When I was hanging out at Marvel in the early 1980s, most of the people there said they were voting for Reagan, regardless of his policies, because Mondale was a “wimp.” To them, that was the most important issue.

Or they were goofing on me and I was too oblivious to notice.

Probably not. A lot of Reagan’s appeal was that his came off as the John Wayne of presidents. We don’t respect brain power; we want to bludgeon our enemies and those who do not believe the way we do — “we” being the male white Christian football-loving gun-toting beer-drinking minority of Americans.

Or, as Gene Wilder said in Blazing Saddles, “You know. Assholes.”

To quote Thomas Jefferson, “People get the government they deserve”. If you’ve ever watched the segment on “The Tonight Show” called “Jaywalking”, you’d weep at seeing the “informed electorate” that is in this country.

We have a lot of ignorant people around and since stupidity isn’t a crime, but rather a requirement for most elected offices, that’s the type we’ll be getting in there for years on end because people want someone just like them in office; not someone who can actually get something done. Even if the opposite was true, the “brain trust” that is in Congress would hamstring them.

Personally, though it’s cool to have a President who is into comics, that isn’t something that should think they’re going to be an effective leader - it’s about as asinine as those who vote for the person they’d like to have a beer with.

Wonderful history rich blog again Mike. I swear each week you throw out one more crazy-awesome historical bone just to make us underlings feel like “what the hell have I accomplished?!”. My pals and I were discussing it, and we hope since Barack believes in change, his first act as president (not counting things to help this miserable economy, and our even more miserable state of affairs abroad) will be to overturn the anti-change of “one more day”. As a spiderman fan, hopefully the new president will make marvel realize that just because you advance a character (even one as marketable and loved as Spiderman) does not mean you have to revert history every twenty years to keep things “timeless”. I mean think about it… In 10 more years, will Frank Castle be rebooted to have been Desert Storm veteran??

Well, in any event, hope all is well. And maybe one of these weeks, akin to the MOTU’s 4 parter series about the formation of Milestone, you could regail us with the tale of the first chicago comicon?

Oh, I think the most interesting Chicago Comicon story is the one about our Doctor Who show. It was the first hugely major Doctor Who event in the States, and we didn’t have a clue how many people might attend. Ha!

I know I’ve got the program book here somewhere. When I get some time, I’ll dig it out and write up a piece about it. Many of us — Maggie Thompson, Bob Weinberg, George Hagenauer — still talk about it over and over, to death.

WRT “Jaywalking” - There are several possibilities to explain the people seen in the Jaywalking bits on The Tonight Show:

1) Yes, people really are that stupid.
2) We have no idea how many people answered the questions correctly before they found a sufficient supply of morons.
3) Rather than risking running into a Mensa chapter on a tour, Jay’s people write the wrong answers, and find people willing to look stupid to be on TV.
4) People have seen the show, and know that stupid wrong answers are the key to getting on TV.

The comment about people getting the government they deserve makes me think about people declaring Obama’s victory a landslide. I personally think someone needs to set some firm definitions about certain terms. For instance, to have a mandate from the people, at least 2/3 of all people eligible to vote should have voted for the candidate. Since we usually don’t get that many people to vote to begin with, we should rarely have people running around talking about there mandate from the people. A landslide should be where you get at least 2/3 of the popular vote. Elected officials should keep in mind when more than 1 out of 3 people in their districts didn’t want them in their position.

Your story about Roger Ebert and Harvey Kurtzman reminded me of something. I have a friend who wrote for a newspaper. One day he got a call from a publicist for Big Idea, the producers of Veggie Tales. I think they were working on a live action play with the Veggie Tales characters. The publicist asked my friend if he would like to do a story or an interview on the project.

My friend said, “Sure. If I can get an interview with Larry the Cucumber!”

The publicist stopped for a moment, saying, “Nobody has ever asked that before,” then added, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Two days later, my friend was on the phone with Larry!

In reference to your question about Republicans reading comics, do you mean conservative people, or strictly Republicans?

The only reason I ask, is because I am NOT a Republican, but, I am most assuredly, a Conservative, and I have read comics since I was “knee high to a grasshopper” as my Grandfather would say.

I adore comic books, and by that, I mean all kinds. Not just the superhero archetypes.

As a matter of fact, one of my most favorite titles was Bone. Which I have read and re-read so many times that I actually had to go out and buy replacements, due to the damage over the years.

As for my favorite superhero…Gotta have me some Batman (I can be a bit of a DC brat at times).

Well, I’m a conservative, but I’m not a Republican. I’m also, strictly speaking, not a Democrat but as a Chicagoan people often get confused. I’ve voted for Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, write-ins, shut-ins, haves, have-nots, and I’d probably vote for the Anarchist Moper’s Party if they’d just get off their ass and field some candidates.

To be honest, I haven’t known what a Republican is for several years. Oddly, this is the first time in almost a half century that I’ve had even a vague idea of what a Democrat is. At the end of the day, they’re both football teams… and I’m a hockey fan.

As noted yesterday in my comment over on Martha’s place, I fervently believe in the truly American philosophy of “mind your own damn business.” The government is there for the common good, not for the profit of the few. Build roads, keep the playing fields level, provide essential services that cannot be provided by individuals like water, transportation and health/environment.

I’m not a state’s rights person. The whole concept is stupid. We all watch the same teevee shows, we all share the same culture, we all have the same needs and are stuck with the same stores in the cookie-cutter strip malls. What’s legal in Connecticut should be legal in Georgia, and vice versa. 50 sets of laws simply makes lawyers and hustlers all the more wealthy at the expense of the common good.

Many years ago, Pete Seeger told Roger Ailes (pre-Fox, when Roger was running NBC’s cable stations) that he was a conservative because he wants to conserve our land and its resources. That makes sense to me. More sense than Roger Ailes.

As for Batman, I used to love the guy. That was before he became as big an asshole as his cadre of villains. A total psychotic. Ever since then, he’s floundered all over the place. Screw that. Give me the Denny O’Neil / Frank Robbins / Steve Englehart Bat any day.

Don’t you think we, the comics industry, really lucked out that Obama has gone public with his comic book habit - and NOT Bush. I mean - Bush could very well be a comic book reader to this day. But I bet everyone in his administration has been keeping that a deep, dark secret. Just imagine how the press would have spun that story - our dumbest President reads comic books. That would have done us no good. But instead we have one of our smartest Presidents putting it right out there that he is a comic book fan. We are getting a whole different spin out of this one.

Oh - and I think it is really funny that now that your columns have moved away from ComicMix, Obama has put the comic book discussion on the map. It is almost like you knew something was up the way you kept talking about him over at CM.

Americans love their comic books; it took Wertham years to turn us against ourselves. Sick puppy, that one.

Not as sick as that other comics doctor, William Moulton Marston. That guy even freaked J. Edgar Hoover out.