Too Opinionated

That's the most recent Fox News Poll about abortion and lately, most of them yield similar results. I'm posting it not to get into an argument about the procedure or the morality or who controls whose bodies or When Life Begins or any of that. I just want to wonder aloud about something.  59% of respondents think abortion should be available all or most of the time and an additional 32% say it should be available for certain situations.

Given what laws are being passed in this country and which ones are being promised or proposed to stop abortions, aren't you amazed that the percentage of people who want it banned everywhere is in single digits?  That 7% seems to be commanding around 77% of the news coverage and just about the entire Republican party.  I see people on my TV all the time talking about abortion and the ones who are against it always seem to want every single bit of it illegal — no exceptions for any reason. They're even going after things like in vitro fertilization because it seems to have a vague connection to abortion. (You get the feeling the people who wanted to ban it didn't really know what it was or how it works?)

It's like that with too many debates on television…and extreme views may make for Good Television but I think they warp the real debates.  When John Oliver started Last Week Tonight several years ago, one of his first segments made this point about the debates over Climate Change.  I thought this was brilliant.  Go ahead.  Watch it.  It's only four and a half minutes…

Mr. Oliver could recycle that same script making it about almost any issue of the day that anyone is prone to shout about. Too many of them are presented as if the matter is 50/50 when it's not. The abortion issue certainly isn't.

Bob Beerbohm, R.I.P.

Photo by Bruce Guthrie

This is, sadly, an obit for Bob Beerbohm, who was an important player in the rise of underground comix, comic book shops and conventions. In fact, he was a fixture at San Diego conventions long before they were called Comic-Con Internationals. For the last decade or three, he had been obsessive about researching the history of comics and comic shops and writing an exhaustive history of both.

Bob was 71 years old and the cause of death was cancer…one of many problems he'd been battling for years. Every time we spoke, he ticked off a long, long list of ailments so I don't think any of his friends are shocked by the news…saddened but not shocked.

Bob and I were friends though I did not endorse all of his writings on comic book history and in fact disagreed with a lot of it. Some of you on Facebook forums witnessed some of our back-and-forth and I may write about it here in the future…or I may not.

Right now, I just want to remember the guy as someone who was very passionate about comic books and the people who create them…and who was, like I said, very important in fandom and the marketplace. Despite our occasional disagreements, I have definitely lost a good friend and so has our field.

Today's Video Link

Back in 1985 or so, my pal Mike Peters — the Pulitzer-winning editorial cartoonist who is also behind the comic strip, Mother Goose & Grimm — hosted a PBS series called The World of Cartooning with Mike Peters. On it, he interviewed great cartoonists like…well, here's Part 1 of a two-part interview with Chuck Jones. You'll get Part 2 here tomorrow…

Soup Redux

Among the many disparate topics we've covered on this blog is — or rather was a chain of soup/salad buffets called, in some climes, Souplantation. In other cities, they were called Sweet Tomatoes and by either name, they were places where you could stuff yourself with soup, salad, baked potatoes, baked goods and a limited selection of desserts. I liked them a lot and was sad when the chain folded, an early casualty of The Pandemic in 2020.

As we noted here, someone recently announced a clone opening in Tucson. And now — much closer, in Rancho Cucamonga, California — another clone has opened. It's called Soup 'n Fresh, it's in a building that used to be a Souplantation and no, I haven't been there. With my busted ankle still healing, I ain't been much of anywhere and besides, Rancho Cucamonga is 54 miles from where I live. But this review says the place is pretty good and that it has long lines…so I have a hunch someone will open more of them.

Then again, I thought that about Love's Barbecue restaurants after they closed the last one in 2017 and I'm still waiting.

Bad Guys In Our Lives

Near the end of the first Die Hard movie  SPOILER ALERT! , the evil Hans Gruber — played in a reptilian manner by Alan Rickman — is dropped backwards off a high-up story of the Nakatomi Plaza to certain death. It's one of the more satisfying ways of disposing of the Bad Guy in any movie I've ever seen. The audience in the theater when I saw it couldn't have been happier. After hours of hating that loathsome, murdering asshole, he was finally being killed in a spectacular manner. In slow-motion, no less.

I suspect some of them ran out and bought the DVD just so they could replay that moment over and over and over. It's one of the reasons we go to that kind of movie. We all have Bad Guys in our lives and while they're often punished or even somehow eradicated, it usually isn't in such a total and gratifying moment.

In my lifetime (72 years plus change), I have often — not always — seen my Bad Guys eliminated or punished or even in at least one instance, killed…but it's never as immediate or simple or even as satisfying as seeing Alan Rickman realizing his plan has been foiled and he's plunging to his death. If you're expecting a Bad Guy of yours to meet a similar fate in the real world, you'll probably be disappointed. Some of my Bad Guys took a long time to plunge and probably never realized what they'd done and how they were paying for it. But they did go away. I have had to learn to be content with that.

In case you're wondering about my Bad Guy who got killed: He was a roofer who worked on my house a few decades back, charged me a lot of money and ultimately did more damage than repairs. He refused to correct his destruction, leaving me no recourse but to sue him…but it turned out that wasn't an option either. My lawyer reported back that I'd have to wait at the end of a very long line of other clients who were suing this Very Bad Guy.

And even the folks in that line never got a nickel out of him. One night, that roofer got drunk, tried to kill his wife and the police shot and killed him. I was not there to see it. I hope that if I had been, I would not have enjoyed the moment because I wouldn't want to be the kind of person who would have enjoyed that moment.

But like you, there are people around — mostly in public life but a few in private — who I'd just like to see disappear. I don't long to see them shot or injured or even dropped backwards off the Nakatomi Plaza because that's barbaric and anyway, that's probably not going to happen. But I think there's a good chance of them going away and no longer doing whatever damage I think they do to the world and the people in it or maybe just me. I'll be satisfied with that.

Today's Video Link

The Legal Eagle explains all about Trump's problems with bonds and payments and deadlines and all that jazz…

Today's Political Comment

If Donald Trump is successful at selling Bibles, I'm going to try selling all the books that I've never read.

ASK me: All Sorts of Things

A reader of this site, Karl Williams, sent me a whole bunch of questions for this "ASK me" feature. They're good questions but not the kind I'd build a whole long post around so I've decided to answer them in bulk here. The next voice you hear will be that of Mr. Williams…

You used to host wonderful Golden Age Panels at Comic-Con. I understand why you can't do them anymore because so few people are still alive who did comics in the forties and most of them won't make the trip. But if you could assemble one last Golden Age Panel with ghosts, who would you have on it?

Jerry Siegel, Jerry Robinson, Bill Finger, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby and Will Eisner.

Is there any Golden Age writer or artist who's alive who you never got to interview and you'd still want to?

Yes. Jules Feiffer.

Leaving aside Jack Kirby, who do you think was the most talented artist to ever work in comic books?

Oh, I can't answer that. It's especially hard because I have as much respect for the artists who drew funny animal comics as I have for the ones who drew adventures and super-heroes and how do you compare what Wallace Wood and Neal Adams did to what Carl Barks and Harvey Eisenberg did? (A pet peeve of mine is when someone makes up one of those lists like "The 50 Greatest Comic Book Artists of All Time" and you can tell the listmaker knows most of the hundreds and hundreds of super-hero artists and about three of the ones who did funny comics.

Since I'm evading your question, I'll make up for it with a story that I may have told here before. This was at some Comic-Con in the eighties, I think. I had lunch with a wonderful artist and a bit later, I was walking through the main hall and I came upon a gathering of about eight of the "hottest" artists then working in comics — the kind of guys who'd make most Ten Best lists. Felling impish or maybe just curious as to what their reaction would be, I said, "Well, I just had lunch with the best artist at this convention."

They all glared at me with defiant looks and challenged me to tell that person's name. I fearlessly said "Mort Drucker" and there was dead silence for about four seconds as they thought it over…then they all agreed.

Who to you is "the" Superman artist?

There's something about the work of Joe Shuster and his many ghosts/assistants that I find unequaled by those who followed. It isn't that they drew a great Superman so much as that they drew him in a world where I found it easiest to accept that Superman existed.

That was in the forties, of course. In the fifties and sixties, I loved the work of Curt Swan and Wayne Boring. I know a lot of people — especially those who came to Superman after Boring was gone — don't like his version but I have to admit that most of my favorite Superman stories of those decades were drawn by Boring and he handled drama better. Then again, I thought Swan drew better pin-ups and covers of the character. And later on, I really liked what Ross Andru did, especially when not being inked by Mike Esposito. There were a few others.

Favorite Jack Kirby inker?

IMHO: By far, the best artist who ever inked Jack Kirby was Jack Kirby…though if I was his editor, I think I'd rather have him pencil two or three comics a month instead of penciling and inking one or two. I also think Neal Adams was the best inker for Neal Adams, John Buscema was the best inker for John Buscema, etc. There are a few exceptions to that but not many. But if Jack didn't ink Jack, my five favorites were — in alphabetical order — Bill Everett, Frank Giacoia, Mike Royer, Joe Simon and Joe Sinnott.

Karl sent me a lot more of these questions and I'll get to them at some future time. In the meantime, here's this little box…

ASK me

Today's Video Link

You're probably watching The Daily Show at least on Monday nights when Jon Stewart hosts. But just in case…

Today's Video Link

I admire the guts of whatever guy at the advertising agency thought this would be a good way to sell 7-Up…

Today's Political Comments

John Oliver made his offer to Clarence Thomas — quit the Supreme Court and get a luxury motorhome plus a million bucks a year for life — on the telecast of Last Week Tonight on February 18. The offer was good for 30 days so time's up and I would imagine when Mr. Oliver does his next show this Sunday, he will have something to say about that.

I'm not bothered by Trump getting off the hook for that $454 million bond he can't post. The fine in this case was probably going to be reduced on appeal anyway and now that he has ten days to post a $175 million bond instead…well, that's not exactly pocket change. If and/or when he loses his appeal, he'll probably have to come up with some amount between those two numbers…and as Kevin T. Dugan notes, Donald still has money problems aplenty.

Jonathan Chait has an interesting article about the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The program is succeeding in almost every regard and all the predictions of doom and destruction it would cause have turned out to be — surprise, surprise! — dead wrong. Chait says that the G.O.P. still wants to nuke it, if only because it was a "win" for Democrats but they don't want to run on that. They want to talk as little as possible about what they might do about it. You know what that means.

The Street of Disappointment

One mistake tourists make when they come to Hollywood is thinking there's a Hollywood that one can go visit. There's a big sign on a hill. There are studio tours and TV tapings. There are many great sightseeing opportunities not actually in any area that can be described as "Hollywood." But if you get in a cab and tell the driver "Take us to Hollywood," God knows where he's going to let you off.

You might find yourself on Hollywood Boulevard, which has about as much to do with the place that makes movies and TV shows as Sunset Boulevard has to do with the sun going down. You can go to the Chinese Theater and see which stars of the past had the same size feet you do. You can walk down said Boulevard and see a lot of their names embedded in the Terrazzo. You can even pay to have your photo taken with an unauthorized Spider-Man in a homemade costume that doesn't get his boots right.

(A year or three ago when I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard, reading the stars' names in the pavement. I decided for no particular reason to take a photo of the name of the first star I came across who I'd worked with. It didn't take long to find one and take this picture…)

It is truly The Street of Disappointments. Big ones. It's also sometimes dangerous. You might get swindled by a conman, mugged by a thug or — worst of all — accosted by someone who works for Jimmy Kimmel who'll drag you into a bit where you can't help but come across like Gomer Pyle.

I've been around that street for much of my life. There used to be great bookstores there for the comic book collector. There used to be a lot of great restaurants there instead of just The Musso and Frank Grill. There used to be parking spaces.

And I think in all my years, I've only had one real incident of seeing "stars" outside of Musso's. I told it back in this post and now that I review it, I see that I accidentally left out the punch line. Here's what I said then…

One of my favorite "star-spotting" memories occurred not far from the Musso & Frank Grill. Across the street and down a bit is the Hollywood Magic Shop, which like most magic shops caters to a lot of amateurs and beginners. But it also serves many celebs and seasoned professionals, and one day in the seventies when I was walking by, I spotted two men standing out front — Orson Welles and Carl "The Amazing" Ballantine. Carl was heckling tourists who walked by and Orson was roaring with laughter at everything Carl said, which is still not an uncommon response around Ballantine. I stood there for maybe ten minutes, taking in the show until a huge convertible pulled up at the curb and Welles, with great effort, went over and got in. Years later, when I became friends with Carl, I reminded him of that day and thanked him for that moment. It was one of the rare times Hollywood Boulevard was ever as colorful as we all wish Hollywood Boulevard was.

And here's the punch line which a professional writer of comedy would have thought to include: After Welles departed, Carl started to walk off, then turned and announced to me, "My next show is at three o'clock!"

So you get what I'm aiming at here: That street is a pretty crummy place to be that famous and I don't think anyone disagrees. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and other such agencies agree so much that they've been drawing up plans to refurbish long stretches of it and so far, all the announced proposals or plans or whatever they are sound terrible to me. Most include narrowing (yes, narrowing) one of the slowest-moving streets in town so they can widen the sidewalks to encourage more pedestrian traffic and more restaurants with sidewalk dining.

In so doing, they will eliminate an awful lot of parking spaces, thereby breaking an immutable rule of Los Angeles: People here never go anywhere it's difficult to park. It's an obvious reason for many businesses failing.

And nothing in the proposals I've seen does much to make the Boulevard either safer or more interesting. I'd suggest they start the renovations with three things: More off-street parking lots and structures, a friendly police presence and having Disney build some Carl Ballantine animatronics to heckle passing tourists. That's about what it would take to get me up there to do more than dine at Musso's.

Today's Video Link

Here's a "Tiny Desk" concert of four songs from the Broadway show, Wicked. Stephen Schwartz (who wrote the songs) is at the piano. The two vocalists are Alyssa Fox and McKenzie Kurtz — two of the 43,046 actresses who've played Elphaba and/or Glinda since this show opened in New York on October 30, 2003. So far, it's had about 7,890 performances at the Gershwin Theater in New York. This is a lot…

ASK me: Ditko, Disney Legend

Recently, the Disney organization announced this year's roster of "Disney Legend" inductees. They are, in no particular order: Kelly Ripa, Angela Bassett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Miley Cyrus, Martha Blanding, James L. Brooks, James Cameron, Harrison Ford, Mark Henn, Frank Oz, Joe Rohde, John Williams…and Steve Ditko. More than a few folks have written to ask me…

A lot of people seem to feel it's inappropriate for Steve Ditko to be named a Disney Legend. How do you feel about it?

I kinda feel if it makes his family happy — and I'm hearing it does — fine with me. True, he doesn't seem to have ever worked for Disney but that does not seem to be part of the criteria to be designated as a Disney Legend. You just have to have played a major role in something that made the corporation a lot of money or will. If them's the rules, he's qualified.

Would the notoriously fan-shy artist have welcomed the honor? Probably not. He probably would not even have liked people printing and circulating the few photos of him that are around but his most devoted fans ignore that. (I saw one of them on Facebook say that the Disney honor is wrong because Ditko always shunned awards. I have a hunch the person who said this expressed no displeasure when Mr. Ditko was named to The Hall of Fame and would have been outraged if the artist had been snubbed.)

Yes, Ditko shunned awards and interviews and after he attended one of the first comic book conventions, comic book conventions. He also was upset to the point of actually speaking out — well, writing a few angry letters — when his role as co-creator of Spider-Man was denied or ignored. I'm not pretending to be able to speak for him but since the Disney organization will probably own and exploit the hell outta Spider-Man and Dr. Strange for all eternity, it might help keep Ditko's name attached that they've now formally recognized his contribution.

ASK me

It's Finger Time Again!

Yes, it's that time of the year again — the time when I, on behalf of the blue ribbon committee that has no blue rubbons, solicit nominations for the annual Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. We will select someone who is alive for the honor and there will also be a posthumous award…and if it goes as it usually does, someone who doesn't know what the word means will suggest someone who is very much alive should receive the posthumous award.

(A Tip: If you have a good candidate for the posthumous award, try and suggest someone who would be an appropriate person to come pick it up — a relative, a co-worker, someone.)

All past nominations will be considered so if you nominated someone in the past, you need not submit them again. Basically, we're asking if any new names have occurred to you.

This is an award for a body of work as a comic book writer…someone who is or was unrecognized and/or unrewarded for that body of work. It is not for your favorite artist. It is not for someone who wrote a few stories. It is not for someone whose talents have been honored over and over and who got very, very rich and/or famous writing comics.

It is also not for anyone who has received this award in the past. The full list of such people can be read over on this page.

Here's the address for nominations. They will be accepted until April 15 at which time all reasonable suggestions will be placed before the committee and we'll make our decisions. They'll be announced before this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego and the awards will be presented then and there. That is all.