Mark Evanier's Blog, page 84

ASK me FOLLOW-UP: Kirby at Skywald

Skywald Comics was a short-lived comic book company that went into business in 1970 and out in 1975. It was an alliance between Sol Brodsky (former production manager and occasional artist for Marvel) and Israel Waldman, a publisher specializing in low-budget periodicals including (at times) comic books. Waldman's main venture into comics previously has been with a company called variously I.W. Publications, Super Comics and I think some other names. To quote Wikipedia, they issued "…in the late 1950s and early 1960s…unauthorized comic book reprints for sale through grocery and discount stores."

Brodsky had had a major falling-out with Marvel publisher Martin Goodman and left the company. He teamed up with Waldman, they published some comics (mostly on the cheap) then Brodsky pulled out and returned to Marvel after Goodman left.

And now, following up on my follow-up to this question, Rob Allen asks…

Following up on your post about why Jack never worked for Western, I wonder about another path not taken.

Did Jack consider joining Sol Brodsky in his new venture with Israel Waldman? It seems likely that Skywald couldn't afford Jack's page rate, but if they could, the possibilities seem enticing. I think the Fourth World would have sold better than the Western comics that Skywald did produce. And Skywald had more success than DC in black & white magazines. Jack and Sol left Marvel almost simultaneously; did they talk to each other about their plans?

Nope. They weren't quite as simultaneous as that in their departures and Jack probably wouldn't have left without an offer than would pay him as well or better…which, as you note, Skywald was unlikely to do. There was also something chintzy and crooked about the company and Jack didn't like that, which is why he rejected the occasional suggestions of Steve Ditko that he work for Charlton.

Simon and Kirby had briefly done some work through Charlton and had never been paid-in-full. Jack once said of that company something like, "The guys who run it don't belong in comics…or anywhere that's not a prison." That's an approximate quote. He liked Sol Brodsky but Sol never made an offer and Jack recalled how Waldman had reprinted Simon & Kirby material without their permission.

Just to head off further questions about other companies then publishing comics: I don't think there was anyone besides DC and Marvel that had the stability and the budgets that Jack felt were mandatory. He either didn't trust other publishers because of past dealings or knew they weren't interested in the kind of material he did or just knew (roughly) their page rates. He was approached by a few different people who wanted to get into the business but none of them seemed to have the start-up capital, an understanding of the industry or the connections to get decent distribution.

He'd also heard stories from Wally Wood about how he (Wood) believed Tower Comics had been sabotaged. Going with an unestablished publisher was not a gamble Jack was prepared to take. In a very real sense, he was trapped working for DC or Marvel…and I don't think either one treated him very well. Maybe they would have later but not then.

More About Mike

Since I've been writing about Mike Schlesinger here, I thought I oughta post this photo that was taken on September 29, 2019 at the Cinerama Dome Theater. That was the theater in which It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World opened — a theater literally built to show it — and a bunch of us were there that day to see it for the umpteenth time on that amazing screen. The pins we're wearing were to commemorate whatever anniversary it was.

Dave Woodman is a fine cartoonist and Mad World historian.  The other three are Mad World historians who are heard on the commentary track for the Criterion DVD and Blu-ray of that movie.  Paul Scrabo is a producer and jack-of-all-crafts in the TV and movie businesses.  Collectively, the four of us have probably seen this movie three jillion times.  After the film, my lady friend and I left but Mike stayed around outside for an hour answering questions about the film for all who had just enjoyed it.

Today's Single Feature

Last night, we showed you our pal Mike Schlesinger talking about a favorite movie, 1776. Mike noted how in its initial release, the film endured some unfortunate cuts because of pressure from the administration of Richard Milhous Nixon, a man who no longer holds the title of being our most sinister president. This morning, I awoke to this message from Steve Bacher…

I'd like to know if the version of the movie 1776 currently available on YouTube (at 2 hours and 45 minutes) is the restored version or the one with the Nixon-mandated cuts as described in the trailer.

It's the restored version and here it is…the whole thing, including the song "Cool, Conservative Men," which was the main thing Nixon wanted out. The cut version runs 148 minutes. As is the case with these YouTube uploads, they are sometimes free, sometimes free with ads and sometimes they cost money to watch and some of them change back and forth. Don't ask me why.

Today's Video Link

My friend Mike Schlesinger was a frequent contributor to Trailers From Hell, a series of videos which use the trailer for a movie as an excuse to discuss the movie. Here's Mike talking about one of our favorite films, 1776…

Good Blogkeeping

In the next day or four, we'll be doing some of the software upgrading that your generous donations helped pay for. You don't notice any difference on this blog from your end but you may notice it being offline for five or ten minutes now and then. Do not panic. The changes will prevent longer outages.

Michael Schlesinger, R.I.P.

My pal Mike Schlesinger died this morning…and movies have lost one of the best friends they ever had. I'm not sure I ever met anyone who loved them more…or knew more about them…or got so angry when they were mistreated.

When I first met this boy from Dayton, Ohio, he was an executive at Sony out here and was very much responsible for liberating many films from their vaults, restoring them, getting them released for home video or to revival cinemas, etc. We bonded over our shared love for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World — and with Paul Scrabo, did the commentary track for its Criterion release. We agreed on that film but debated — always friendly — when our tastes differed. Mike actually was heard on a lot of home video commentary tracks and I was honored that he asked me to join him on several.

He was a fixture at a wide number of film festivals, screenings, lectures, interviews of stars and filmmakers (often, he was the interviewer) and he also made movies. After he left Sony, he wrote, directed and produced the Biffle & Shooster shorts and had recently made his first feature length comedy — Rock and Doris (try to) Write a Movie. It was a semi-remake of George M. Cohan's play Seven Keys to Baldpate, updated all the way to the sixties, starring Marilu Henner and Joe Regalbuto. It is, so far, unreleased. The last few times I talked to Mike, as he complained about various medical problems he was having, his biggest concern seemed to be that not feeling well was getting in the way of him hooking up with a distributor.

Then the medical problems got worse, he was hospitalized…and this morning, cancer took him at the age of 74. His friends (and he had many) owe a special thanks to his friend Catherine Dickerson who took so much loving care of him, especially in his last weeks. I am so very sad to lose a good friend like Mike…and like I said, movies never had a better one.

To My Friends…

Please stop sending me photos and videos of burned-out houses, people crying because they lost everything, wide-spread destruction, the Magic Castle ringed in flames, etc. I'm not watching the news because it only saddens me to see this stuff. I know it's happened and if I want to look at such images, I have access to this thing called "The Internet" that has almost as much of that as it does of porn. It's almost like some people are thinking, "This horrifies and depresses me…I'd better send it to other people so they can be horrified and depressed, too!"

While we're at it: If you injure yourself, I will believe you injured yourself. You don't have to post bloody/bruised photos. Thank you.

ASK me: Keeping One's Phone Charged

Micki St. James wrote to ask…

You posted at 8:09 AM that you had no electricity and then at 9:03 PM that you were posting by thumb-tapping on your iPhone. What I want to know is, since you couldn't plug your phone in to recharge it, how did it manage to keep its charge for more than 12 hours? Mine doesn't last that long.

Mine doesn't either so I bought a couple of those portable phone chargers and I keep them charged so I can charge my phone with them. Also, there's this wonderful invention…

You see that thing there? That's the Duracell 2000 Lumen Tri-power Lantern and mine came in so very, very handy during my recent power failure here in L.A. "Mine" in this case is plural because I have several of these and I was glad I did.

What does it do? It's an LED light and you can set it to various levels of brilliance or make it blink. You can also plug a cell phone or other small electronic gizmo into it and recharge that gizmo. And how, you may ask, do you charge your Duracell 2000 Lumen Tri-power Lantern? Well, you can plug into the wall to recharge it or you can stick four "D" cell batteries into it or you can leave it outside in the sun and the little solar panel on top will charge it.

I got a batch of these from Costco and they still have them…for $21.85 and they occasionally go on sale for around fifteen bucks. The last time they were fifteen, I bought a dozen or so and have been giving them out to friends but I had five left — one opened, four unopened. They come fully charged so I opened 'em all up and put them to good use when my house went dark. By the way: Amazon sells them for $29.95 and Walmart sells them for $34.50.

Thursday Morning

There's less wind this morning, at least in my area and — according to the National Weather Service — most. Hopefully, all the fires will soon be controlled and then extinguished…but we're going to be moaning and shivering about this for a long time. And no, I don't know what you say to someone who lost everything.

With sadness usually comes anger and there is — and there should be — plenty of anger at the folks trying to make bogus political points off a tragedy like this. I'm trying to not read or watch a lot of the news coverage because it depresses me to no good purpose. But I came across Elon Musk's stupid statements and I also came across Kevin Drum debunking everything Musk is saying. This is the kind of thing we'll be seeing even more of in the next four years.

Empowered

I may have underestimated the Department of Water and Power. They said my electricity would be restored by 10 PM and it came back on at 9:53. Wish it could be that simple for everyone.