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    The fine print...

    • The opinions and commentary expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone, except where readers have left comments.

    Copyright 2008

    • Gary G. Sassaman. All Rights Reserved.

    July 23, 2008

    My favorite posts #3: Greetings from Atlantic City

    Continuing our series of summer reruns while I'm away. See "My favorite posts #1" for more details!

    This one is actually a "ringer," too. It's taken verbatim from my very first comic book, also titled Innocent Bystander (you can still buy it if you want, but I won't twist your arm...in fact, you can still buy just about all of them, with the possible exception of the third issue and the trade paperback collecting issues 1 through 4).

    Originally published on April 24, 2005 as "Greetings from Atlantic City"

    Here's today's lesson, kiddies: Never pass up those little out-of-the-ordinary gift shops (or sometimes gift shoppes) that say they're selling books. You never know what little gem you may find inside.

    While in Los Angeles on business last week, I happened upon one such store and was happy to find a book from 2004 that somehow escaped me: Monopoly: The Story Behind the World's Best-Selling Game. Now, I can care less about games. I don't like board games, card games, role-playing, video-games, you name it. I'm non-denominational. I dislike them all. So, that's why this book never jumped out at me. Because while it IS about Monopoly, it's more about Atlantic City, New Jersey, the city the board game is based on. It's chock-full of great old color postcards of that resort town, too and has a great cover design. And while I'd love to blog about the Atlantic City of MY youth, pre-Casino, I realize that nothing I write will compare to the first thing I wrote about my summer vacation home, back in 1995, and presented as an illustrated story in Innocent Bystander #1. So, for those of you who've read it before, I apologize. For those newbies, and that's pretty much most of you, this is from one of my comic books. Click on the INNOCENT BYSTANDER link to the right under "Photo Albums" for ordering information.

    Traymore
    1964: And as we left the White Diner to go on vacation, my father made a momentous decision: We would go to Atlantic City instead of Asbury Park. We went back 10 times over the next dozen years, never really noticing the slow decline of a once-great resort town. Nothing I loved about the place still exists. It lives only in my memory and on the old postcards I've sought out in hopes of recapturing that time of my life.

    Well...some of the old hotels are still there. The Claridge is a casino, Haddon Hall is Resorts International. But most of the big, old dinosaurs of the Golden Age are gone. I was too young to appreciate the beauty and size of those somewhat-rundown castles by the sea.

    By the time the Traymore (on the illustration above) died in 1972, I knew something was missing. Even though I barely set foot in it, the Traymore was an integral part of "my" Atlantic City, a dominant image I'll never forget.

    We never stayed in the big resort hotels. In the 10 years we vacationed in Atlantic City, we stayed in 2 motels: the Monterrey the first year, and the Crown all the other years. Both were located at the corners of Pacific and Pennsylvania Avenues, one block from the Boardwalk.

    I loved that block of Pennsylvania Avenue. It was wide and long and tree-lined, with great old boarding house-style hotels slammed up against skyscraper-like motels. That block was like an airlock to me, a last mile before I plunged headlong into the sights, smells and sounds of the Boardwalk on a hot August night. Once up that wooden ramp, I was in another world.

    Steel Pier was part of that world. Billed as "a vacation in itself" and "the showplace of the nation," it stretched more than a half mile out over the ocean. The Pier was home to live music acts (usually up-and-coming or down-and-dying), movies (third and fourth run), "Tony Grant's Stars of Tomorrow" (child performers from hell), and the usual assortment of games, rides, and gimmicks to separate you from your money. Over the years, I saw Herman's Hermits (twice!), Chicago, the Four Seasons, and the unforgettable Brenda Lee. I also saw my first Woody Allen movie (Take the Money and Run) there. Steel Pier burned down in 1982. The whereabouts of the the world-famous Diving Horse are unknown, but I trust she's far, far away from water.

    Central Pier was a much smaller affair, a bit farther up the Boardwalk. It consisted mainly of an arcade, a miniature golf course and some rides, including the giant Sky Tower, which almost mystically appeared one summer. Our vacations always included at least one trip on the Tower, usually on a clear night. The arcade section of the pier contained pinball machines, skiball, some old Mutoscope card machines and some "girlie" type movie viewers (which I desperately wanted to see). My favorite game by far was "Atomic Bombadier." For a whole nickel, you trained your precision bombsight on the rotating drum below you. When the bombsight made contact with the raised buttons on the landscape, you obliterated the enemy off the face of the Earth and did your patriotic duty.

    The Boardwalk, like any other great theatre, had its share of actors. One of them was Mr. Peanut, who I found both fascinating and terrifying. (He has no eyes! He has no teeth! RUN! Waitaminute...How does he see and eat?) Another star attraction was the Belgium Waffle man. Around 11 each night, this little, round, red-faced man would start to moan, almost-orgasmically, about the virtues of his product: "And when you get up in the morning, you SPRING right out of bed!!!" But only if you ate one of his giant waffles. And then there was the Kazoo Man, who lurked inside Woolworth's. I never heard him speak. He just...kazooed. Constantly. He was as skinny as the Waffle Man was fat, and I never understood where he got all that air to keep on kazooing.

    Convention Hall was the last outpost of civilization on the Boardwalk, as far as we were concerned. Past it lie a miles-long stretch of decaying old hotels, fronted by decaying old people sitting in parked rolling chairs. They only came out at night. The Hall was also the site of our yearly excursion to the Ice Capades, a quiet kind of torture, interrupted only by the soft, swishing sound of razor-sharp blades on slowly-melting ice.

    Atlantic City is gone now, replaced by greed and a row of gleaming casinos. But in my mind, Atlantic City still exists. It's always a hot August night, the Boardwalk stretched out before me like some giant amusement park. The side streets are still tree-lined and the long boarding house porches still echo with laughter and the constant squeak of rocking chairs rocking. The beach is wide and clean and in the afternoon, the sand is hot and covered with people. Steel Pier still stands, the Diving Horse still dives and "Case's" still serves the best hamburgers on the Boardwalk. Taber's Toy-A-Rama has all the new G.I. Joe outfits and Batman TV show toys, the Sky Tower still shoots up to the sky and it gets chilly at night on the Boardwalk, so bring a jacket. This is my Atlantic City. It exists only in my memories, and, for a few brief moments, on this page.

    July 22, 2008

    My favorite posts #2: Firefly

    Continuing our series of summer reruns while I'm away. See "My favorite posts #1" for more details!

    This one is actually a "ringer." It's based on a number of posts I did here about Joss Whedon's Firefly TV series and Serenity movie, but it actually ran on another site I was writing for professionally, called BrilliantButCancelled.com. This is the first time it's appeared here. The "Thomas Vincent Jones" signature was my cute little in-joke: "TV Jones." This will remain up until they tell me I have to take it down because I'm violating some kind of agreement I had with them. It originally ran in mid-2006.

    Pop Autopsy: Firefly

    Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away …

    Joss Whedon created a character called “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Failing as a movie in the early 90s, Whedon resurrected the character for a ground-breaking TV series that spun off another hit series, Angel. As the story goes, the Fox network so desperately wanted to be in "the Joss Whedon business,” that they asked him to pitch something ... anything. What they got they didn't quite understand.

    Firefly can be summed up in one high-concept statement: Cowboys in outer space. But it's much more than that. It's a science fiction world torn from our own American Civil War. It's spacemen on horses and in cranky old spaceships that have as much personality as the characters that fly them. It's a dislocated, disenfranchised crew of ex-military rebels, a mercenary, a sexpot mechanic, a lost girl with a secret and her doctor brother, a hooker with a heart of gold and a philosophical preacher that collectively form the rough and loving definition of family. (The name Firefly comes from the class of ship the crew flies. Serenity is the name of this particular ship.)

    Casting a virtual who's who of unknowns (the only nominally known actor was Ron Glass, most famous for Barney Miller), Whedon found absolute gems for almost every character and the ensemble cast clicked on every level, with Nathan Fillion’s Captain Mal Reynolds leading the charge. Whedon’s strong female characters are also evident in this series with Gina Torres as Zoe Washburne, Jewel Staite as Kaylee Frye, Morena Baccarin as Innara Serra and Summer Glau as the poor, lost River Tam.

    Firefly is not about some utopian society in the future, maintaining an ongoing mandate to explore the galaxy. It's not about the intrigue of inter-planetary politics. It's not about warp drives and phaser pistols. It's about a bunch of people, a family, really, trying to get by, using almost any means possible. Their “full house” just happens to be a battered old spaceship.

    Fox buried the series and blew it. Universal came to the rescue and agreed to make Firefly into a theatrical motion picture with the same cast and with Whedon writing and directing. In both the series and the movie, Whedon has created a fully-realized new universe. His biggest challenge was translating the expansive world of a television series—even one that lasted only 14 episodes--to a 2-hour movie. The end product, Serenity, has everything the series had: snappy dialogue, great characters, wonderful visuals. Just like Star Wars was not your granddaddy's Flash Gordon, Serenity is decidedly not your daddy's Star Wars.

    But save Serenity until last. First watch the boxed set of Firefly. Watched in the proper order, the series is a rare gem, captured in a glass jar on DVD. For all those real fireflies we caught--and accidentally killed--as kids, this one found new life when the jar was reopened. Long may it glow.

    --Thomas Vincent Jones

    July 21, 2008

    Where in the world is Stan Miller (part 2)...

    "Matt in Carmel Mt." left this comment last night:

    "I heard from Stan's mouth this morning at church that he's not coming back... if you like Stan and want him back on the air then let channel 8 know! Loudly!"

    We don't know who Matt is, and we don't know if he actually talked to Stan at church yesterday morning (sorry, Matt), but the simple fact is I've been hearing a lot of rumors for a while now that Stan Miller is done at CBS8 (KFMB). While station management is evidently sticking to the "medical leave until August 28" line, I'm hearing a number of different stories as to why he's not on the air. The bottom line is most of them end with he's not coming back on August 28, or anytime soon. While no one seems to be willing to confirm that, a number of you have surfed here looking for info on Stan and left comments about how much you miss him. I'm not in the Stan-fan camp, but that doesn't mean you can't be. If you miss him, feel free to leave comments, but you should also tell CBS8.

    I'm a firm believer of one thing when it comes to TV news: people pick a local TV news station based solely on talent. With so many news sources at our fingertips at any given moment these days, local TV news has almost become an anachronism. My Yahoo page on my iPhone tells me any major breaking news story at any time of the day or night. The cable news networks try and outdo themselves with breaking news coverage, often failing miserably and stumbling around in the dark by trying to fill long voids of no updated news with experts, pundits, and talking heads who supposedly know what they're talking about, but rarely sound like anything else than time-killers. There are certainly moments where local TV news coverage shines. Last October's local wildfires was one of them, and CBS8 had the best coverage in San Diego of a disastrous situation, in my humble opinion.

    But with all these technological news wonders available, why watch local news? Well, there's the weather ("sunny, 72"...seriously: do you need to watch the weather in San Diego?). There's the local sports coverage. There's local news stories you won't find on the Internet or CNN. But most of all there's that one person you really like and trust. It might be Stan Miller. It might be Chrissy Russo (I can state categorically that I'm sure Chrissy looks better in a short skirt than Stan. I'm guessing here when it comes to Stan, at least, but it's not a hard reach.) All the glitzy graphics, all the helicopters and live shots, the much ballyhooed high-definition, and "first in breaking news" assertions mean diddly-squat. It's the talent that makes you pick the local station you want to watch, even if it's only because one channel's on-air people are less offensive than the others. I don't think news directors, producers, and--especially--consultants get this one simple fact. I think someone at the new Fox 5 DID get it. By hiring local, popular talent, and teaming them with unknowns from other markets, they have a guaranteed audience, something that a start-up usually doesn't get to experience with all new talent. Chalk it up to plenty of blue sky, bluer ocean and sunshine, but not a lot of people want to leave San Diego, and evidently news management around here is too cheap to sign talent to non-compete clauses. Leave a local station on Friday, work at another one on Monday. I've seen it happen more than once in the past couple of years.

    No matter what you think of Stan, with all the moving around of talent right now and a brand new start-up news organization--one evidently with money to spend--on the horizon, now is not the time to let one of the city's most recognizable faces get away for whatever the reason. Whether you like that face and want it in your living room each and every night is entirely up to you.

    My favorite posts #1: Salad Days

    These days, many of you are coming to this blog due to our coverage of San Diego local TV news doings. I appreciate you stopping by, but Innocent Bystander has always been about a lot of different things. I'm hoping at least some of you come back for other reasons--because you love pop culture in general, and comics, movies, TV, books, or something specific that catches your eye here. I'm gone for the next week or so, but I wanted to keep you "newbies" entertained with something while I'm away, so I'm "treating you"--this term used loosely--with some of my favorite past posts, which may or may not interest you. Over the past 3 3/4 years, I've created close to 2,200 entries in this ongoing endeavor. I love to write, and I hope--at least some of the time--it shows. So sit back over the next 7 or so days, get yourself a refreshing beverage--it's important to stay hydrated in the summer heat, don't forget!--and read these randomly-picked entries by yours truly. I'll be back to regular blogging come Tuesday, July 29. As always, your comments are appreciated.

    Originally published on March 7, 2007, as "A Brief History of Salad in My Family"

    I had cole slaw for lunch today (don't worry...I had a sandwich with it, I'm not just "slaw binging" these days) and it's taste--kind of sweet and peppery--made me think of pepper cabbage, a packaged food we used to get when I was a kid. We'd buy these "salads" (this term used loosely), made by a company called Betty's, especially in the summer months. There was potato salad, macaroni salad, pepper cabbage, and also a baked bean dish made with lima beans. I secretly hope to find the latter again, someday, even though family legend pegs me as a lima bean--and olive--hater from the time I could speak. Actually, the lima bean legend has it that it was the first time I spoke up in a restaurant and ordered from a menu to a waitress. I asked for lima beans and mashed potatoes, the latter which I have always loved, the former, well...not so much. But I digress.

    In the hot summer months, my mom would send me up to Schmauch's Market on Pitt Street for some of Betty's Salads. Schmauch's was one of many little mom and pop stores, the pre-cursors to 7/11s and "convenience stores" that dot the landscape today. They were local stores that carried staples and then some, penny candies for kids, over the counter drugs like aspirin, lunch meat and bread, milk and eggs. They were in almost every neighborhood in my hometown. As a youngster, the whole "Betty's Salads" thing confused me, since--if I remember correctly--Mrs. Schmauch's name was Betty also, and I just assumed these containers of salads with the red "Betty's" in a hand-written script across them were hers. My mother was notoriously scared of anything that involved A.) refrigeration and B.) mayonnaise. I was told not to dawdle, as the salads with mayo may go bad in the whole five minutes out of the refrigerated case at the market as I walked back. Anything I brought back would be subject to the smell test, in which my mother would sniff it vociferously, and any container deemed not up to snuff--or sniff, as the case was here--would be sent back.

    I loved Betty's Salads. The potato salad had a yellow look to it and a mayo-y taste. It wasn't as good as my grandmother's homemade stuff (but if I remember correctly, all of Betty's pre-packaged foods were "homemade"), made with fresh-cut potatoes, celery and Miracle Whip instead of mayo. Hers was a "white" potato salad. Betty's also made macaroni salad, which, to this day, I sometimes have a craving for and sometimes just cannot stomach after one or two tastes. And then there was their "pepper cabbage," a cole slaw like mixture that had both a sweet and tangy taste to it.

    All these things, along with lunch meat and hamburgers and hot dogs, remind me of long, hot summer days, when mom refused to cook or we were at some kind of family picnic spawned by a holiday. If it was the latter, my dear mother would be paranoid to the Nth degree over any metal spoons inserted in the mayo-based salads. (And for the record, my mom's own idea of a "real" salad was iceberg lettuce with Kraft French dressing. Period.) When we'd go to my Uncle Louie's for a picnic, his wife, Leah, always had the Betty's baked beans, which were lima beans in a tangy barbecue sauce. I would always be reminded "You don't like lima beans, Gary," and I'd say yes and still eat them. Betty's still exists. Their website hasn't been updated since 2003, but the contact info says they're in Reading, PA, which would explain why I never saw any of their foods anywhere else but in the area of my hometown. Today, eating that humble little portion of cole slaw at lunch took me back 40 years, to hot summer days filled with food and comic books and anything that kept us cool, and short, quick walks back from the market, lest the potato salad spoil and wipe out our entire family, one spoonful at a time.

    July 20, 2008

    Time to go make the donuts...

    We'll be gone from the Interwebs for the next week or so. Tune in tomorrow for our week-long tribute to...well, us. There will be a post each and every day, along with our traditional "Friday Foto." They won't necessarily be new posts, but they'll be new to some of you. You'll see what I mean tomorrow.

    The Dark Knight (2008)

    Joker
    The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, is one of the most complex and engrossing movies of the year, and the rare "part II" that's better than its predecessor. It's also the most complicated and deadly serious comic book movie of all time. Those are all pluses in a film that has almost no minuses.

    This is, of course, chapter 2 in the "new" Batman movie series, and while Christopher Nolan is certainly a director with his own style and vision, he's no Tim Burton, which is another plus. Nolan tells a straight-faced story, not a nudge-nudge, wink-wink nod at the comic book character and his larger-than-life nemeses created (mostly) by Bill Finger and Bob Kane almost three-quarters of a century ago. Christian Bale brings that character to life--both of them. As Bruce Wayne, he's suitably weak and shallow; as The Batman, he's fierce, frightening and feral.

    And even though the movie includes fine performances by Aaron Eckhart (as Harvey Dent), Maggie Gyllenhaal (as Rachel Dawes), Michael Caine (as Alfred), Gary Oldman (as Commissioner Gordan), and Morgan Freeman (as Lucius Fox)--along with Bale--there's only one star: Heath Ledger as The Joker. Ledger's performance is a career-making one. It's a shame he isn't around to accept the accolades, now and in the future.

    His Joker is no affable buffoon like Ceasar Romero or avuncular game show host like Jack Nicholson. He's a terrorist, pure and simple, a man whose only goal is anarchy and the resulting chaos. And while that was essentially Nicholson's role in the first Burton-directed movie, his performance kept it all on the sly. This Joker's plans--or lack thereof--turn Gotham City into a bigger no man's land than ever imagined. People die, hospitals get blown up, ferry boats get hijacked (in a sense), and the man who laughs teaches the man in the mask a thing or two about himself. Because there's only one way to stop The Joker, and The Batman isn't willing to go through with it.

    The Dark Knight is immensely entertaining, and it's 2.5+ hours breeze by. Nolan amps up the action in this one, and while the intercutting of many scenes sometimes seems chaotic--all in line with The Joker's story--it builds an incredible amount of suspense. Nolan puts us through this a number of times, each time building to a crescendo.

    The minuses? Almost non-existent and seemingly petty against a film with such a great storyline and greater performances and direction. Bale as Batman should only be seen in darkness; the cowl looks kind of ridiculous at times, especially in bright lighting. There's still no major musical theme, despite two of Hollywood's most-respected composers (Hans Zimmer and James Newton-Howard) once again doing the music for the film. Where's the heroic march? And then there's the problem of having too much story for one film. There's one too many villains this time out, and the "other" one doesn't really get enough screen time, or the chance for a reappearance. (Or does he? Perhaps like a bad penny, he'll make a second appearance, which would be most appropriate). And of course, a reprise of The Joker is impossible now. Ledger's performance has him owning the role, even posthumously. No one else can play him, nor should.

    In a summer punctuated by superhero movies (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Hellboy II, "new kid"--and minus a comic book pedigree--Hancock), The Dark Knight (with it's double-meaning title) stands out from the rest of the crowd. It's a serious, adult action/thriller that just happens to feature characters first made famous in a comic book. More people know Batman from the TV show and the movies (six of them now, not counting the serials and the one based on that '60s TV show) than from his humble beginnings during the Depression in 10-cent funny books. The Dark Knight not only stays faithful to its source material, it elevates it, by bringing us the best "comic book" movie ever. Now if we could just stop using that term.

    July 19, 2008

    Ten years later...

    I was running errands today after my monthly haircut, a procedure necessary--as you all know--by the incredible flowing locks I am cursed with. But I digress, even though I've only just begun...

    While I was driving out to my local Target, a big USAirways plane passed over me on its way to landing at Lindbergh Field. And it all came rushing back to me in just the blink of an eye.

    If I was still living in Pittsburgh, I probably would have been on that plane--if it was bound from the Steel City--to come to Comic-Con, which is this week. The last few years that I journeyed out here for the con, I came in as early as the Saturday before, milking every moment I could in San Diego. Partly because I loved it here, but mainly because once Comic-Con started, that's where I was each waking moment. If I wanted to explore San Diego itself, I had to come early. You can't see much of "America's Finest City" from the inside of a convention center.

    It was 1998 when it all changed. That final summer, I had already quit my job and decided I would give the comic book publishing thing a try. I did 3 issues that year, Innocent Bystander #s 5 and 6, and The Collected Innocent Bystander Vol. 1, which compiled issues 1-4 in one trade paperback. I had an ambitious spring/summer/fall convention itinerary mapped out, which included Pittsburgh Comicon in April, San Diego Comic-Con in July, WizardWorld Chicago in August, and SPX (in Bethesda, Maryland) in September. In addition to the new books, I had prepared an 8-page catalog which showcased all the IB products. It was do or die time.

    And it all pretty much died.

    But so did something else in 1998: my will to continue living in Pittsburgh. Sometime after my 10-day trip to San Diego in that summer, I decided to move here. Ten years later, my reasons for going to Comic-Con are entirely different. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I am now a San Diegan. I've found the place I want to stay for the rest of my life, and maybe even the job I want to keep for a decade or so more until I retire (god willing). I have to remind myself, at times, that I am in no small way, the luckiest guy alive. At least every once in a while.

    Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell

    DitkobookThere's no argument that Steve Ditko is at least partly responsible for one of the world's most famous superheroes, the Amazing Spider-Man. In fact, I can't type that word--amazing--without seeing it in some kind of early Marvel Age of Comics hand-lettered font on a cover: bright, bold and tantalizing. I probably associate that word with Ditko more than anyone--or thing--else.

    I know I didn't like Ditko's work as a kid, and his acquired tastiness is something that has come for me only with age, and even then, it's a bit of a limited palate. I really only like Ditko's Marvel work, from the Atlas monster books in the late 50s through the time he left Spidey and Dr. Strange behind in the mid 60s, and his Charlton heroes (Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, and The Question), and DC work that run either concurrently in that time period or directly after. In fact, other than Beware the Creeper, I can live without all of the artist's other DC stuff, including Hawk and Dove.

    But that's me. Blake Bell has taken on the daunting task of telling us the complete story of Steve Ditko's life, and it is, indeed, "Strange and Stranger." It's not just a pun on his other great co-creation, Dr. Strange. Bell's new book, Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, just published by Fantagraphics, proves that Ditko is one of the true visual stylists in comics of any era, but he definitely drew to the beat of a different drummer, if we can be allowed to mix things up a bit.

    An intensely private person, little is known about Steve Ditko. Bell does his best to dig up new info and tell the complete story, but it gets mired in Ditko's belief system: his adherence to the writings of Ayn Rand. While no story of Ditko is complete without full and utter acknowledgment of this fact, it's--quite frankly--where the book derails (slightly) in my eye. It's also, unfortunately, where Ditko's career derailed.

    The text derailment is a minor quibble, because this is a beautiful book, designed by Adam Grano and edited by Greg Sadowski, Gary Groth, and Kim Thompson. Not quite as beautiful as Mark Evanier's Kirby: King of Comics, but a brilliant complement to that book, the other "Marvel artist bookend," if you will, for your bookshelf. Ditko remains an enigma, a man who could be making tons of money off his original art, at the very least, but his principles won't allow him. That's admirable, as is his long career in an industry that eats its young. But it's also kind of sad.

    July 18, 2008

    I hate when this happens...

    Boy, this is a bad way to start the weekend...

    Friday Foto #36

    Frifoto36

    San Diego from Shelter Island.

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