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It's time once more to take the road down to San Diego for the annual orgy of mass- toon consumption THE SAN DIEGO COMICON. Since 1972 cartoonists, fantasy sci-fi fans and just generally weird people gather by the tens of thousands to fill the convention center there and see sneaks of future Comic inspired blockbusters.

Highlights this year will be Eric Goldberg and his daughter J.R. Goldberg both with booths signing their newest books. Eric's great new how-to on animation principles Character Animation Crash Course just came out. Jenny will be signing her work at Dark Horse Comics.

WHO IS ROCKET JOHNSON?- the book done by a dozen Walt Disney animators with too much time on their hands, will be available for signing as well. I'm teasing, it's all in a good cause, because the proceeds from the work will go for Muscular Dystrophy.

My own CLICK & CLACK'S AS THE WRENCH TURNS will have a panel of the creative heads moderated by yours truly, on Thurs Morning at 10:00AM at Room 2. We'll be hosting an invitation-only hospitality suite at the Marriott Gaslamp that evening.

A new episode is playing tonight, so there'll be much to talk about. Maybe I'll bring some copies of Drawing the Line to sign. com'on and drop in on us!

I'll also do some volunteer work at ASIFA/Hollywood's table and will be Friday on the State of the Industry Panel. If you've never been to a Comicon, it's worth going at least once for the social phenomenon.

Hmm...I wonder if the Imperial Stormtrooper-Elvis Impersonator and Buddy Jesus will be there again...?

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Quiz: What was Winston Churchill’s Black Dog?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: In Hollywood, what are the Coogan Laws?
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History for 7/23/2008
Birthdays: Ethiopian Emperor Rastafari Halie Selassie "the Lion of Judah", Raymond Chandler, Raymond Booth, Don Drysdale, Gloria DeHaven, Arthur Treacher, Woody Harrelson, Pee Wee Reese, Bob Fosse, Harry Cohn, Don Imus, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Charisma Carpenter, Slash, Marlon Wayans, Monica Lewinsky, Daniel Radcliffe the Harry Potter star is 19

Today is the Ancient Roman Festival of Neptune, God of the Sea.

1866- The Cincinnatti Reds Baseball club formed. The oldest continual professional baseball team in the U.S.

1886- This was the day Bowery saloonkeeper Steve Brodie claimed he jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge.

1888 - John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic rubber tire.

1904 – The Ice Cream Cone created by Charles E Menches during the LA Purchase Expo.

1908 -Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid IV is deposed by a group of militant army officers demanding modern reforms called the Young Turks.

1919- At the request of his Secretary of War McAdoo President Woodrow Wilson named the recently concluded great war against Germany as the "World War." It wasn’t called World War One until Time magazine labeled the conflict of 1939-45 World War Two. Franklin Roosevelt thought it" too depressing, like we were bound to have more."

1927 – Reacting to a public finally tired of the Tin Lizzy Model T and increased competition, the Ford Motor Co sells 1st the first Model A car.

1932-The Birthday of Fritos. Texas ice cream maker Elmer Doolin buys a recipe for corn chips from a Mexican fry cook for $100 dollars and starts the Frito-Lay Company.

1937-TENNIS DIPLOMACY- The US and Nazis Germany spent much of the late 1930’s testing their competing philosophies on sports playing fields- Democracy vs Aryan Racial Purity. First Jesse Owens at the Olympics, then prizefighters Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, this day even the semi-finals of the Davis Cup Tennis championship became a Yankees vs Nazis test. At Wimbeldon England American Dan Budge and German Baron Gottfried Von Krom played the game of their lives. Hitler had personally telephoned Von Krom the night before and ordered him to win. Ironically Von Krom was anti-Nazi. Dan Budge won after 6 nail biting tied sets. At one point American tennis great Bill Tilden who had been hired to coach the German team signaled that the match was in the bag. This provoked such an angry reaction from the audience that entertainers Jack Benny and Ed Sullivan tried to climb the fence to kick Tilden’s ass. But Budge came from behind to win. Von Krom took defeat like a gentleman but Hitler didn’t. Shortly upon his return to the fatherland the Gestapo arrested him for homosexual activity.

1962- The first simultaneous television broadcast via the new TelStar communications satellite from America to Europe.

1966- The comedy song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha, Ha!" released. The singer was Napoleon XIV.

1968- Fred Blasie won an unprecedented fifth World Wrestling Championship belt. Blasie later gained more fame for recording the comedy song "Pencil Necked Geeks" and beating up comedian Andy Kaufman in the ring for calling wrestling a hoax.

1982- Actor Vic Morrow and two children are killed by a stunt helicopter while filming "Twilight Zone, the movie". The last scripted line before his death was "I’ll Keep you safe kids, I swear to God!" The children were being worked into the early morning hours without a caretaker supervisor in defiance of the Coogan Laws. Director John Landis was investigated but exonerated. The only filmworker to dare to testify against Landis, the wardrobe supervisor, was blacklisted and never worked in Hollywood again.

1984- Vanessa Williams the first black Miss America resigned after a photo spread of her in a nude lesbian scenario in Penthouse magazine. She denied any impropriety until the facts were obvious and she resigned. At the same time it was pointed out to Sylvester Stallone that he starred in a trashy porno called The Italian Stallion. Sly's reaction:" Eh, I was young, unemployed, and had to eat." Scandal over.

2003-THE DOWNING STREET MEMO- British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cabinet have a meeting about Iraq. During that meeting Blairs’ people discuss as fact that the Bush Administration cooked the data to bring about a cassus-belli, the excuse for invasion. This story is buried by the media in the USA.

2004- Two armed men enter the Munch Museum in Norway and steal Edvard Munch’s masterpiece The Scream at gunpoint. It was recovered with some water damage in 2007.
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Yesterday’s Question: In Hollywood, what are the Coogan Laws?

Answer: Regulations regarding the welfare of child film stars. That they not lose school time, and their monies are kept in trust until they are of legal age. Named for Jackie Coogan, the child who acted with Charlie Chaplin in the silent classic: “The Kid”.