Mark Evanier's Blog, page 228

Letters, We Get Letters…

I get an awful lot of e-mail from alleged women who want to have sex with me even though they've never seen me and do not live on the same continent. My feeling is that if you are soliciting sexual partners in another country, maybe you aren't among the best-looking individuals in yours. And if I were more cynical, I'd think it was just some predator, male or female, trying to get my attention so they could try various lines to get money out of me, just in case I was really, really desperate and really, really stupid.

For some reason, I'm also now getting messages from country clubs on other continents…like today, I have one here trying to sell me a membership in the Huntswood Golf Club located in Taplow, England. For only £12 per week (marked down from £20) I can become a member and enjoy, among other amenities, my 30 second full screen advert played every 20 minutes on the club's in-house televisions, my banner advert displayed on the club website, full use of the club facilities plus lessons "with the PGA Professional" and many, many complimentary golf balls for me or my clients.

It's a helluva deal and if I played golf and the club wasn't 5,418 miles from me, I might consider it.

Seriously: I get why the folks sending out the sex solicitations don't care about geography but when I get invites to concerts in Connecticut, festivals in Brazil or country clubs in Taplow, I wonder: Isn't there an easy way of filtering a mailing list to not send ads to folks who are more than, say, a thousand miles away?

And I've started getting mailings again from the Trump organization (or what purports to be the Trump organization) trying to get me to donate to stop the witch hunt that's trying to send Donald J. to prison and all of America into total ruin. Couldn't they have some way to filter out those of us who have I.Q.s higher than the freezing point of water? Because frankly, there's more chance of me sending all my money to "Helga" in Sweden or signing up for lifetime membership in that golf club than there is of Mr. "They're my boxes" getting a dime outta me.

Comic-Con News

We are 33 days from the opening of this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. Yes, I know you can't believe it because you just got back from last year's Comic-Con International in San Diego and haven't even unpacked yet but it's true. I have a calendar that proves it.

I will be hosting or appearing on 13 panels this year. None of them will have my partner Sergio Aragonés because he is not attending the convention this time around. He's in fine health. He just isn't attending the convention.

I cannot help you if you're searching desperately for lodging during the convention but perhaps this page can be of assistance.

I cannot help you if you're searching desperately for badges for the convention but if you're willing to shell out Big Bucks, there are these auctions on eBay. They are legit but they will be over soon so don't dawdle.

The San Diego Convention Center is located on Harbor Drive in that town. This year, as they have done with the last few cons, the city will be closing Harbor Drive between First Avenue and Park Boulevard during convention hours and for a few hours before and after each day. If you have purchased parking at the convention center — or I guess if you're driving an ambulance with the siren blaring and someone bleeding in the back — you can get in but otherwise, no cars, bikes, scooters, skateboards, etc.

I suppose this is a wise idea but last year, it made it very tough for my lady friend and myself to get from our hotel to the Bayfront Hilton where I was a presenter for the Eisner Awards. We took an Uber and even with the driver's GPS and me consulting Waze on my phone, we could not figure out a route from Point A to Point B. I even suggested he drive us to the airport on the assumption that once you were there, a GPS had to be able to find a path between the airport and a Hilton.

We didn't try that but we should have. As it was, the best our driver could do was drop us off almost (it felt) as far from the Bayfront Hilton as I am now, sitting in my home in Los Angeles. Ubering back was easy later since they reopened Harbor Drive after 10 PM. But getting there was such a long walk that I was considering turning back to our hotel and presenting the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing to one of the parking valets there. Don't laugh. It would have been cheaper than tipping.

Today's Video Link

I really like Jon Stewart's show, The Problem with Jon Stewart, which runs on Apple TV. I think it alone is worth the price of Apple TV. Here's a a video they threw together to try and snag an Emmy or two…

Today's Video Link

Back in the Fall of 1969 — back when there were three TV networks and they had actual seasons — 23 TV shows made their debut. Some lasted a while, some didn't. But here's a look at all 23 shows and I think there were some pretty interesting offerings that year…

Thursday Morning

Another busy day for Mark…maybe not a lot of posting. And I seem to be doing a very poor job of not paying attention to the man who was our 45th president and is looking like he'll be the first to do hard time.

I keep seeing articles wondering why, in spite of so many folks advising him to return the classified documents, he insisted on keeping them. I don't see this as hard to figure out. He felt they would represent in some way future power and/or money…and he didn't have to have a specific plan as to how either of those goals might happen. Why is that not the answer?

I was talking with my pal Shelly Goldstein the other day and I think I was the one who made this point: Back when it turned out that Bill Clinton had actually had the rumored affair and said what he said about it in a deposition, a lot of us who thought he was a good president were deeply disappointed in the man. We didn't say this to pollsters but to each other, we said things like, "Gee, I thought he was smarter than that." You can fault someone for their moral transgressions and also fault them for the poor judgement they showed by making those transgressions when (a) there was a strong possibility they'd be caught and (b) they'd be letting down an awful lot of people who supported them.

What Clinton did was way, way less of a crime than what Trump's being charged with but I've got to think that Donald's supporters — the ones who really, really, really want to see him back in office — are feeling the same way. They want to slap the guy and scream, "How could you let us down like that!!!?" They won't tell pollsters that either. Most of 'em will cling to the idea that he's being railroaded, witch-hunted, personally prosecuted by the evil mastermind/senile Joe Biden, etc. But deep down, no matter what else they feel about Their President, they've got to think he was really, really, really stupid to let it come to this.

Today's Video Link

I mentioned W.C. Fields here the other day.  Here's a nice little 11-minute overview of the man and his career.  I often found him to be very, very funny…

Go Read It! (Maybe)

If you're not sick of reading different "takes" on Donald Trump — and at times, I sure am — you might think that Matthew Yglesias makes some good points in this article.

I Was Real Busy Yesterday…

…so I didn't watch much of the news coverage of Trump's arraignment at the federal courthouse in Miami. I guess I figured I could miss this one because there'll be a couple more before long.

What I guess I find fascinating about this story is how unsupported "his side" of the story is, yet he knows that a certain not-small number of his fans will not only gobble it down but donate money because of it. You have all these legal authorities saying The Indictment is a long, detailed, open-and-shut case. You have his former Attorney General saying "he's toast" and his former national security adviser saying of The Indictment, "This really is a rifle shot and I think it should be the end of Donald Trump's political career."

And after the arraignment, he goes and gives this speech about why he's innocent and how the Presidential Records Acts says he had every right to take the documents at issue…and it doesn't. Here's a fact check by CNN. Here's a fact check by Politifact. Here's a fact check by USA Today. Here's a fact check by The New York Times. Here's a fact check by Factcheck.Org.

There are others around and they all say pretty much the same thing.  You have to assume what he's saying now is something he believes will resound with his supporters and bring in more donations, and that when it comes time to go to court, he and his lawyers (whoever they are at that moment) will have something better.  I'm real curious as to what that could be.

John Romita Sr., R.I.P.

Photo by me

One of the all-time great comic artists, John Romita, has died at the age of 93. The son of a banker, he grew up in Brooklyn and broke into the comic book field in 1949, working primarily for the company now known as Marvel. Heavily influenced by Milton Caniff and a half-dozen other artists, he drew westerns and war comics and romance comics and a brief revival of Captain America. In 1958 when the company underwent major cutbacks, Romita landed at DC Comics where he drew almost exclusively for their romance comics, often rendering the covers and lead stories.

A quarrel there with one of the editors there sent him back to Marvel in 1965. After all those years of love comics, "Jazzy Johnny" (as Stan Lee would eventually dub him) feared he could not capture the new dynamic style at the company best formed in the work of another of his idols, Jack Kirby. Romita asked to just ink other artists for a while until he caught on…and he did for one issue of The Avengers. But the resignation of Wally Wood had left Daredevil with no artist and Stan persuaded John to take a crack at drawing the comic.

At first, he needed layouts by Kirby but he quickly caught on…and the following year when Steve Ditko departed Spider-Man, Romita was the obvious (and really only) choice to succeed him. Even John himself was skeptical he could fill those shoes but he soon was doing it so well that many came to see him as the guy who drew Spider-Man "the best." Working in the Marvel office, as opposed to at home like most artists, Romita became a valuable staff member, designing covers, correcting the work of others and eventually becoming Art Director. His influence was all over the artwork in Marvel books in the late sixties and for several decades thereafter.

I loved the guy's work and he had just about as many fans as anyone drawing comics in those days. He was also a very nice man and a great encourager of new talent. Tonight, we send our condolences to his family — including artist John Romita, Junior who sure learned a lot from his father — to the man Jack Kirby called him "The man who saved Spider-Man."

Today's Video Link

"Legal Eagle" Devin Stone goes through the Trump indictment for us. There are about eighty videos online where alleged legal authorities do this for us and at least as many articles. Still, I like the way Mr. Stone explains things and he does make a few points I hadn't heard in the two or three other explainers I read or heard.

But really all you need to know is that the indictment is very detailed and full of testimony from Trump, his aides and lawyers that builds a strong case against him. And you already know that but if you want to hear it from Counselor Stone, here he is. Or you can wait for the inevitable Randy Rainbow video which will say much the same thing but set to the melody of a great show tune…