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November 21, 2001

DURING THE FIFTIES, my mentor Jack Kirby did a brief, frustrating stint as the artist and creative impetus of Green Arrow, which was then one of DC Comics' second-string features.  Jack had no love of the character and neither, from what I can tell, did anyone else for a few decades.  But it was work at a time when he needed it so he signed on and attempted — without his usual success — to "build it into something."  That was the way Kirby approached almost everything he touched: I have to build this into something.

Though comic sales were then in the toilet, Jack's attempts to revamp the strip were met around the office with an attitude of, "No, we like it the way it was," and his rather modest proposed innovations were tempered.  One of the problems was that Green Arrow had been co-created by a burly, egotistical DC editor named Mort Weisinger who had never liked Kirby's work or the notion of artists doing anything more than drawing what they were told to draw.  Weisinger was not then the editor of the strip — Jack Schiff was — but Weisinger wielded enough influence over it to keep it more or less the way he wanted it.

For a relatively short time, Jack was doing that strip, the occasional story for DC's mystery anthology comics and his ground-breaking book, Challengers of the Unknown.  Then he got into a business squabble with Schiff and was bounced out of DC and told his services would never be welcome there again.  And for twelve-or-so years, they weren't.  During that time, he worked at Marvel, where Stan Lee was a bit more receptive to the Kirby style and to allowing Jack to try and build things.  That worked out quite well...

If you'd like to see what Jack did with Green Arrow — trying and failing to make it a better strip — DC now gives you that opportunity.  You can now purchase, for about six bucks, a slim volume that contains every Green Arrow story Jack Kirby ever did...and you get a foreword by me, to boot, and a "new" Kirby cover.  It's a drawing Jack did of his western archer hero, Bullseye.  With the blessing of the Kirby estate, Mike Royer, one of Jack's favorite inkers was commissioned to take that drawing and alter it to be Green Arrow.  The whole thing is a nice, inexpensive package that you might want to seek out.

I Love America...Do You? by Harry Browne, WorldNetDaily Liberty Is Dying, Liberal by Liberal by Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times Business as Usual by Senator John McCain The Opportunist's Friend (and Foe): States' Rights by Garrett Epps, New York Times Clinton Speaks, Pundits Spin by Bryan Keefer, Spinsanity The Final Word? by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek Recounting the Media's Florida Recount by Jack Schafer, Slate The above links are to articles that the operator of this website believes are interesting and which contribute to the national debate.  He does not necessarily agree with all or any of what they say...and you won't, either.

THE MOST INTERESTING thing about the above articles is to note that the staunch Libertarian, Harry Browne, wrote a column very much like the one by the staunch Liberal, Robert Scheer.  Any issue that can unite those two guys is not to be treated lightly.

WANT TO VISIT some stars' websites?  Here's a list of some sites that are either run by famous stars or, for those who are deceased, their heirs...

The most intriguing bit o' news I gleaned from any of these was over at the official Frank Gorshin site, which bills itself as "The ONLY officially authorized and guaranteed Autograph Collectibles Website, personally endorsed by Frank Gorshin."  There's a schedule there for a touring company of The Sunshine Boys which is playing one-nighters in towns like Elyria, Ohio and Lakewood, New Jersey and which, the website announces, stars Mr. Gorshin and Dick Van Dyke!

Well, I read this and I thought, "Dick Van Dyke!?  I love Dick Van Dyke!"  But it struck me as odd that a star of his magnitude would be touring those little towns.  I also had a hard time imagining him in either of the leads of The Sunshine Boys.  So I did a little research and came across this a website for the producers of this production.  You can reach it by clicking here but you don't have to.  Just understand that it cleared things up for me.

Attention, Frank Gorshin: The man you're playing opposite is DICK VAN PATTEN!  It is not — repeat: not — DICK VAN DYKE!  Dick Van Dyke was the star of The Dick Van Dyke Show, The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Diagnosis Murder and a lot of movies.  Dick Van Patten was the star of Eight is Enough.  Your official website does not seem to know the difference.  And I also have a suspicion that Mr. Van Patten thinks he's starring with Kirk Douglas.

Glad I could clear that up.

HAVE YOU LOST too many working hours playing the Solitaire game that comes with Windows?  Haven't we all?  Well, then you need Solitaire Cheat.  It's basically the same game except that it gives you the power to cheat.  You can download it here.

The game is free but has a harmless advertising banner on it.  Also: If you want it to look like the standard Windows Solitaire game, you'll have to do one little fix.  Windows Solitaire stores its card designs in a file called CARDS.DLL which you probably have in either your Windows directory of your Windows\System directory.  You will need to copy (don't move it — copy) that file into the same directory where you install Cheat Solitaire.  Then rename the file CARDS32.DLL.  This way, Cheat Solitaire will give you the same card designs that are in Windows Solitaire.

If the above doesn't work, it means you have a 16-bit CARDS.DLL on your computer.  Cheat Solitaire needs the 32-bit version.  You can find a copy of this pretty easily by using any search engine (like google) to search for CARDS.DLL and download a more recent version.  Put it in your Cheat Solitaire directory and rename it CARDS32.DLL.  If that doesn't work, you downloaded the wrong version of CARDS.DLL, so try again.  This is all much easier than it sounds and, besides, it's worth any amount of hassle just to beat that damn Solitaire game.

Okay...so anyone know where I can download a copy of Cheat Minesweeper?

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