Talking with Tim

Keith Dallas and I have some great history, having worked together at Silverbulletcomicbooks.com (now ComicsBulletin.com) for a few years. Dallas was (and is) one of the nicest guys I’ve met in my travels through the comic book journalism dog and pony show. I consider myself fortunate to have get to do some mild copy-editing (once Dallas writes or edits something, there’s not much to edit to be honest) on his new book, The Flash Companion. Described by publisher TwoMorrows Publishing as detailing “the publication histories of the four heroes who have individually earned the right to be declared DC Comics’ “Fastest Man Alive”: Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, and Bart Allen. With articles about legendary creators SHELLY MAYER, GARDNER FOX, E.E. HIBBARD, JULIUS SCHWARTZ, ROBERT KANIGHER, JOHN BROOME, ROSS ANDRU, IRV NOVICK and all new interviews of HARRY LAMPERT, CARMINE INFANTINO, CARY BATES, ALEX SAVIUK, MIKE W. BARR, MARV WOLFMAN, MIKE BARON, JACKSON GUICE, MARK WAID, SCOTT KOLINS, among others, THE FLASH COMPANION recounts the scarlet speedster’s evolution from the Golden Age to the 21st century. Also featured are “lost covers,” never before published commission pieces by Flash artists throughout the decades, a ROGUES GALLERY detailing The Flash’s most famous foes, a tribute to late artist MIKE WIERINGO by Mark Waid, a look at the speedster’s 1990s TV show, and “Flash facts” detailing pivotal moments in Flash history.” I was really excited to get a chance to interview my old pal, Keith, and I hope you enjoy our email exchange.

Tim O’Shea: In listening to the TwoMorrows podcast interview, I was interested to hear that, while the book covers Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West and Bart Allen as well as the Rogues Gallery, you admit there was some of the book that had to be edited out for space. How did you go about deciding what ended up in the book and what was the hardest aspect to trim out of the book?

Keith Dallas: When I pitched The Flash Companion to John Morrow [TwoMorrows’ publisher], I gave him a detailed outline of all the Flash material (articles, interviews, sidebars) that I wanted the book to include. When you think about the publication history of The Flash, there is a lot of “no-brainer” material, like spotlights on Carmine Infantino, John Broome, Julius Schwartz, Cary Bates, Mark Waid, etc., etc.

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While I mentioned my impending marriage in passing a few times in the past several months, I just realized I forgot to announce when it happened. Yep, I got married last month. Sorry for not mentioning it earlier.

So while I’m well overdue for getting this blog back on a more frequent posting schedule–I still have some commitments (family and professionally) that require my attention at present. I do hope to have a new interview posted in the next few days. I also hope to get a more regular pattern of posting entries–starting in October. Thanks for your patience and interest.

To be able to score another interview with one of the Cinematic Titanic crew after having the good fortune to interview Mary Jo Pehl was not something I had expected. But right after Pehl expressed interest, so did Frank Conniff. Conniff, another original MST3K cast member and writer, was best known as TV’s Frank on the show. After MST3K ended, Conniff diversified into various TV projects, including work on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and Invader Zim. In addition to his current involvement with Cinematic Titanic, he serves as host and performer for Cartoon Dump, a monthly show at Hollywood’s Steve Allen Theatre that aims to feature “live comedy, great music and hilariously bad animation“. We got to talk about both new projects briefly this week. My thanks to Conniff for his time, and to Josh Opitz for arranging both Cinematic Titanic interviews.

Tim O’Shea: You recently wrote about Skidoo (the Otto Preminger film with Groucho Marx as a gangster named “God”). I have seen the film as well and I wonder would that be a film that the Cinematic Titanic gang might like to tackle? Or is it just so weird on its own merits that to mock it would dilute the potency of its sheer badness?

Frank Conniff: I don’t think we could ever get the rights to “Skidoo.”

On the one hand, it would be a fun film to riff on, but on the other hand, it is, as you say, bad on its own merits and maybe it doesn’t need the Cinematic Titanic treatment to be enjoyed.

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As a person who could be sent into near convulsions from laughing at the old Mystery Science Theater 3000 shows, a few months ago when I heard about Cinematic Titanic (which features the creator and original MST3K cast executing what they characterize as “Movie Riffing 2.0″) I looked into it with some skepticism. But almost immediately after playing a Cinematic Titanic teaser at YouTube I was laughing uncontrollably just like old times. I was recently fortunate enough to interview one of the crew, Mary Jo Pehl. This interview was conducted prior to the August 7 release of Cinematic Titanic’s riffing of The Wasp Woman.

Before diving into the interview, here’s the official take on Cinematic Titanic: “Cinematic Titanic is a feature length movie riffing show and is an artist owned and operated venture created by Joel Hodgson, the creator of the Peabody award-winning Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Cinematic Titanic features the original cast and writers of MST3K, which is Hodgson (Joel Robinson), Trace Beaulieu (Crow), and J. Elvis Weinstein (Tom Servo). Filling out the ensemble is Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester) and Frank Conniff (TV’s Frank). Cinematic Titanic’s focus is to riff on the movies we love, which are ‘the unfathomable’, ‘the horribly great’, and the just plain ‘cheesy’ movies from the past.”

And now for the official word on Pehl: “Writer, actor, raconteur, bon vivant and former Mystery Science Theater 3000 writer, Mary Jo Pehl’s work ranges from television to theater, national radio to regional magazines. Her hilarious and thoughtful takes on life have delighted audiences in print and stage.” My thanks to Pehl for her time.

Tim O’Shea: For a collaborative comedic effort like Cinematic Titanic how hard was it for you to get back into the rhythm and dynamics that had been polished during MST3K? Or is it like riding a bike, and everything just fell back into place?

Mary Jo Pehl: It was kind of surprising how easily we fell back into it. I hadn’t realized that it was in my blood! Not only that, I had recently worked with a couple of guys here in Austin who do an homage to MST3K called Master Pancake Theater. They invited me to riff live with them, so I got a little experience actually riffing live on the films and not just writing the jokes. It was good training to actually being in front of the movie.

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There’s no corner of the sequential art industry that gets ignored, thanks to Dirk Deppey. As the linking dynamo behind Journalista, Deppey has built a web presence that is a daily stop for anyone who wants to stay informed about comics. Deppey took time out of his recent vacation to answer a few questions on his role as TCJ.com online editor and his past gig as managing editor of The Comics Journal.

Tim O’Shea: Some people mistakenly assume your responsibility as TCJ.com’s online editor is to do Journalista. What all do you do as online editor?

Dirk Deppey: Journalista’s a big part of it, yes — I mean, it requires anywhere from six to twelve hours a day, depending on what’s out there, so it takes up the overwhelming majority of my time. The other big job is producing the online edition of the print magazine for subscribers, which entails turning the text and images into something Web-friendly, which while not as time-intensive as the blog still takes a significant amount of work. There are also the random online-only goodies, nominal policing of the message board and whatever else rears its ungainly head. I probably put in a good 50-55 hours a week on the website, all told.

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What are the odds that some agent out there is trying to pitch a reality show with Amy Winehouse and Courtney Love, called Do Resuscitate? The closer would be if they would each be assigned a life coach, either Liza Minnelli or Stevie Nicks. Tell me you would not watch it. C’mon.

I’m fairly certain the first time I ran across Gerard Jones was when I picked up an issue of his and Will Jacobs-written comic book, The Trouble with Girls, back in the late 1980s. I also was aware of his work for Marvel and DC in the early 1990s. But Jones’ writing really came to my attention in 2002, when he wrote the nonfiction book, Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Superheroes and Make-Believe Violence. It was then that I interviewed him (for a long defunct website) about the book. His popularity substantially increased with the 2004 release of the Eisner Award-winning nonfiction work, Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book. Jacobs and Jones, after a 15-year hiatus, recently started collaborating on comedy writing again–and posting their efforts online. Upon reading about one (of three) of their projects “Million Dollar Ideas, our new humor novel set in ’40s Hollywood (sort of)” [as described by Jones], I took the opportunity to email interview him about his return to fiction and humor.

Tim O’Shea: What prompted you to pursue a return to humor writing and collaborating again with Will Jacobs after a 15-year hiatus?

Gerard Jones: Writing humor with Will is the most fun I’ve ever had as a writer. We both got a little burnt out on the financial and market stresses of it after our struggles to keep The Trouble with Girls alive didn’t work out, but we both always figured we’d come back to it when the time is right. But then we both had kids, mortgages, a need to be a little more practical with our career decisions. I think we finally got to the point that we felt secure enough with our other endeavors to consider writing something fun by high-risk again, and all we needed was the trigger. That trigger turned out to be Checker Books asking to reprint the first 14 issues of Girls a couple of years ago. The rest of that story is told in an entry on http://undressingamerica.blogspot.com (and my Red Room page).

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Last month, after reading Whitney (Pop Candy) Matheson’s review of Robert Schnakenberg’s new book, Secret Lives of Great Authors, I tracked down the author to interview him. In addition to discussing the new book, Schnakenberg took questions about the upcoming release of his revised Encyclopedia Shatnerica (about all things William Shatner, set for an August 2008 release) as well as a new Christopher Walken A-to-Z book (set for October 2008 release). But the bulk of this interview covered the book that answers such questions as “Is it true that J. D. Salinger drank his own urine? Why was Ayn Rand such a big fan of Charlie’s Angels?” My thanks to Schnakenberg for his time.

Tim O’Shea: How often in trying to research facts for Secret Lives did you find out the anecdote was not true?

Robert Schnakenberg: That happened occasionally. Sometimes I’d find a really good anecdote about someone, and then another source would say that it happened to someone else entirely. You know, one book says it happened to Ernest Hemingway, another says it happened to F. Scott Fitzgerald. That happens with quotes a lot. They are always attributed to two or three different people. So you throw those out, or you find the one source that you trust and you go with that. I can’t promise that every anecdote in my book is 100% true—I mean, I wasn’t in the men’s room with Hemingway and Fitzgerald when they compared schlongs—but I can say everything is reliably sourced. Double and triple sourced, in fact, as much as possible.

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I have no crystal ball to predict the fate of newspapers.

But they won’t be the same without Tony Kornheiser. He took the buyout offer from the Washington Post. Sure, he had not written for the paper to any great extent in years. But still, it’s a shame. And as noted by Reuters, Tony is bailing in good company, given that “U.S. political columnist David Broder” has also taken the buyout.

Oh well, at least we’ll still be able to enjoy Tony on the radio and on TV.

How many of you are like me–and find yourself watching bad TV that you sit there, thinking the whole time: “There’s something better that I could be doing with my time.” When I watch these kinds of show, I chalk it up to being a guilty pleasure of mine.

So, when I discovered that Dave Campbell (formerly the guy behind Dave’s Long Box [a great blog about comics]) was writing for ABC.com via Live from L.A.–and in particular about Wife Swap–I was happy. Why? Well Dave has a unique pop culture view of the world like myself. So to have a blog where I can read about one of my current TV guilty pleasures, Wife Swap, well it’s a good thing.

Campbell is a witty writer with some good observations (about several ABC shows, not just Wife Swap). Be sure to check Campbell’s Live from L.A., you won’t be sorry.