Mark Evanier's Blog, page 239

Working for Scale

Local artist Keiran Wright makes some lovely miniature versions of notable buildings in Los Angeles.  Take a look.

Late Farewell

James Corden does his final Late, Late Show this Friday. It was a program I rarely TiVoed even though I enjoyed most of the segments of it I watched on YouTube. I also liked Corden in other things…like hosting The Tony Awards. He just tended to interview (and usually, fawn over) people I didn't care much about. I also may have simply watched too many late night talk/comedy programs…enough to break a long-time addiction.

I watch Fallon when he has on a guest I especially like, which happens around twice a year. Same with Colbert, though that's more like two or three times a month. Actually, I TiVo his Late Show but don't watch many of them. I do catch his opening monologue when The Events of the Day seem to lend themselves to a flood of topical jokes. That's happened a lot lately. I also like Seth Meyers' "A Closer Look" segments, which I think feature some of the sharpest political humor ever done on television.

Jimmy Kimmel…I don't know what I think of that guy. I like a lot of his monologues but I can't stand any bits that involve stopping people on the street and putting them on camera. I didn't like 'em when Letterman did those. I didn't like 'em when Leno did those. I never liked hidden camera shows either. They always seem to flow from someone saying, "Hey, let's come up with an idea where random people can't help but look uncomfortable or stupid!"

Getting back to Corden — who also did some of that — I thought a lot of his comedy bits were quite brilliant, though I guess I'm glad to see the end of his Crosswalk Musicals. You may have found them amusing but you weren't, like me, stuck in traffic jams at least twice because of them. In Los Angeles, there's almost nothing you're not allowed to do to the general public if you're filming or recording a TV show or movie. Here's a link to Mr. Corden's last Crosswalk Musical. He also will no longer be driving past my home doing Carpool Karaoke.

CBS is not replacing him with another talk show. I think it's about time the networks experimented with other kinds of shows in those time slots. If they do try another talk show there, I have a suggestion: Do it absolutely live to the East Coast, vow not to edit for other time zones and don't rehearse bits in advance or write lines that are supposed to sound ad-libbed. Of course, that would mean finding a host who can do that and is brave enough to try.

Just before he was signed to host The Late, Late Show for CBS, Mr. Corden was reportedly about to star in a new Broadway revival of my favorite musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I haven't heard what plans he has for the future but I hope that's somewhere in them. I think he'd be quite wonderful in it. He's gotten a lot of bad press lately that suggests he's not as nice off-camera as he is on. I hope that's not true because I think he's a very talented guy.

Border Crossings – Part 2

Three different people have written to ask me who drew those panels from Gold Key Comics that I reprinted in the first part of this series.  I'm not sure of the inkers but the Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck comic was drawn by a gent named John Langton, who did a number of these for Western Publishing. His work was also seen for years in the New York Daily News and also in Cracked magazine among other outlets..

The panel with Bugs Bunny and the Tasmanian Devil was drawn by Tom McKimson, whose family gave the world three top cartoonists….and hearing about that family may be of interest to some of you.  In addition to Tom, there was Robert and Charles.  All three worked at times for the Warner Bros. cartoon studio and Robert was of its major directors, supervising a lot of Bugs Bunny cartoons as well as films with Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn and others.

Tom worked for Disney and Harman-Ising before settling in at the WB cartoon operation, working mostly on Bob Clampett cartoons and later in Bob McKimson's unit.  Tom designed some very significant model sheets for popular characters like Bugs and Tweety before moving over to Western Publishing Company.  Here's one of his, which you can make larger by clicking on it.  Note the signature of "Tom"…

For Western, he drew and/or art-directed a lot of their comic books printed under the Dell and later the Gold Key logo, and to also work on coloring books, activity books, puzzle books and other things Western produced.  For a long time, he was the artist on the syndicated Bugs Bunny newspaper strip.

Charles McKimson went to work for Warner Brothers cartoons in 1937, mainly in Tex Avery's unit.  Then he went off to fight in World War II, then returned and joined brother Robert's unit until 1954 when the studio was closed down.  It didn't stay closed for long but by the time it reopened, Charles had also gone to work for Western as an Art Director.  And Robert wasn't above occasionally moonlighting for Western on activity books and books for kids.

A few years ago, someone wrote asking me about Al McKimson, who drew a Roy Rogers newspaper strip for a while.  There was no Al McKimson.  That was the joint pseudonym of Tom McKimson, Charles McKimson and one of Western's most prolific cartoonists, Pete Alvarado. And there you have most of what you need to know about The Brothers McKimson. Much of this will become very relevant in future installments in this series.

Today's Video Link

This is from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 9/14/1976. Johnny devotes fifteen minutes of the show to Jim Henson and the Muppets, who are there promoting The Muppet Show, which had recently debuted in syndication. Those of you who love The Muppets like I love the Muppets will have a very good fifteen minutes…

ASK me: Will the WGA Strike?

I've gotten this question a lot in the last week: Will the Writers Guild go on strike when its contract expires on May 1? Here's the best answer I can give you at this time…

A strike has long seemed probable. It became a tad less probable when the membership voted 97.85% to authorize the union leadership to call a strike. That is an amazingly high number when you consider that that voting membership includes a lot of producers, directors, performers and other folks who may view their writing work as of secondary (or lower) importance.

The high figure is important because the studios with which we negotiate need to assess the Guild's resolve and ask themselves how many members will say no to a lowball deal. How many are willing to walk picket lines and do without income for an unknown period to secure a better deal? 97.85% indicates a lot of resolve and strength.

Still, a strike seems probable but it doesn't have to happen on May 1. If the two sides are making meaningful progress towards a deal, it is possible to delay a walkout. You call a strike when you're at an impasse.

I am hearing nothing from inside the negotiations. That is not always a bad sign but the stakes are very high and we're dealing with the kinds of issues where a gain for writers can and will naturally lead to gains for directors, actors and folks in certain other categories.

If I had to bet, I'd bet there will be a strike. How long will it be? That will depend on when the studios get their act together and offer us better terms. The longer strikes are usually a result of those studios, which have a rule of unanimity struggling to become unanimous on a better proposal. These two want to play hardball… those three want to settle…one insists on holding out for something that the other studios don't care much about…and so forth. The 1988 strike lasted 153 days and most of those 153 days were spent waiting for the studios to agree among themselves on what to offer us.

That's all I can tell you right now. If you hear anything, let me know.

Harry Belafonte, R.I.P.

When I was a kid, my parents had this record album and played it often — maybe not as often as the Broadway cast album of My Fair Lady but pretty close. Harry Belafonte may have been the first entertainer who didn't target a kids audience whose name I knew. And one night when I may have been about eight or nine, they took me to see him perform out at the old Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

I liked his songs. I liked him. Later on, when I saw how active he was in the Civil Rights movement, I liked him even more. A great entertainer and a great human being — two compliments that cannot always be applied to the same person.

Inn Trouble?

The hotel reservations page for Comic-Con International this year is open at this link.  At the moment, I think the hotels are all listed as "unavailable" but I have seen new availability suddenly appear on such a page from time to time so if you need a room, keep an eye on that page.

Tuesday Morning

An awful lot of the Internet the past twenty-four hours has been full of speculation about why the Fox News Channel decided to do without the services of Mr. Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson going forward. There's certainly no shortage of possible reasons being bandied about and this might be a good place for me to restate a position of mine: That in cases like this, we never get the whole story. We may get a story and it may be true as far as it goes but it will not be the whole story.

I have been a witness to a few dozen matters in the TV business — and also in comic books and a few other fields — where Management (in some form) makes a big, planet-shaking decision and everyone asks "Why?" The real, full answer is usually something like "Well, there were about nine reasons" with one functioning as The Last Straw or maybe as the excuse to pull the trigger.

Example: A friend of mine was fired from a very good job because of alleged "sexual improprieties." And "alleged" may not be quite the correct word because what he did was not in dispute. What was arguable was whether what he did rose to the level where dismissal was warranted.  Not being present for the offenses, I am unqualified to make such a judgement.

But I'm pretty certain that, while the sex stuff was the stated reason and possibly a valid one, the bigger picture encompassed a lot of prior misdemeanors unrelated to the charges of sexual misconduct. They kinda wanted to get rid of him and he finally gave them a more solid reason. (And by the way: Don't assume you can guess who I'm talking about here. Sadly, I have a couple of acquaintances who have been dismissed for transgressions in this category.)

Human Beings who ask "Why?" usually want and are satisfied by a very simple one-sentence reason…but it may not be the only reason. And you may never hear about all the others.

Those extrapolating about the decision to oust Carlson are trying to piece together that sentence given what they know…but they may not know everything. Many, many years ago I took a college course in Criminology and its instructor was always ticking off reminders that solving a crime in real life was not like Perry Mason or Miss Jane Marple solving a crime in one of their novels. In a book, the author makes sure you have all the clues necessary to lead you to the right answer. In real life, you may not.

For all we know, Rupert Murdoch or whoever made the decision to cut Tucker loose might know about some pending scandal that hasn't gone public yet…and might not. Or Ol' Rupert might have gotten a call from some major, spends-a-fortune advertiser on Fox saying, "Get rid of that bastard!" Or you and I could sit here all day making up all sorts of possible scenarios. Hey, maybe they found out that Tucker is quietly undergoing gender transformation and they feared outrage among Fox target viewers not unlike the recent Bud Light mess.

And it might have to do with the leaked e-mails and it might have to do with Carlson's "January 6 was just a big Mardi Gras" broadcasts. The timing suggests it had a lot to do with the Dominion settlement — and maybe it did — or the upcoming Smartmatic lawsuit. Or advertisers fleeing. Or Abby Grossberg's lawsuit against the network. Or something Carlson said to Murdoch. Or none of these or all of these. Like I said, there are plenty of possible factors involved.

This post is not really about Tucker Carlson. I don't really care much about the guy, just as I probably won't care much about whoever will take his time slot and tell Fox News viewers, night after night, that they need to be very, very afraid of immigrants and black people and Liberals and rich people being audited by the I.R.S. and "woke" candy but not of COVID or climate change or Donald Trump or Putin or whatever. I'll bet whoever it is will do just as well in the ratings…and that Rupert Murdoch and his lieutenants believe that and it's among the many reasons for Mr. Carlson's sudden ouster.

Or maybe they just realized he was a dick.

Border Crossings – Part 1

Here's something I've never seen discussed in print about comic books or heard mentioned at conventions.  Perhaps it has and I've missed it.  Before I bring it up here, let's clarify some terms.  A single, usually-rectangular image on a comic book page that contains a moment in the story is called a panel and the line which goes around the panel is called a panel border.  The words like "Later…" or "Meanwhile…" that denote a passage of time, a change of location or some information not conveyed through the drawing or dialogue are called captions.  The dialogue is in a container that is called a word balloon.  And the space between the panels or between the panels and the edge of the page is called the gutter.

Everyone got the terminology straight?  Okay, let's proceed…

There is a theory that has been occasionally followed in comics that word balloons should not touch panel orders; that the balloon should be floated away from them so that color can surround the balloon and you don't have the white of the word balloon meeting the white of the gutters.  This makes for better coloring because the colorist isn't always dealing with this big blob of white that is found in almost every panel.

Floating word balloons away from panel borders is sometimes easier if the word balloons are rectangular — or rectangular with rounded corners — as in this panel from a Yosemite Sam comic book published by Gold Key in the mid-seventies…

See? The word balloons do not touch the panel borders as they do in a panel like this from a Bugs Bunny comic book published around the same time…

I think the second works better than the first. The lettering in the first is more intrusive and it's also too large. Also, the idea of balloons not touching panels was to enable the white of the word balloon to be surrounded by color and the colorist of this first panel didn't do that.  Furthermore, I think the non-rectangular balloons in the second example just feel more organic. (Full Disclosure: The Bugs Bunny panel is from a story I wrote but I had nothing to do with the lettering or its placement or any of the issues discussed in this article.)

Now, some of you might be wondering why one Gold Key comic book based on characters from Warner Brothers cartoons had a rule against word balloons touching panel border while another, concurrent Gold Key comic book based on characters from Warner Brothers cartoons didn't. Well, let me amend that: If you're like me, fascinated by all the minutiae of comic book creation and production, you might be wondering. If you're not, skip all the subsequent articles in what will be a series of posts here over the next week or so.

But there is a reason. Lately, there seems to be an increased interest in Gold Key Comics among the kind of folks who are interested in comic book history. At least, I'm getting more questions about that company for which I once worked. I will be telling a few little stories about that line of comics and Part Two will be along in a day or two…or three.  Whenever I get to it.  And we'll further discuss word balloons touching panel borders.

Today's Video Link

Devin "Legal Eagle" Stone breaks down the Fox News/Dominion Voting Machines settlement…