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THE LAW IS A ASS for 02/29/2000
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 33
Originally written as installment # 23 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 549, May 25, 1984 issue
How do you know when you've found your soulmate?
In my case it was easy. On my second date with my then wife-to-be, I happened to notice a baby at the table next to us so I leaned over, took a line from the baby talk that the DC comic-book characters Sugar and Spike used to converse, and said, "Glx Spltz Glah." When my then wife-to-be--now my wife--said, "You read Sugar & Spike, too?" I knew I had found my soulmate.
Sugar & Spike was always one of my favorite comics. When I got married, Tony Isabella commissioned a local artist to sculpt a set of Sugar and Spike statutes as a wedding present. They still sit proudly on our fireplace mantle. Sugar & Spike was a comic about two toddlers who do not speak grown-up talk but can converse to each other in baby talk. The comic and its stories about the babies' efforts to try to make sense of an adult world are a delight. The series, the creation of writer/penciler/inker Sheldon Mayer--who also had brains enough to convince the powers that be that there must might be something in that Superman character, after all--ran from 1956 until 1971 and lasted 98 issues. Even after the American comic was cancelled, Mayer continued to produce some new Sugar & Spike stories for the foreign market.
When it was announced, in 1984, that there would be a revival of the series--which is what prompted the running gag of this column--I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, the revival I talk about in the column wasn't really to be. DC did reprint some of the unpublished foreign stories in their mid-80's digest magazines. And a few years back collected even more of the unpublished stories into a special 99th issue of the comic. But it was never, again an on-going series.
And, now, never will be. Mayer passed away some years back. Just as the United Features Syndicate understood how personal a vision Peanuts was and will honor Charles Schultz' request that no one else ever work on the strip, so DC has had the same vision and has honored Mayer's request that no one else ever produce Sugar & Spike stories.
Unfortunately, only 1954-1971. But it was a wonderful fifteen years.
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment # 33
by
Bob Ingersoll
The little baby girl with the blond ponytail is dumping out the contents of a large mail bag and crying, "Look at all the letters from our readers!" The red-headed baby boy cuddles the letters and responds, "I just love readers!"
I sense your concern."What's Ingersoll doing? After writing about insanity for two columns in a row, he's gone insane, himself. He's writing about babies." Not quite. Or to quote Shakespeare-- generally regarded as an excellent source for pithy quotes, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."
What I was doing was describing the letters page masthead for the old Sugar & Spike comic. Those of you who are not as antiquated as I or whose tastes don't run to the eclectic are, no doubt, wondering Sugar & Spike? Allow me to explain. Sugar & Spike was an excellent comic of the fifties and sixties and even the seventies which told the always humorous--often side-splittingly so--exploits of two little babies who tried to understand the world of grown-ups.
I described Sugar & Spike's letter masthead to announce that I am answering mail again in "The Law Is a Ass." I chose Sugar & Spike over, say "Metropolis Mailbag," because DC is reviving Sugar & Spike in the Summer of 1985. I want it to succeed! I love the book. I own a complete run of the original series, which, take it from me, is even better than two hundred pairs of stretch socks.
To help insure success for the book I am starting a campaign even as I answer that mail to put Sugar & Spike on everybody's lips, before it even comes out. Toward that end I have already on seven different occasions mentioned Sugar &Spike by name in this column. (Hmmm, make that eight.) Subliminal suggestion? Yes. This is war, and I fight dirty!
Now, on to the mail.
Bruce L. Moore of Belefontaine, Ohio, about two hours from my native Cleveland, inquired if I felt comics really needed a forum such as my column provides, that is one dedicated to pointing out legal errors in comics and taking the writers to task for their inaccuracies. He wonders if I haven't forgotten that comics, because they are fiction, can take a certain artistic license with the real workings of the law. He also reminds me that comics take place in other vibratory universes, where the laws may be different. Finally he points out that comics are a form of entertainment, so their creators shouldn't be criticized for failing to research the law, before they write.
I dispute each point and want to explain why forums such as "The Law Is a Ass" are needed. In the first place, "The Law is a Ass," keeps me busy and off the streets. But there's a bigger issue here, one that makes me wish there were more such columns. Like how about one on how science is garbled up in comics? We could call it, "Mr. Science Is a ..."
Well you get the idea.
To Mr. Moore's first point, "artistic license" isn't an all-forgiving shield. Indeed, it's probably less forgiving that Odin. Artistic license is the term often thrown out by people writing stories which purport to take place in the "real world" so that they can ignore what would really happen in said "real world" if what would really happen would happen to interfere with what they want to happen in the stories. And it should be thrown out, that is the practice should be thrown out, now that it should be thrown out as an excuse. It is a lazy cop-out for writing taken by lazy, copping-out writers. Rather than make the story fit reality, the writer makes reality fit the story and cries, "artistic license," like it were some mother's-kiss-will-make-it-all-better talisman.
The problem with this practice lies in Mr. Moore's second point, that comics take place on some "other" world. They shouldn't. For a comic story, for any story to work, it has to have some connection with the world of the audience. If the reader can take every story and say, "It takes place on some other world that has nothing to do with me or my world," he won't care about what happens. A story must have some immediacy to the reader for him to care about it. Thus, stories must be able to convey the illusion of immediacy, to make the reader think they are happening on his world. I don't think it a coincidence that DC's sales started to drop shortly after they developed Earth-Prime. Suddenly, the DC heroes could no longer be from our world and readers stopped caring about them. Why do you think Stan Lee and Jack Kirby kept putting themselves into the early Marvel books? Ego? Maybe. But it also created the illusion of immediacy, it forced those stories to take place on our world.
For a comic story that is, ostensibly, set in our world to work properly, it should take place in a world that does, indeed, seem to be our "real" world. Granted you have super-heroes and villains, which do not exist in our world. They are the element of fantasy, the suspension of disbelief that is asked of the reader. But the reader cannot suspend his belief in everything. In order to convey the illusion, those aspects of the story which pertain to the element of fantasy can defy the real world under "artistic license," and you can believe a man can fly. However every story element which is not related to the fantasy, those elements which are supposed to be from the real world, should be portrayed realistically, the way they would really happen in the real world.
Example: the law. The law is something which exists in the real world. Although I know several who would argue that it is a fantasy world of its own, the law is not connected to the element of fantasy. It is real. So, in order for the world which the writer is creating to seem real, the law in the created world should be the same as the law in the real world.
My column is designed to point out when the real world law becomes an element of fantasy. It is done to inform those readers who might think the law really works as it is portrayed in comics. It is also done to instruct comic writers of how the law works, so the mistakes of the past won't be repeated and elements of fantasy and elements of reality aren't merged.
Finally, I criticize writers for their lack of research, even if they creating entertainment. Comic writers are professionals They earn their living crafting stories. They get paid to do it. As such they should take a professional pride in what they craft. Professional pride demands that a writer research those aspects of a story which are important to the story and about which he knows little. Failure to research shows an, "I don't care about the quality of my work" attitude. It says, "I'll put down whatever I like, because it's only comics, and the details aren't important enough for me to bother with."
That, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is hack work. If the writer doesn't care about his work, then neither do I. And neither should you. After all, who's going to write the better story, some smageggie who doesn't care about what he's doing, or a professional who cares enough to try and make the best story he can? (That's a rhetorical question, by the way.)
End of lecture. Next letter.
Brad Corbett of Chicago, home of the famous comedy improv troupe Third City--You mean they're not changing their name, now that Chicago's only the third largest city in the USA?--wrote, "An unauthorized American paramilitary group illegally enters Vietman and proceeds to kill two Vietnemese soldiers. I call that murder, What do you call it?"
I call it, John Sable, Freelance # 13.
Actually, Brad wanted to know if Sable's actions in the two-part "Missing In Action" story violated international law and if Sable could be prosecuted in America. A two-part question. Do we allow two-part questions? Sure, why not? That way I've got a fifty-fifty chance of looking smart.
International law is that body of law which governs the relations and dealings of nations with each other. Generally, international law requires one nation's acts impacting on another nation or nations. It does not involve the acts of a private citizen, who is not connected with his government, which impact on another nation. If I, for example--Sugar & Spike. I'm sorry, that slipped out. Wait, no I'm not, I'm--Sugar & Spike--happy it did. Anyway, as I was saying, if I go to Canada and break a Canadian law, there is no international law question. I, a private citizen, have broken a Canadian law. The United States was not involved. Just me, a private citizen who would be prosecuted under Canadian law.
Hey, why do you think The Secretary always threatened to disavow any knowledge of the Impossible Mission Force if they messed up and were caught. Plausible deniability. That way the United States could claim the IMF wasn't a covert ops branch of the US government illegally trying to overthrow unfriendly foreign governments. It was just a bunch of misguided private citizens who should be dealt with as private citizens.
John Sable wasn't even a plausibly deniable operative of the United States. He was purely a private citizen, who illegally entered Vietnam and broke Vietnamese laws. As such, if Vietnam could catch him and could prove its case, he would be tried in Vietnam. International law could come into play, when Vietnam tried to extradite Sable from the States to Vietnam, but wouldn't come into play at the trial.
Sable couldn't be prosecuted in America. He didn't do anything against the law in America. He's be tried in Vietnam And even if he could be tried in America, he wouldn't be. The only witnesses are either dead or peasants, who wouldn't know Sable if he bit them on their DMZ. So no one could prove a thing. (See, sometimes even the good guys get off on technicalities.)
Two people wrote about my column on Archie Andrews, master thief from late last year. These letters, one from Thurston Bowden of Garden Grove, California, and one from Theodore Ho of Honolulu, Hawaii, were sent shortly after I wrote the column, that is late last year. I only just received them this week. While neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night shall keep our mail carriers from completing their appointed rounds, apparently the rules don't say they have to complete those rounds right away.
Mr. Bowden was bothered that I, an admitted non-reader of Archie comics, should have written a negative article about an Archie story, in which he plots to steal $200 from Mr. Lodge. Mr. Bowden feels that Archie comics have been a positive, if unrecognized force for over forty years and wishes they would get some good press.
Thurston, I think you missed the point of the article. First, my statements were my own personal opinions. They were not the opinions of Don & Maggie, Chet Krause, or anyone else I know of. They were intended as, nor should they have been construed as, a definitive assesment on the merits or quality of Archie comics.
Second, I agree with you that Archie has been for forty years a positive role model. That is why the story in question bothered me enough to write a column. I felt it entirely inappropriate for a role model of Archie's standing and durability to be portrayed as actively planning, and even attempting to commit, a theft offense.
Mr. Ho wrote to chide me for saying Archie and Jughead committed a theft offense. He said I must have forgotten that Archie and Jughead didn't affect the outcome of their $200 bet with Mr. Lodge by pretending to be a bear, because their costume broke and a real bear came upon the scene. No, I didn't forget, I covered that very thing. I said that, while said coincidences would make them innocent of felony theft, they would still be guilty of a misdemeanor, attempted theft. They still committed a theft offense. Moreover, stressing that they didn't succeed ignored my main point which was that Archie and Jughead shouldn't have been involved in this fraud in the first place. It was out of character and wrong for role models of their stature.
Finally, Thomas Hegman, Deputy Junior Assistant Public Defender of Ostego County, New York (a fellow traveller in the good fight) wrote to clarify what procedure New York state follows in bringing criminal charges.
First, a felony complaint is filed in a local court, i.e., a city court or other municipal court. That is the first step in Ohio, also, so I assume it is the first step in most if not all fifty states. (I'm sure there are forty-eight states now jumping at the chance to tell me I'm wrong.)
Next the defendant is brought before the local court, a bond is set, and some form of preliminary hearing is scheduled. Some plea bargaining can occur at this stage. Again that is the same as in Ohio, so we'll pretend the rest of the country is similar.
Next a preliminary hearing is held. New York calls them Felony Examinations or Preliminary Examinations, Ohio calls them Preliminary Hearings. The function in each state is the same. The judge hears a truncated version of the state's case and determines if there is enough evidence to create a reasonable belief that the defendant committed the crime. If there is, the judge binds the defendant over to the grand jury for an indictment. If there isn't, he orders the defendant released. In New York they call it finding "Reasonable Cause." In Ohio we call it "Probable Cause." It's the same thing. A rose by any other word can still prick the hell out of you with its thorns.
If the judge finds probable cause exists, he or she will bind the case over to the grand jury. Then the grand jury hears a truncated version of the Prosecution's case. If it finds probable cause it will indict, that is--Sugar & Spike--it will return an indictment against the defendant. An indictment is a formal piece of paper charging the defendant with a crime and informing him what the charges against him are. It's what the Constitution calls notice, as it notifies the defendant of the nature of the charges being brought. Once again, this is exactly the same as Ohio
If a defendant is indicted, then he is arraigned. Arraignment is a court proceeding, wherein the defendant enters his plea and a final bond is set. No evidence here. (Again Ohio is the same. Any states out there with a different method?)
Mr. Hegman did have one disclaimer in his letter. He wasn't sure his procedure would apply exactly as set out in New York City. "One thing you have to take into account," he wrote, "is that any depiction of criminal procedure in New York City is probably in some way correct... The place is a zoo and I suspect anything can and does happen at some given point in time."
Tom, I do thank you for the information, I have passed it on in the column, so that, hopefully, pretrial procedure will be correctly portrayed in the future.
Finally, I have one last point. It's...
Aw you guessed it. Sugar & Spike!
BOB INGERSOLL
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