I’ve seen all of the Batman movies. This one is by far the most inventive.

Fred Willard plying his trade with Jimmy Kimmel

Here at the headquarters of leewochner.com, we’re big fans of the comic actor Fred Willard, dating back to adolescence.  As an early and longtime fan, I just about passed out when Mr. Willard himself came to see a comedy of mine 20 years ago. He sat through it like an Easter Island statue, but then went around telling people it was the funniest play in town. (If only he’d told the right people. But anyway….) It’s difficult to express what a great tribute that was.

The first place I saw him was on Fernwood 2 Night, in 1977, a syndicated satire of small-town talk shows that was supremely important to the 15-year-old me because it was so utterly divorced from the overly slick and rampantly unfunny “normal” offerings on regular network television.  Its gimlet-eyed take on false glitz mirrored my own skepticism. Willard played Jerry Hubbard, a none-too-bright sidekick/announcer with a flair for the obvious, paired against the disdain of the host, Barth Gimble, played by the multifaceted Martin Mull. Since then, I’ve enjoyed the work of both men; I’ve got all of Martin Mull’s solo albums, and as for Fred Willard, I loved him in “Best of Show” and so many other things over the years, whether they were little guest appearances or sitcoms, or voiceover work on King of the Hill or wherever.

I used to know his wife, the playwright Mary Willard, in passing, and went to one of her plays in the 1990s at the Company of Angels Theatre, up the street from Moving Arts (which may have been why we were seeing each other’s work; that, plus our mutual membership in the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights). I had heard that she died last year, but hadn’t given it much thought. Then, somehow or other through social-media networks, a couple of weeks ago I came across a howlingly funny appearance by Fred Willard in a clip from The Jimmy Kimmel Show, a show I have generally found not-howlingly funny and have avoided like a traffic accident. Fred Willard was his usual deadpan self, and Jimmy Kimmel’s transparently radiant joy at having Fred Willard to work with lit up the entire bit.

All of this is by way of saying that I was delighted today to discover a piece in the LA Times about Fred Willard, and about his personal renaissance under Jimmy Kimmel. (Here’s a link to it.) Fred and Mary had been together 50 years, the piece says, and when she died last year he was left unmoored and wondering if he felt like doing anything at all. Since pairing with Kimmel, they’ve done about 20 sketches together. I’ll have to hunt those down. It’s nice to know he’s still out there making people, including me, laugh.

Does it make any sense to keep making “The Twilight Zone”? I asked myself this today after ruminating on the episode I’d watched at half past one this morning when I wasn’t tired enough to go to bed.

Having now watched three episodes of the latest revival, on CBS All Access, I can say that, so far at least, it hasn’t added up to much.

• The first was about an unfunny comedian who made a classic deal with the devil that ended badly. Two big problems with this:  it wasn’t enough to write the comedian as unfunny; no, he was made out to be pathologically unfunny — less funny than dental surgery. When you go to that length to make your point, you’re already off track. The lesser problem was that the episode led up to a twist ending, and that twist ending was one anyone could have guessed about seven minutes in. When you’re relying on a twist ending, the surprise had better be there. (Paging M. Night Shyamalan.)
• The second was a remake of the classic episode where William Shatner is an airplane passenger tormented by the sight of a gremlin on the wing of the plane. Unfortunately, the fun part — the gremlin — was reduced to a toy that later washed up on shore and, again, the twist was apparent. So apparent that I just assumed it was a given.
• The final one concerned five astronauts prepped for the first takeoff to Mars — who, while they’re on the launchpad and ready to go, hear that the world has had a devastating exchange of nuclear warheads. Should they complete the mission — or sit on the launchpad for 30 minutes, awaiting the nuclear strike? This one worked really well — until the very last moment, and an unsatisfying twist ending.

What’s the common problem? The twist ending. Which begs the question, Why all the focus on a twist ending? Is the device intrinsic to “The Twilight Zone”? Is it not “The Twilight Zone” if there’s no twist ending?

There’s been an endless supply of “Twilight Zone” remakes and remodels, including the original series, the 1980s series, the 2002-2003 series, the current series, the radio dramas, the comic books, the movie, the stage productions, the book of short stories, the magazine, and even the theme-park attraction. Clearly, the original version captured the imagination of the American public, and the brand identity has kept some value over the years. But if it all comes down to a twist ending that may or may not work (and generally doesn’t, any more), maybe this property isn’t too relevant any more.

But… shouldn’t it be more relevant now? Given that the news every day seems drawn from “The Twilight Zone?” Given that every announcement seems drawn from a space “between science and superstition”?

Usually, the original “Zone” did more than rely on a twist ending:  frequently, it gave us a morality tale. Why kill your fellow man to enrich yourself with gold, one episode asked, when gold intrinsically has no value? Does your insistence on a personal definition of beauty hold any meaning in a land of monsters? Are the monsters on Maple Street real — or, by imagining the worst, have you created them and become one yourself?

I was intrigued when this latest reboot, with Jordan Peele as executive producer, was announced. With “Get Out,” Peele revealed himself as someone capably equipped to represent the heritage of the series, “Get Out” being an ironic morality tale with more than one twist. The Mars-mission episode hooked me and truly worried me — I have to admit, until recently I’d grown passe about the threat of nuclear war — until, mid-episode, I became very aware that I was being manipulated with false frights and then, of course, the de rigueur twist ending.

If you’re looking for true, nail-biting, hair-on-end thrills, HBO’s docudrama “Chernobyl” is the show to watch. The twist ending? Somehow we managed to survive.

Tonight’s the last episode, and I’m eager to see what happens. Some other people have complained about the writing — that it wasn’t faithful; that it wasn’t what they expected; more likely that it wasn’t what they wanted — but I’ve found it harrowing throughout. The mad determination for seemingly righteous justice, and the actual injustice that results from that, is cruelly ironic, and an everlasting human theme — especially when it plays out against the backdrop of doomed love affairs. These six episodes have completely captured me, and I’m grateful for the reminder that while large events play out it’s always the people in the streets who suffer most.

So, thank you, for entertaining me, enlightening me, and utterly captivating me with the depth of your humanity…

… “Les Miserables.”

p.s. I hear some other drama comes to an end tonight as well.

What’s the best show on TV?

I don’t know, and neither do you, for two simple reasons:  We haven’t watched all the shows, and even if we somehow could (an impossibility, given the 500 shows in regular production), you have your tastes and I have mine.

But:  What might be the most moving show, the one that most seems to fit the concerns of right now? It might be “Les Miserables,” currently wrapping up a run on PBS.

It’s an outstanding production, one that doesn’t skimp on the horrors of early 19th century France, the Revolution now faded and forgotten, and the commoners filled with despair while that era’s 1% japes at their misery. While I watch “Game of Thrones” for entertainment, I don’t really care who sits on that iron throne — if anyone — but somehow I’m deeply invested in the equally fictional Jean Valjean and his determination to stay a good man in the face of cruel injustice masquerading as what’s good and right.

I haven’t read the novel, and I never may, but the first four episodes of this television adaptation have been absolutely riveting; the final two play out over the next two weeks. If you need to catch up, all the episodes are available here.

You see above you the legendary “Screw Iran Coloring Book,” written and published by me and my then-business partner, in 1980. Back in 2007 on this blog, I shared the story of how this came to be created (you can read it again here) and how we were unable to sell it at the time.  Since then, the thing was listed in The Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide, has somehow wound up in the collection of the Michigan State University libraries, gotten identified  as a “Head Comix” (which it isn’t), and is the subject of periodic unsolicited emails and phone calls that I get from strangers asking if they can buy a copy — which they haven’t been able to do for almost 40 years.

Well, as you can see from the photo above, I found some of them. Actually, while looking up in the “Anne Frank Room” (my wife’s name for a hidden storage space in our house) for something else, my 16-year-old came across them and asked me what they were. I had him bring them down, I held onto the four above, and I contacted the people on my decades-long wait list to see if they still wanted them. They did — and so yesterday I started shipping them out.

My wife Valorie’s immediate suggestion was to put them on eBay for $25 each. I told her that one of the people on the list, who’d waited more than 10 years for a copy, had already immediately sent me $25 via PayPal as soon as he got my email. That seemed like too much — I was just honored by the interest of people who wanted it — but he insisted on sending it. (And I’ll tell you in a minute what I spent that on.)

I’ve got those four copies above remaining. If you don’t already have one coming to you via express mail from me, and really really really want one because you just can’t get enough of the chuckles sure to be brought to you by this 40-year-old hostage drama, let me know — I might part with another one or two. Side note:  the art by Rich Mayone, whom I’m back in touch with via Facebook, really holds up; I think his Jimmy Carter (seen on the back cover above) is lightyears better than Neal Adams’ version in that artist’s Jimmy Carter coloring book from the same period.

So, what did I spend that 25 bucks on?

Two weeks ago, I finished reading the new biography of comics publisher James Warren, written by Bill Schelly. (You can learn more about that book here.) I was interested in the Warren biography because I’m always interested in the business aspect of the arts (being an artist who is also a businessman), and because as a teen I had read my share of Creepy and Eerie, and had lusted over the horror- and comics-related merchandise I couldn’t afford in the back of my neighbor Donny’s copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland. The book was just about unputdownable for me, partly because of Warren’s story (determined climb from poverty and obscurity to publishing success; major setbacks; big rebuilding; then a final bankruptcy and the mystery of what had happened to Warren, and why he hadn’t even tried to save his company), and partly because so many people I’ve known in my life were name-checked:  comics conventioneer and distributorPhil Seuling, artist/writer Walt Simonson, Famous Monsters editor Forrest Ackerman (upon moving to Los Angeles in 1988, I want to the Ackermansion and spent the morning with him), writer Don McGregor, and many others… including Harvey Kurtzman, founder of Mad (both the comic book and the magazine) and of Help!, an influential humor publication published by James Warren and that, legend has it, led to the naming of the Beatles’ second movie.

In the 1980s, I did a fair amount of writing for The Comics Journal, including reviews and essays, and, when they assigned them, interviews. For the magazine’s landmark 100th issue, I was assigned five interviews, and one of them was with Harvey Kurtzman. The last time I took a look at that interview was 12 years ago — because I found it reprinted, without my permission and without any payment or even notification, by Fantagraphics Books in a big oversize book of theirs about Kurtzman. I alerted my attorney, who sent them a demand letter, we got back a letter from their attorney, and there was a settlement — which included a copy of that book and, finally, more than 20 years after publication, a copy of the printed edition of something else I’d written for them and had been asking for a copy of ever since (as they had promised).

As I was reading the Schelly biography of James Warren, and noting the references to Kurtzman, and then noting that the publisher was Fantagraphics, and then learning on Wikipedia that Schelly had also written a biography of Kurtzman himself, I got a strange feeling, one that Google confirmed.

Yep. I’m listed three times in the index of the Kurtzman biography.

So I spent the 25 bucks, plus a little more, on ordering that. I used the money from a 39-year-old writing and publishing project of mine to get a copy of a book referencing another three-decade-old writing project of mine.

In my life, I’ve written filing cabinets full of stuff:  plays, essays, book reviews, short stories, news stories, interviews, opinion pieces, and lots of corporate writing. At this point, it’s clear what will last:  the stuff related to genre. The books that have survived the millennia are those that were most cherished by adherents; monks fleeing fires or infidels grabbed what they thought was most important. Well, nobody loves their stuff more than fan boys. My good friend Larry Nemecek is this universe’s foremost expert on Star Trek; he’s a bestselling author and international lecturer on the topic. Given my own experience in my little corner of the comics world, where people will wait decades to lay hands on an obscure underground coloring book, or will endlessly reprint a brief, bad interview of a major comics figure conducted by a callow youth, I now believe that of all the well-known people I’ve known in my life, Larry will be the one with the most lasting impact. His maps of the Star Trek universe, and his many years of magazine coverage of every rivet and bolt on all the various incarnations of the Enterprise, will live on and on. As will, I hope, my writing about comic books.

1.

On 4/25, the American Cinematheque is screening “A Day at the Races” and “A Night at the Opera” at the Egyptian in Hollywood. There are reasons I’m planning to go.

The first reason: Enormous fondness for the Marx Brothers. I can’t hear someone say the word “taxes” without thinking of this exchange from “Duck Soup.” Channel the voice of Chico Marx as Chicolini, and then read this:

Prosecutor: Something must be done. War would meant a prohibitive increase in our taxes.
Chicolini: Hey, I’ve got an uncle that lives in Taxes.
Prosecutor: No, I’m talking about taxes. Money. Dollars.
Chicolini: Dollas! There’s-a where my uncle lives! Dollas, Taxes!

The second reason: The screenwriter (and, later, director) Robert Pirosh wrote for both “Day” and “Night” — and he was my writing professor and friend during grad school. One time we all went to his house in Beverly Hills and I thought, “Wow, I’m here in Beverly Hills — in the house of someone I knew, who wrote for the Marx Brothers!” Bob was a great guy. I look forward to seeing these great films with a live audience in a nice big theatre.

Here’s the link.

2.

If you think this discussion of intersex and gender fluidity has little or no basis in fact, check out this story in the New York Times. It turns out that an essential hero of the American Revolution was probably intersex. Here’s the link.

Pulaski. You be the judge.

3.

Donald Trump has been saying that the United States is “full.” I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that he’s wrong, as can be seen by anyone who has visited the middle of the country and areas outside major metropolises, or who has even watched “American Pickers,” as the two junk haulers traverse the highways and byways of mostly empty roads in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Kansas and elsewhere. In the past two years, I’ve been in most of those places, and between the aging population and the declining birthrate, they’re not exactly crowded, as the New York Times (again) reports.

Here’s the link.

4.

This may not interest you, but it sure grabs me. The generally press-shy Robert Fripp devoted an unprecedented four hours to answering press questions about the 50-year history of King Crimson, its dynamics, and its future. In the process, he recounts a story or two about David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, and others. Yes, I already have my tickets for their September appearance here in Los Angeles at the Greek.

Here’s the link to the story in Rolling Stone.

5.

Speaking of the historic Egyptian Theatre: File this under “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” I sincerely mean no sarcasm when I offer a big hat’s off to Netflix, which is in talks to buy the Egyptian. Netflix wants to compete for Oscars; buying a theatre of its own will no doubt help it qualify (by ensuring that its own films can have a “theatrical release”), and saving a historic venue may endear them to award voters. I have to think that someone at Netflix read the qualifying rules and thought, Hm, why not buy our own venue? (And do some good in the meantime.)

Here’s the link to the story in the Los Angeles Times.

I was just searching for something in my Evernote file and found this:

We’re in a period of permanent transition. Nothing will settle.

It’s not an age of reading — it’s an age of looking. Looking at print or looking at screens — some of the print is interactive with sound and motion.

The old forms needn’t die. People are still buying tickets to the theatre, which has been dying for thousands of years.

Today, King Features retired the Amazing Spider-Man newspaper strip and, with it, beloved longtime Marvel comics inker Joe Sinnott also retired. Although Joltin’ Joe stopped inking comics in 1992, he’d still been doing the Sunday Spider-Man strip… at the age of 92. He worked for Marvel for 69 years, most famously, to many of us, on Fantastic Four. Indeed, his first inking job for Marvel was Fantastic Four #5, which introduced Doctor Doom. During his run on that title, he inked the introductions of Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, the Inhumans, Adam Warlock, and many others.

If you’re seeing the Spider-Man strip in your newspaper, it’ll probably remain, but in reruns. The original strip is over, according to its writer and artists, and its syndicate. Today’s Sunday strip, above, is the last original strip, credited to Stan Lee (as so much of Marvel has been), but actually courtesy of Roy Thomas, Alex Saviuk and Joe Sinnott.

I’ve told the story many times of how tongue-tied I was to meet Jack Kirby when I was 12. But a big part of that revolves around Joe Sinnott, who was sitting next to him at that convention in New York in 1974:

But when I was 11, I was just amazed to see him in person. It was like seeing Leonardo da Vinci or Abraham Lincoln or Jesus Christ or some other enormously great historical figure in the flesh. How was it even possible?

That July, just a week-and-a-half before my 12th birthday, my father took me to the 1974 New York Comic Art Convention; this was an incredible gift, which I’m still grateful for, 25 years after his death. And there, in some little room, back when comic-book conventions were far far smaller, I stood at the back of a line of maybe 10 people waiting to meet Jack Kirby.

Kirby was seated at the left of two folding tables, drawing sketches and signing autographs and chatting with whoever was next in line. To his left (my right) was his longtime inker on “Fantastic Four,” Joe Sinnott. (Mr. Sinnott, aged 90, is still with us.) Although Kirby by this point had left Marvel for DC, and I had read some of those DC comics, I was still completely enamored with “Fantastic Four” — as was seemingly every person in line ahead of me. One by one, each of them remarked upon “Fantastic Four.”

But I didn’t want to be like them. Who would want to approach the godhead and seem like just another supplicant?

So, when it was finally my turn to approach the great man, I said with as much of a squeak as I could register, in something like a high-pitched mumble filled with nervous anxiety, “I really like your work on ‘The Avengers.’ ”

Now, for the record, Kirby’s work on “The Avengers,” while displaying the same dynamism he brought to pretty much everything, was nowhere near on a par with his work on “Fantastic Four.” And I knew this. I said this only to be different. At age 11, and small in stature and frame and tiny in self-confidence in front of Kirby in particular, it was, in retrospect from 40 years later, a little brave for me to say: “I really like your work on ‘The Avengers.’ ”

To which Jack Kirby replied, “What?”

At age 57, he hadn’t quite heard what my pipsqueak voice had said.

Fully intimidated to be in his presence, I couldn’t even bring myself to look up and see the great man sitting eight inches in front of me. I just trembled and managed to say in a quaking voice, “Oh, never mind” and stood quaking as Kirby signed an autograph for me.

I am not exaggerating this encounter.

And I have never again been so intimidated in my life. Not because of him — he was eminently approachable — but because of what he signified: everything that was important to me.

Joe Sinnott, God bless him, saw my extreme mortification and called me over and drew for me a full sketch of the Thing, a member of the Fantastic Four, and wrote my name and signed it and I cherish it to this day and am still struck by his monumental kindness.

Here’s a profile of Mr. Sinnott from the New York Times two years back.  Yes, on Facebook today, Mr. Sinnott’s son announced his father’s retirement. If it’s so, I wish Joltin’ Joe many happy returns. But I like to think that, somehow, in some way, we’ll find out that his story as a comics artist is continued.

I love watching dog shows — who doesn’t??? — because I admire the ability of these dogs to hurtle through complicated obstacle courses that would daunt almost any human being theoretically with more brain power. I say this with confidence, as someone who routinely responds to questions on Facebook such as “is it raining outside?” by saying “Look out the window.”

Sometimes I’m impressed with the skill of the dog, sometimes, sure, it’s the dog’s sheer dog-beauty, and sometimes it’s the personality.

Which brings me to Kratu, the Romanian rescue dog who can’t quite navigate the agility course at this dog show in Birmingham, England.

When it comes to this agility course, Kratu has no more fucks to give. He’s not really fast, he’s certainly not focused, he doesn’t mind a little approval, he’s aware of the entreaties of the nearby human, but his main goal seems to be enjoying the day.

There’s a lesson here for all of us. Sure, we have rules, and they can be important. But other times? Other times you might go over the hurdle — or you just might go around it. Because, really, why not?