(Up top: Yours truly breathlessly introducing Jeff Smith as the keynote speaker at Comic Book Expo 2000, alongside that year’s Comic-Con Events Guide, which featured my first-ever program schedule; I also designed the cover, one of my first for Comic-Con). As 1999 began, I was jobless and—after almost two decades in Pittsburgh—I was now living... Continue Reading →
Join me this coming Tuesday on the Unofficial SDCC Blog’s LIVE broadcast as I talk about my 20+ year career with Comic-Con International. Not just a podcast, you’ll be able to hear and SEE me in all my ancient glory (there's a reason why one Hollywood publicist once called me “The Yoda of Comic-Con)! I’ll... Continue Reading →
As I delve into my 20+ years at Comic-Con in my series "My Life in Comics," our new banner image for the blog for the next few months features "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine," the Fantastic Four. This comic book series by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had a profound and lasting effect on my... Continue Reading →
(Up top: The Comic-Con Exhibit Hall from up above in 1997. Photo © SDCC) While my comics career was waxing and waning with Innocent Bystander, my con-going took a decided upturn when I started attending San Diego Comic-Con in 1992. My first comic convention was Phil Seuling’s New York Comic Art Convention in 1971 (read... Continue Reading →
Here's the fifth and final in a series of five original comic strips I did for Comic Shop News, the weekly newspaper distributed to those comic shops willing to pay for copies. (It used to be something ridiculously cheap, like five cents a copy; not sure what it is now. I still find new issues... Continue Reading →
Here's the fourth in a series of five original comic strips I did for Comic Shop News, the weekly newspaper distributed to those comic shops willing to pay for copies. (It used to be something ridiculously cheap, like five cents a copy; not sure what it is now. I still find new issues in comic... Continue Reading →
Here's the third in a series of five original comic strips I did for Comic Shop News, the weekly newspaper distributed to those comic shops willing to pay for copies. (It used to be something ridiculously cheap, like five cents a copy; not sure what it is now. I still find new issues in comic... Continue Reading →
Here's the second in a series of five original comic strips I did for Comic Shop News, the weekly newspaper distributed to those comic shops willing to pay for copies. (It used to be something ridiculously cheap, like five cents a copy; not sure what it is now. I still find new issues in comic... Continue Reading →
I slowed down a little in April after a record-breaking (for me, at least) ten-book March … here’s what I read this month. Batman: The Long Halloween: The Sequel: Dark Victory Deluxe Edition by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale Despite the long title that borders on overkill (the series was originally called Dark Victory, and... Continue Reading →
Here's the first in a series of five original comic strips I did for Comic Shop News, the weekly newspaper distributed to those comic shops willing to pay for copies. (It used to be something ridiculously cheap, like five cents a copy; not sure what it is now. I still find new issues in comic... Continue Reading →
1998 changed my life, but it also made me realize that Innocent Bystander couldn’t survive on its own. Without a well-paying day job to support me, I couldn’t keep pouring money into a self-published comics series that couldn’t sustain itself. In short, minus the gory details, I went into considerable debt financing my so-called comics... Continue Reading →
Just about every time I roam up to the beach behind the Hotel del Coronado, there's some kind of special sand castle. I don't know if the hotel has a sand castle specialist—I've seen ones for weddings and even proposals, I believe—or there's just a talented sand castle builder who stops by on a regular... Continue Reading →
There are a number of things which will always scream "CALIFORNIA!" to me, and this is one of them, along with Volkswagen vans and palm trees: the ubiquitous In-N-Outs which dot the landscape of Southern California. A family-owned chain, it's almost a cult, and its uber-friendly workers (who, for a long time, boasted the best... Continue Reading →
I spent a most enjoyable evening with Groucho Marx the other night. Yes, he’s been dead for well over four decades now, but his spirit lives on in writer/actor/director/producer Frank Ferrante, someone I’ve known for close to three decades (that’s a lot of decades for one paragraph). A new filmed version of Frank’s wonderful one-man... Continue Reading →
Spring is definitely in the air here in Coronado, as the photo above shows. While most of the trees around me—palm and evergreens—stay green year 'round, some with flowers (along with bushes) are starting to come into full bloom. This lovely scene is from the old ferry landing in Coronado, with downtown San Diego off... Continue Reading →
innocent bystander 
Recent Comments