Mark Evanier's Blog, page 61

Today's Video Link

And here's another video about Jerry Herman…

Turning for a sec to those who come to this blog to learn more about how comic books are created: A commonly-held but erroneous assumption by some is that a comic book story is the work of five separate people — six if you count the editor. There's the person who writes it, the person who pencils the artwork, the person who letters the artwork, the person who inks the artwork and the person who colors the artwork. The sequence in which those five actions are done may vary but a lot of folks think there are five distinguishable stops on the assembly line…and sometimes, that's true.

But there are sometimes folks who merge several of those functions. In any of these Jerry Herman docs, you'll hear him talk about creating the words and music of a song as a single act of creativity. He didn't do one and then the other…and neither did Stephen Sondheim or Irving Berlin or a lot of other great composers. Jack Kirby, when he wrote and penciled a comic didn't do one and then the other. I doubt Will Eisner did or Charles Schulz did or Russ Manning did. They could separate the two if they wanted to and maybe some did but most writer-artists wear both hats at the same time.

There's nothing wrong with separating writing from drawing just as there was nothing wrong with Lerner and Loewe or Rodgers and Hammerstein dividing the functions up. Alan Lerner couldn't write music and Frederick Loewe couldn't write lyrics. Put them together and you got My Fair Lady. There have been great writer-artist tag teams in comics too. I'll write more about the dynamics of these pairings one of these days.

FACT CHECK: Military Sign-Ups

Donald Trump is continuing to run against Joe Biden. He's now claiming that under Biden, no one wanted to join the military and now people are flocking to do so, all because of Trump. That ain't true and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post has the numbers to prove it.

Today's Video Link

Do you like Jerry Herman music? I do — so I enjoyed this hour of Mr. Herman discussing his career. It includes performances of some of his most acclaimed songs and one of the singers is my pal Jason Graae…

Your Chance to Help a Good Guy

A whole bunch of folks, myself included, grew up on comic books and began writing and/or drawing them in the seventies and eighties. People got into the industry before us, of course, but in those two decades, there was a huge influx of New Talent, some of which offered "new" without much in the "talent" department and some who were good at both. One of the best writers, I thought, was a gent named Mike W. Barr. You may know his work from, among many other books, Camelot 3000, The Maze Agency, Batman and the Outsiders, Batman without the Outsiders, Star Trek and many more.

The last year or two, I'd heard that Mike had some health problems but no one knew — or if they knew, told me — how severe they were. A friend has set up a GoFundMe page for donations because Mike really needs help. If you go to that page and read what he's been through, you'll be horrified. I sure was…so please, if you ever enjoyed a comics book by Mike or even if you didn't, kick in something to help him. Like my subject line says, he's one of the good guys.

FACT CHECK: Everything Pete Hegseth is Saying

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is in a lot of trouble. The sloppy way this nation's war plans were accidentally leaked seem pretty indefensible and the few folks who seem to be defending him are the kind who'd be demanding resignation — if not public execution — if a cabinet official of the opposition party had done what he did. As Steve Benen points out, Hegseth has been denying allegations that the White House has already confirmed. The folks over at The Meidas Touch Network list some other claims by Mr. Hegseth that members of his own party are admitting are true.

As an aside: Almost the first thing out of Trump's mouth when he thought they could bully through their denials of what The Atlantic was reporting was that that magazine was failing and almost out of business. That's one of his favorite attacks when he has nothing substantial to say. Someone should make up a list of all the magazines, news sources and TV shows he said were failing…and which were doing fine when he said that.

Pacific Dining Car, R.I.P.

Los Angeles keeps losing restaurants with a lot of history. The Pacific Dining Car, in business since 1921, burned irrevocably to the ground early the morning of March 20. It was the second or third fire there, depending on which source you believe, since the place closed in 2020 for COVID. The owners were still talking of reopening but now, there's no building on the lot to reopen.

Without evidence, people are suggesting one or more of the fires can be blamed on homeless people who'd been squatting in and around the vacant building. There are a lot of them in that area. I have heard people say the government shouldn't be spending "our" money on those people; that it's their fault they're homeless, they're all on drugs, they won't work, etc.

Even if that's true for some of them — and I would think very few — and even if one doesn't give an f-word about one's fellow human beings, I would think it's just common sense to help the homeless. They can lead to an increase in crime, diseases, fires like this one and all sorts of bad things. If you don't want to help them for their sake, help them for your sake.

The Pacific Dining Car was once a favorite eatery of mine but I hadn't been there in years. I had a very bad experience in one they opened in Santa Monica…the kind of experience that makes you vow never to return. I didn't go back to that one and it soon closed, no doubt because they lost me as an occasional customer. The original one — the one that burned down the other day — remained a wonderful but very expensive place to eat. There are restaurants that seem to assume everyone dining there is on an expense account and doesn't care what the bill is for food and drink. The last time I was there, I was paying and the check should have been printed on the back of an application to take a second mortgage on your house. Just not worth it.

Still, I'm sorry to see it's gone. I'm sorry the Original Pantry is closed too. I'm sorry you can no longer dine at a lot of great places to dine. If they can manage to rebuild the Pacific Dining Car and make it as good as it was, I may just have to take out that second mortgage and go.

Today's Video Link

Jon Stewart this evening. It's all about Donald Trump's concept of the First Amendment: Free speech for me but not for thee…

It's Finger Time Again!

Every year about this time, we solicit nominations for the annual Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. This is an award that's presented every year at Comic-Con International in San Diego and it's for — and let me be very clear and boldface about this — someone who has a body of work as a comic book writer by someone who is or was unrecognized and/or unrewarded for it.

For some reason each year, we hear from folks who don't grasp the concept. One guy doggedly each year nominates his favorite artist on the premise (he explained) that any award relating to comic books is a joke if his favorite artist, who has never written anything for the medium, has not received it. A few folks each year nominate a favorite writer who, though perhaps brilliant, has only written a few funnybooks. Invariably, someone who doesn't understand what the word "posthumous" means nominates a favorite writer who is still breathing. And there are actually people in this world who think Stan Lee, the highest-paid, most famous person ever in comics, was unrecognized and/or unrewarded.

Oh, and speaking of getting things wrong…

The Blue Ribbon Committee — who, in all honesty, neither has nor bestows ribbons of any color — will select two people to receive this honor — one who is alive and one who isn't. ("Isn't," in this case, is the definition of "posthumous." And if you have a good candidate for that award, please 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.

Those who have already received this honor are ineligible to receive it again. The full list of such people can be read over on this page. This will not stand in the way of the guy who writes in every year to suggest that we give it to Jack Kirby every year.

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.

FACT CHECK: Bernie and A.O.C.

Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been on what they call a "Fighting Oligarchy" tour, making their case in various towns about Income Inequality and what they believe are efforts by the White House and Republicans in Congress to make a bad situation worse. The diligent folks over at Politifact took a look at what Sanders and A.O.C. are saying and found that while some of it required a bit of context, most of what they claimed as facts was, indeed, facts.

Today's Video Links

In the early fifties, NEA (The Newspaper Enterprise Association) syndicated a comic strip called Chris Welkin, Planeteer. It was done by Art Sansom and Russ Winterbotham and it was drawn in a so-so Milton Caniff style. It only lasted a few years but in 1954, someone tried selling it as a TV series with the kind of extremely-limited animation that was the norm for animated programs produced for early television. As far as we know, only two episodes were made.

The voices were done by Marvin Miller and Virginia Gregg. Mr. Miller was one of the most-heard voice actors and announcers of his day and he did a lot of on-camera roles, one of which was starring in the TV series, The Millionaire. Ms. Gregg was an actress seen all over the place, especially in everything produced by Jack Webb.

I know about this because my good buddy Will Meugniot stumbled across it and now I share the two episodes…