Don Markstein's Toonopedia Blog Entries

EXCERPT: This is not a review. I can't very well review a movie I haven't seen and don't intend to see until I can do so for free, in my own living room, and maybe not even then if I can't spare the time. I got what I "know" about it (and the title) as hearsay, from Antiwar.com, of which I'm a near-daily reader. But then, many people make their entertainment decisions from third-party reviews. I understand the 1962 origin of Iron Man, a Cold War...

EXCERPT: As practically everyone will agree, Al Capp was one of our truly great cartoonists. Now, I wouldn't blame you one little bit for not clicking on that link, especially if you're a regular reader of this site — I linked to that glossary entry more than 500 times, by actual count. (No, I do have a life, thank you. A machine did the counting.) But if, by chance, you did click, you saw that as I use the word here, cartooning includes the script as well as the art. So to...

EXCERPT: A writer's published work is only the tip of an iceberg. Notes, letters, early (and sometimes radically different) drafts, writing exercises, proposals, incomplete work … even, tho one hesitates to admit it, the occasional piece that just didn't click with any editors. Tho this mass of verbiage doesn't even enter the public consciousness, it piles up like month-old red-hot comics in a retailer's back room, because when it comes to his own stuff, the average...

EXCERPT: In the real world, all Americans know how to demonstrate their patriotism. They wear a little lapel pin made in the image of a flag. With one of those in plain view, nobody will ever doubt you're a rootin' tootin' patriot. Without it, you'll never convince anyone you love your country. It's not so simple in Superhero Land. There, they don't call you a "patriotic hero" unless you wear the whole darned flag. Yesterday (May 26), I posted a...

EXCERPT: In my article on Wonder Warthog, I mentioned a Gilbert Shelton creation titled Not Quite Dead, about an aging rock band, which, when I wrote the article, was available in parts of Europe but not in America. A few years ago, I not a message from a friend, to the effect that Not Quite Dead had recently made it to these shores. I made a note to myself to check it out at the neighborhood funnybook store, next chance I got. Used to be, the comics store was one of my regular stops....

EXCERPT: In the Toonopedia Forum the other day, the topic happened to come up (in a thread titled "The Real Reason") of partisan politics impinging on Al Capp's Li'l Abner. Newspaper editors are collectively accused of having dropped the strip for attacking their "sacred cows", causing premature (two years before Capp's own death) cancellation of the strip itself. Apparently, the poster was thinking of this alleged "sacred cow" attack as an...

EXCERPT: I just posted a new article on Billy Make-Believe, only a day after doing one on Bobby Make Believe. Gosh, I hope nobody is confused by them. (The fact that the two titles appear on different lines of the Contents page should help us avoid that.) I've done this sort of thing before — in fact, just three months after opening the site, I posted Hippety Hopper and Hoppity Hooper on the same day. It appeals to my sense of — something or other, no doubt. Or maybe it just...

EXCERPT: I see the heirs of Jerry Siegel have succeeded in legally reclaiming a portion of his greatest brainchild, Superman. Also grabbable under the same legal principle are Robotman, The Star-Spangled Kid, Red, White & Blue and maybe some other stuff, but I don't think anyone's opposing them quite so hard on those. And we're all glad of that, aren't we? After all, DC Comics having bought Superman, who made billions for them, for $130, is widely known as the...

EXCERPT: I have an old robe that zips up in front and fits like a muumuu — very comfortable, next best thing to being naked. Unless I go out for some reason, I sometimes don't get out of it all day. I also have white hair and a long, thick, Santa-like beard, neither of which I take the trouble to cut very often (tho it's getting harder to find hair that "needs" cutting). These are among the rewards of freelancing — I don't have to look...

EXCERPT: I've mentioned before that I've written in print about some of the more bizarre e-mail I've gotten here, so I actually have a record of some of it. So even now, I can quote stuff I got years ago, word-for-word. Here's one I got in 2004. I would hope this is not a unique question, but I don't have a clue as to where to get an answer. I like Betty Boop, but I'm a black lady and I cannot wear anything with all white people on it. I would love to...