show for December 7, 1969…a couple of tunes from the singing duo of Sandler and Young, who had a tendency to turn popular songs into versions that their composers never imagined. If he was watching, Paul Simon was probably cringing at the second of their two numbers but I kinda liked them.

I saw them live in the early eighties at the old Sahara Hotel in Reno fronting "The Penthouse Pet Revue" — a show which featured a number of ladies who had allegedly appeared in Penthouse magazine walking (not dancing, just walking) around the stage in minimal apparel. In Reno then, that's what passed for entertainment…

As we all know, I get a lot of spam calls, many of them from home improvement contractors or people who work for home improvement contractors. I also get a lot from people with companies that pretend to have some official association with Medicare and from people who want to buy or sell my home.

One interesting and pleasant one I got a few weeks ago was from a gentleman who is running for the Los Angeles City Council in an election next March. This was the actual candidate himself calling voters asking for their support and we had a lovely conversation that was mostly about the problem of homelessness. Maybe I was snowed a bit by the direct appeal but he sure sounded smart and honest and eager to win that seat for all the right reasons.

I ended the call after about ten minutes because, as I said, "You have a lot more voters to call if you're going to get elected" but he sure convinced me to vote for him…though I won't. I can't. I looked him up online and I'm not in the district where he's seeking office. He's calling the wrong people.

So this morning, I got a call of a kind I've never received before. It's from a company that wants me to hire them to promote my book. "Which book?" you might ask. This book…

Back in the eighties, I wrote a brief run on a revival of Jack Kirby's New Gods for DC. I didn't like it very much and I could list all sorts of reasons why I was prevented from doing what I wanted to do but it wasn't all the fault of others. I screwed up, starting with agreeing to what I should have known was an impossible situation. There's a great quote that is either from Alan Jay Lerner (who co-wrote My Fair Lady) or Moss Hart (who directed it). One of them said…

In my life, I have had many successes and many failures. The successes were for all different reasons and the failures were all for the same reason: I said yes when I meant no.

I must be more versatile than whichever of them said it because I've had failures for a great many reasons. Saying yes when I meant no has only been one of those reasons. But the fact that I don't think I did a good job on the book is not the reason that when DC put out some collections of those issues a few years back, I didn't plug them on this site or put up Amazon links or anything. It's a reason but I also didn't mention them on this site because I didn't know about them.

No one at the company told me in advance and I kinda understand that. The way DC Comics has been run since they relocated to Burbank out here seems somewhat chaotic. There have been times when it feels like someone high up in the Warner empire is occasionally calling one of those agencies that represents temporary office workers and asking, "Hey, have you got someone there who can run a comic book company for a few weeks?"

That's only about half a joke. I've dealt with some great people there but it feels like immediately after they deal with me, they either (a) get fired, (b) get moved to somewhere else in the company or (c) get the hell outta the company and go work for someone else in what they hope will be a more stable environment…you know, like being Donald Trump's attorney.

Anyway, I absolutely understand why no one let me know about these books before they started putting them out. The way I found out is that someone came up to me with one at a convention and asked me to sign it. And then when I got home from the con, there was a box of them waiting for me and eventually, I got some royalties. Whoever's there now at the company sending out contributor copies and royalties is good at his/her job.

I'm not sure that will explain to your satisfaction why I haven't mentioned these books here but it explains it to mine. You will notice that there is no Amazon link to any of these books here nor am I urging you to check them out.

So this morning, I got a call from some stranger who asked, inventing a whole new way to pronounce my name as he did, if I was "Mark Evanier, author of Bloodlines." I said no. That title did not register with me at first but then I remembered. He told me it was a wonderful, wonderful book so I instantly knew he hadn't read it. The conversation then went roughly as follows…

ME: Really? What was your favorite part of it?

HIM (after a long pause): The ending. I really thought the ending was great.

ME: Oh? Did you like the part with the elephant stampede?

HIM: That was the best part. (There was, of course, no elephant stampede in that book. At least, I don't think there was. I haven't read it since it first came out.)

ME: Okay. So did you just call to tell me how much you liked it?

HIM: Well, yes and how I think it's a shame that more people haven't heard about this wonderful book and bought it and read it. I happen to work with a firm here that…

ME: Let me guess. I pay you money and you publicize my book.

HIM: Yes, we are prepared to arrange for saturation publicity on the Internet as well as in print media. We could set up podcast interviews with you and get your book written about in publications for the book store trade. You would receive full penetration.

ME: Wow. I haven't had an offer of full penetration since I was about nineteen and I was being hit on by this choreographer…

HIM: Pardon me?

ME: Never mind. Listen, I'm going to save you some time. I'm not going to pay you or anyone to publicize that book.

HIM: But…but don't you want people to read this book?

ME: Not really. Please take me off whatever list you're using and don't call again. Oh and by the way, there are no elephants in my book.

Click. About twenty minutes later, I got a call from someone who said they were with "Healthcare Benefits, affiliated with Medicare" trying to get me to let them send me a back brace that I in no way need…and I'm not sure but I think it was the same guy. Different number but I think the same guy. And if I'd recognized his voice sooner, I would have told him, "And by the way, there are still no elephants in my book."

We had a little surge in donations yesterday and I think we'll hit my target number — the amount I was hoping to collect to keep this blog online and healthy — today. Even if we don't, my main source of income looks to be returning soon so I'm ending the telethon tonight. Jerry Lewis used to end his by singing "You'll Never Walk Alone." If I sang, most of my donors would write in to ask for their money back so I won't do that. If you're grateful that I won't…

Here's Steve Martin back in his stand-up days. This is from The Tonight Show for March 21, 1973…

The WGA leadership is saying they've reached agreement on a contract that they think is good enough for its membership to ratify. Read my post from earlier today about being cautiously optimistic and being wary of "the second negotiation." But this is certainly good to hear…for us and, probably, the actors.

And I have no idea if no strike news is good strike news or bad strike news. It may be neither. It may just be no strike news.

I should pass on one word of wisdom conferred on me by my second agent. He said, "Always beware of the second negotiation."

The first negotiation is the verbal one in which we all agree that I will write the script for $5,000. The second negotiation is when someone commits the agreed-upon terms to paper, often taking his own sweet time about it since I'll probably commence writing before we have a signed contract. On that paper, he writes that I will indeed receive $5,000…

…and he hopes neither I nor my agent will notice that he sneaks in a clause that says that they can reduce that amount if I'm late, if my script contains spelling errors, if I write it while wearing blue jeans, if the Dodgers win the pennant, if McDonald's brings back the McRib, if you knew Suzie like I know Suzie, if I use vowels or if the producer just feels like paying me less. Oh — and it also says that I have to deliver the script to the producer's home and trim his hedges while I'm there.

That's the second negotiation. With some employers, you don't have a deal even when you all agree you have a deal.

It's still September. Could you at least wait until October 1 before making sure every damned item in your stores contains pumpkin?

Dave Doty sent me this. I assume by "GH," he means the daytime drama General Hospital…

Strike questions on your blog seem to be slowing down. Or maybe they are continuing, but asking questions you've already answered. I thought I'd ask a couple I haven't seen before Both relate to the daytime soap situation, due to my being a GH watcher. (What can I say? There's a soothing regularity in that 5 day a week dose of melodrama.)

1. Both times I've seen a strike impact the soaps, the fi-core writers throw in strange twists that are clearly at odds with original intent. The most blatant this time is a mystery villain who had been repeatedly referred to as "she" being abruptly revealed as a male character who was already on the show. I assume the producers know where the regular writers were taking these plots, Are they not allowed to pass that information along, or are they just allowing the fi-core writers to do whatever they want? Or is there an answer I've overlooked?

2. There's no definite answer to this one, but I'm curious about your opinion. I've been wrestling throughout the strike with whether I ought to be boycotting the show. The pro-boycott argument is obvious, I suppose. But even some of the writers who are replaced as I type have said things along the lines of "I don't like that someone else is writing my show right now, but with the state of daytime, if they shut down they might not come back." I'm debating the degree to which I have an ethical obligation to stop watching until the regular writers come back.

Taking the second question first: I am of the opinion that most boycotts don't accomplish what the boycotters would like to think they accomplish. I always say, "If it makes you feel better to boycott, then by all means boycott." But it's like how in certain past years, there were reasons some folks wanted to boycott the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Diego because of political actions by its management. So some of those folks stayed elsewhere but the hotel was still filled to capacity and the boycott had zero impact on the hotel.

If you realistically can make a difference in their income, that's different. I just don't think anyone at the A.M.P.T.P. is going to say, "My God! Dave Doty and maybe a few of his friends aren't watching this one program! We have to settle this strike!" Maybe if you and your friends are all monitored for ratings and you have an awful lot of friends…

Now dealing with Question #1: Every time the WGA goes on strike, the writers of daytime dramas suffer in a way other TV writers don't: The continuity and storylines on their shows are corrupted by scabs. You call them "fi-core writers," I call them "scabs." Seeing their plans go awry and seeing their scenarios taken in directions that seem wrong to them is a pain that for some is just as great as the financial sacrifices.

As far as I know, the producers can share anything that has been planned and pass it along and I would assume some of it is followed. What you're probably seeing now is a combination of the scabs using what the striking writers had planned and the scabs trying to put their own stamp on the show. They probably think it will increase their chances of being kept on when the "real" writers return…and for some of them, it may work. Some producers may keep them around because, for good or bad, they want those storylines to be played out.

Sorry to have to report the passing of author-historian Allan Asherman. He was 76 and the cause of death is being reported as related to a recent fall. Allan was a very smart guy — a respected author among comic book fans, film buffs and lovers of Star Trek. Among his many books were The Star Trek Compendium, The Star Trek Interview Book and The Making of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. But Allan was an expert on all sorts of things.

I knew him when he worked for DC Comics, sometimes as an editor and sometimes as their in-house librarian. He started there almost five decades ago as one of the "Junior Woodchucks," which was kind of an intern/assistant program. Paul Levitz, who was also part of that group, wrote on Facebook and will not mind me stealing his words and posting them here…

Allan was a good soul, a historian of much of what had gone on in comics and science fiction, a teacher, a writer, and a part of DC for many years in many guises. His first tour of duty was an assistant editor, working with Joe Kubert, Bob Kanigher and Joe Simon, and that was his role in Woodchuck days, cut short in one of the mid-70s layoffs that swept through. He returned again and again (I lost track along the way, but I think he may have been the "most hired" person at DC), including tours in the department that stored our film negatives for reprinting and international use, and a very long and vital tour as the company librarian, ending only when the company moved to Burbank. In all of these roles, he was one of the people who would be turned to with an "Allan might know…" question and often he did.

Allan did so many things that it's hard to list them all. He wrote articles and books, mostly about his favorite movies and TV shows, he helped program film festivals, he contributed supplementary material to DVDs and Blu-rays, he was just one of those walking encyclopedias. We often consulted each other about comic book history and he was a fine gentleman. Our sympathies go out to his friends and especially his wife Arlene Lo, who was a proofreader at DC Comics.

I'm going to let this run for a few more days. In the coming week, followers of this site will see a long article about a great (I think) and underrated (I know) comic book and strip artist named Frank Robbins, a Las Vegas story I don't think I've told here before, and I'm going to try to finish up the series of articles about Western Publishing and Gold Key Comics. Plus, I assume, there'll be strike news and other fun stuff…

One of the reasons Las Vegas is so crowded these days is that around a quintillion people (give or take two or three) are producing Vegas podcasts telling you where to stay, where to eat, where to play, etc. The best of these by far — and the one whose success seems to have inspired most of the others — is a lady named Norma Geli who I've written about here before.

She's a former concierge at some Vegas hotels who knows the city well and also knows how to shoot, edit, produce and host weekly videos like the one below. She also does weekly live podcasts where she walks up and down The Strip showing you what's going on and chatting with folks she encounters. She's become enough of a Vegas celebrity that people are always stopping her to say hello. There are other folks doing similar live Vegas walks too.

Getting back to the weekly not-live ones, I find them fun to watch even though little of the info is of use to me. Norma spends an awful lot of them discussing where and what to drink of an alcoholic nature. I don't drink and, having food allergies and living in fear of exotic meals, I wouldn't dine at about 80% of the restaurants she visits. That makes it all that remarkable that I enjoy her videos. She really knows how to do this kind of thing well.

Below is her most recent, which is atypical of her output. It's about finding the best lobster and for once, she doesn't confine her search to Clark County in Nevada. Because she gets so many hits and often has commercials (like the one for deodorant in the middle of this video), she makes enough money off her productions to be able to spend more money on her productions. You'll see what I mean. Even if you don't have any interest in where to find the best mimosas in Vegas, it's great to see someone who has learned how to make professional-quality videos on the kind of equipment you may already own — and to use the Internet for fun and profit…

The Los Angeles Times is reporting…

The Writers Guild of America and the major Hollywood studios are closing in on a deal that would end a 145-day strike that has roiled the film and TV business and caused thousands of job losses. Lawyers for the two sides were hammering out the details of a tentative agreement on Saturday during a meeting that began mid-morning, according to people close to the discussions who were not authorized to comment.

I'm going to assume that those "people close to the discussions who were not authorized to comment" are folks like me in the '88 strike planting stories in the press. However, "closing in on a deal" is not the same thing as actually closing a deal. Deals fall apart all the time after one or both sides are sure they're as good as done. It's an old negotiating tactic: After the other side thinks the deal is set and they're writing the press releases to say it's over and done, you throw in a last-minute demand hoping they're so far into "it's all over" mode that they'll just nod and accept it. Happens all the time.

If it really does apparently end in a day or two, that will mean that the WGA negotiators feel they have a deal that they can present to the membership for ratification. Whatever's in it, some faction of the Guild won't like it. There's always some subset of the Guild — soap opera writers, variety show writers, etc. — who will be upset that some issue that pertains to them has not been addressed or fought to the finish. There are also members for whom no deal is good enough.

I have enough confidence in the current WGA board and negotiating committee to believe they won't recommend a deal that isn't good enough to pass with a solid majority vote. But someone will be pissed.

Assuming the WGA deal passes, the next question is how long will it take SAG-AFTRA to get a deal that will end the actors' strike. Obviously, that depends on how well the terms that the WGA finds acceptable apply to actors. I assume though that if there's a deal on A.I. to the writers' liking, it will be easier than it once was for SAG-AFTRA to translate it into terms that will appease them.

Guard your optimism well. It may be put through the wringer before this thing is over.