Category: Uncategorized

Via Jerry Beck and Mark Evanier (that's two in a row for Mark, but this one is too good to pass up):

The home movie that the Barstow family took of their vacation in Disneyland in 1956 was recently given the honor of being named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.  This caught the attention of Steve Martin, who was eleven years old at the time the movie was shot and working at the park selling guidebooks (which I'd read about in Martin's autobiography, Born Standing Up).  He spotted himself in the footage and contacted the filmmaker Robbins Bastow.  If you watch the movie, you can see little Stevie Martin very briefly, described in this article.

click here for details.

Via the always entertaining and informative Mark Evanier, this clip of Walt Disney voicing Mickey Mouse, opposite actor Billy Bletcher.

Apparently Walt Disney almost never did his Mickey Mouse voice in public, probably for the sake of both his image and Mickey's, so this is rare footage.  And it's amazing how deep and rich Bletcher's voice is despite his 5'2" frame.

But what struck me about the clip is that seeing the actors perform really highlights the slow pace of these old cartoons.  In today's cartoons, there would be four jump-cuts and two scene changes in the time it takes Bletcher to say "Meow."

From a fan, on this week's comic:

What's the point of doing a comic strip if it isn't accurate and meticulously reality-based?

I just thought of something else:  The fortunes were written in English!  I'm starting to think that plan will never work.

Tim "Pain" Kreider asked me to join him for an event at KGB this Sunday, and since my New Year's resolution was to say Yes to everything, I'm doing it.  I do need to get out more…

It's Sunday, Jan. 11, at 7pm (it's not at 10:52am, as the KGB posting says), at KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, NYC  (212) 505-3360.  We'll be presenting our comics on the Bush administration and celebrating the fact that it's mercifully almost over.

A good time will be had by all.

And I never even told you I was going…

Happy New Year, friends

The amazing editors at Universal (whose humorous writing talents I'd been aware of, but hoped would be hidden forever lest they embarrass the supposedly humorous creators they edit and represent) now have an excellent blog, led by Johnny "G" Glynn.  Yesterday's entry, by Lucas Wetzel, was about Condorito.

One of the most pleasant discoveries I've made in my travels in South American is this character, ubiquitous at every newsstand throughout the continent (as far as I can tell).  I can only speak Spanish well enough to understand about 20% of each joke and 100% of none, but the visual joke structuring is so over-the-top, the joke itself is besides the point.  As Lucas points out, it's all about the Plop.

And you have to remember that the Plop has to be pronounced not in English (rhyming with "mop"), but rather in Spanish (closer to rhyming with "dope," if I'm not mistaken.)

Needless to say, Condorito has been an inspiration for many a Super-Fun-Pak Comic.

 

Let history be the judge of Bush's presidency…

An interesting story from Patton Oswalt about his first lead role in a movie.  I'm not sure which parts are true.

Back in March, in response to the Elliot Spitzer scandal, I did a Lucky Ducky comic on prostitution laws.  I basically took the position that it is deeply hypocritical that these laws, which ostensibly exist to help and protect disadvantaged people (mostly women) from being compelled to sell their bodies, are primarily enforced against the sellers, and not against the buyers (mostly men).