Many thanks to gramp – he dropped off a tape of Ben-on-Len(o).

We’re doing the Mtv shorts next weekend, and I may be directing a Coke commercial the week after that.

Props to all-around decent guy Robert Rodriguez, who talked me down from hysterics over whether or not I could visually pull off ‘Dogma’. I confessed that, at one point, I’d considered handing it over to him to direct (so terrified I was to take on this monster) and – being a big fan of the script – he said he would’ve liked that. Robert was kind enough to help demystify for me what seemed like a daunting task: moving the camera. Many thanks, my friend.

On another name-dropping front, Mark Millar (who had a brilliant run on ‘Swamp Thing’ and now writes ‘The Flash’ with Grant Morrison) dropped me a long letter about his thoughts on the Supes script (which he really liked) and on his Batman/Superman theory, which I thought I’d share with you all:

“Batman is popular during periods of economic stability and nation-wide confidence; a symbol of what can be achieved if we work hard. Superman was created by two kids during the Depression to lift our spirits, and he’s at his most popular in times of crisis and fear. This explains Batman’s popularity in post-war forties, sixties, and eighties, and Superman’s dominance during the thirties, the cold war-fifties, and the oil crisis seventies. A new millienium and the inevitable financial slump which we’re heading for, thanks to the Pacific Rim economic collapse and the introduction of a Eurpean Single Currency, makes me think it’s Superman’s turn to be number one again. People are going to be desperate to see a guy with flight, super-breath and microscopic vision again to provide some form of escape from the down-side of the economic cycle.”

That being said (and said quite well, I might add), he went on to question Jon Peters Batman-like take on ‘Superman Lives’ (which I’ve always objected to for a completely different set of reasons, not the least of which being that Superman is not an angst-ridden character, unless the angst is over his inability to be everywhere at once in an effort to prevent all disasters, deaths, and accidents). He also made mention of two great mini-series’ he’s working on: one’s an Elseworld’s tale about the Man of Steel as raised in another nation (under a Red sun, if you catch my drift), and the other’s a ‘Watchmen with villains. I’m looking forward to both in a big way (if you haven’t read any of Mark’s stuff, I’d suggest picking up the last two years of ‘Swamp Thing’, prior to the book’s finale; the man lived up to Alan Moore’s run on the book – no easy feat, that).

‘Jackie Brown’ premiere tomorrow night!