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Join us each Tuesday as Bob Ingersoll analyzes how the law
is portrayed in comics then explains how it would really work.
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THE LAW IS A ASS for 06/29/1999
INSTALLMENT # 0
I'm here because of-and in no particular order-a bottle of aspirin, a soundless explosion, and the fact that Tony Isabella is a nuhdz. I wanted to get that out right away, so, in case you didn't like this page, you'd know who to blame.
If you do like it, then I take all the credit. Hey, I'm a lawyer, I can be magnanimous in my aggrandizing.
For those of you who have been following me these past fifteen years, you know who I am and what I do. I ask your indulgence while I indulge in a little background in this installment number zero of "The Law is a Ass." (Yes, a collectible zero issue.) For those of you who came in late, let me tell you a little about myself: who I am and what I do. Think of it as one of those Marvel Comics gatefold covers that recap what has gone before, but without the garish colors or the gatefold.
My name is Bob Ingersoll. About twenty years ago I was much younger, much, much lighter and casting about trying to decide what to do with my life. What I had considered my best option-stay at home and live off my parents-was unexpectedly taken from me, when my father, "Get out!" and I needed something else. At this time of uncertainty, fate interposed in the form of an aspirin commercial.
The commercial featured Roy Thinnes, an actor who had his own series back in the 60's but who, in those pre-infomercial days of the mid-70's, seemed to be finding work primarily in the dinner-theater circuit and TV commercials. Roy walked out on state carrying some thick, important-looking document, fixed his stare directly into the camera, put on this kind of honest expression that actors, who had their own TV series in the 60's but now seemed to be finding work primarily in the dinner-theater circuit and TV commercials so were desperate for the work all learned, and solemnly told us that in a recent study doctors could find no proof of the claim that aspirin substitute was safer to take than aspirin. Then, after huckstering whatever brand of aspirin he was huckstering, Roy concluded by saying, "Remember, aspirin substitute is not safer than aspirin." I looked at my father, who was watching the show with me, and said, "That's now what the study said. The study only said doctors couldn't find any proof that aspirin substitute was safer than aspirin. That doesn't mean it isn't safer, it only means they can't prove it yet." My father looked back and told me what my friends already knew, I liked picking a good nit and should become a lawyer, where I could turn these special talents for nit-picking into money. I realized that going to law school would mean I could live off my parents for another three years and quickly agreed.
When I graduated from law school, I became a public defender in Cleveland, Ohio, which is what I still do to this day. Now, despite what my clients say-because they think you can't get something for nothing-and my paycheck says-because the county that employs me thinks you can-a public defender, is a real lawyer. Honest. Check my diploma. Does it say Placebo State University? I rest my case. There, I just said, "I rest my case," more proof.
Anyway, that's the aspirin part. Because of aspirin, I became a lawyer. And I'm still trying to figure out how I can sue the Bayer people over that one.
See when I was growing up, I never wanted to be a lawyer. What kid does? Kids want to have glamorous and exciting jobs like cowboys and fireman and astronauts or even accountants, but they don't want to be lawyers. (Wanting to be a lawyer comes later, when you realize that your paltry allowance doesn't stretch too very far and you suddenly desire a job that will maximize earning potential without requiring you to grow three feet taller, be ground underfoot by quarter-ton linebackers or learn how to throw a curve with your uncoordinated left hand.) I was no exception, I didn't want to be a lawyer, I wanted to be a comic-book writer. The problem was, I wasn't a comic-book writer, I was a lawyer and I wondered how I could combine what I wanted to be with what I was.
That's where the nuhdzing comes in. Tony Isabella suggested I write an article about how the law was portrayed in comic books. He thought it was a great idea. I gave the idea all the consideration I thought it deserved and went about trying to determine how I could combine comic-book writing and the law.
Yes, I didn't listen to Tony. Fortunately, he was persistent and, a few months later, he again suggested that I write an article about how the law is portrayed in comic books. I did a quick calculation of how many potential markets I thought the article had, and ...
Yes, I ignored Tony again.
Tony waited a few more months and then, consistently persistent, brought the subject up yet again. Figuring the only way I could free myself of his nuhdzing was to feign compliance, I assured him I was a little busy at the moment but would get right on it as soon as my schedule permitted, then promptly did nothing with it.
It went on like this for the better part of a year until Tony called me one day and told me the editors of Comics Buyers' Guide, Don and Maggie Thompson, wanted to see the article. "What article?" I asked him. "The article about how the law is portrayed in comics," he answered. When I assured him that I had never spoken with either Don or Maggie Thompson about writing any such article, he informed me that he had grown tired of waiting for me to do something with the idea and had pitched it to CBG for me.
I had to give him credit, he was good. A nuhdz, but good. (As a sidebar, I should note that I nuhdzed him back. Years later, I took a basic idea for a Captain America story that Tony hadn't gotten around to submitting, because this was during the time that Rob Liefeld had the character so who knew what anybody wanted, and, without consulting Tony, pitched it to Byron Preiss Multimedia. The result was Captain America: Liberty's Torch, the novel that Tony and I wrote and which is available not only in better bookstores everywhere, but which you can order on line by following the link in Tony's own page here in World Famous Comics.)
Of course this meant that I actually had to sit down and write the article, a task I quickly realized would be impossible. Why impossible? Because as I reviewed how the law was portrayed in comics, or more accurately, how inaccurately the law was portrayed in comics, I realized the enormity of my task. Any article I could write would quickly exceed 10,000 words without my even having to leave Batman. Take it from me, 10,000 words is not a sellable length. When the Readers Digest version of an article clocks out longer than the Book of Genesis, magazines editors don't know you from Adam.
I decided that, if I couldn't do the article as an article, I'd try it as a column, that way I could do one short installment about each of the problems I saw. I wrote up the first three installments of the column which I called "The Law is a Ass," sent them off to Don and Maggie and waited to see how they would be received; thinking the whole think wouldn't last more than a year, eighteen months tops.
It's been fifteen years now and although Don Thompson is, unfortunately, no longer with us, Maggie still edits Comics Buyer's Guide and I'm still writing columns about the law in CBG.
And now here I am doing the same thing on my own World Wide Web page and does this make me the master of my own Domain? Anyway, I suppose all of the above raises up as many questions as it answers. Questions such as, "Isn't ‘The Law is a Ass,' ungrammatical and vulgar?" Or "Why are you branching out onto the web now?" And, finally, "Why do you do the things you do?"
To answer the first, yes, the title is ungrammatical and vulgar; but what the Dickens can I do about it. The phrase "the law is a ass" is from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, Chapter 51 to be exact. In said work, Mr. Bumble, an ungrammatical and vulgar character, is told that he is legally responsible for the wrongs of his wife, because the law presumes a husband can control her actions. Mr. Bumble's ungrammatical and vulgar response was, "If the law supposes that the law is a ass-a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor." I happen to love taking titles from famous quotes-hell, I once called a story by the ungainly "My Feet Shall Fall in the Destined Snare"-so thought this would be the perfect title for my column; it's ungrammatical vulgarity notwithstanding. Fortunately, Don and Maggie thought the same and bought both the columns and the title.
Why am I branching out to the World Wide Web? The answer to that is two-fold. The first is that I want to archive my columns; particularly the older columns. See, those older columns were written on a typewriter-you remember typewriters, don't you?-long before I had a computer or could store the columns as easy-to-revise WordPerfect files and I've long wanted to convert those older columns into WordPerfect files. That way if I do interest a publisher in doing a collection of the columns, the manuscript would be much easier to complete. Retyping the columns into WordPerfect was one option, just not one I had any desire to do. And, although I've had a scanner for a few years, I've never gotten around to converting those old typewritten columns into computer-ready files. No amateur status for me, I'm the one who put the "pro" into procrastinate.
But now, with my own web page in which I plan to write some new columns as well as reprint those older columns, I'll be forced to scan and convert those older files, while, at the same time, making those older files available for people to read again. I get what I want-the impetus actually to sit down and scan the old columns-and the people who want to read those older columns again get what they want.
The people who don't want to read the old columns can go look for nude pictures of Demi Moore; I understand there are so many of them on the web that Yahoo is building a special search engine just for that purpose.
The more astute of you will have noticed that I said I wanted to write some new columns here, as well. Does that mean I'm not going to write for CBG, as well? That's certainly not my intention. Still there are many columns I'd like to write which I don't think are appropriate for CBG. No, I'm not going to concentrate on the "Ass" part of my title or otherwise branch out into racy subject matter. In some cases, in order to do the column properly, it will need to be longer what CBG can print. In other cases, the topic might be about television, movies or older comic books, in which CBG isn't as interested. My plan is to write shorter columns about what's going on in today's comics for CBG, while here I can write columns which are either longer than CBG can print or are about older comics or TV and movies, in which CBG doesn't have as much interest. Again, everyone gets what they want.
(For those of you who want neither, no I don't have the URL for that Demi Moore search engine.)
Which brings us to the last unanswered question: why do I do what I do? Unfortunately, it will have to stay unanswered for a bit longer. Although I did say I want to write longer columns here, that doesn't mean I want to take up all the bandwidth of Provo, Utah and this column has gone on long enough.
So, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Next week I'll write the second part of this introductory, column installment # 0. (Yes, not only a collectible zero issue, but an extremely rare and highly-collectible two-part zero issue. You did double bag your computer monitor, didn't you?) In that second part, I'll explain exactly why it is I do what I do and what a soundless explosion has to do with the law. (See, I didn't forget.) Then I'll finish out the column by actually do what it is I actually do and analyzing one of the stupidest portrayals of law ever perpetrated; one perpetrated by a former lawyer, no less. In the weeks after that, I'll reprint my two most recent columns and probably do another new column, before I start reprinting my oldest columns.
After all, I have to give myself a little more procrastinating time before I start scanning, don't I?
BOB INGERSOLL
The First >> 06/29/1999 | 07/06/1999 >>
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