I used to love going to New York City in the fall. While my timing was always a bit off when it came to the leaves changing, I was usually there when the ice rink was up and running in beautiful Rockefeller Center, one of numerous iconic locations throughout that city that I visited each... Continue Reading →
The Spirit #1. Art by Will Eisner. Harvey Comics, 1966. TM & © Will Eisner Studios, Inc. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! The superhero revival of the 1960s—also known as the Silver Age of Comics—had its not-so-secret origin in the late 1950s when DC Comics brought... Continue Reading →
I used to live in downtown San Diego, on the eastern edge of Horton Plaza (which barely exists anymore). This was the view from one of my apartments in the building (I lived in three different ones from 1998 through 2017), facing due east and the Hotel St. James, which was really a Ramada Inn,... Continue Reading →
Tales from My Spinner Rack LIVE! at WonderCon Sunday, March 26 at 1:00 PM in Room 213CD Join me at WonderCon 2023 for my first-ever solo panel devoted to my weekly blog feature, “Tales from My Spinner Rack!” Yep … I’m taking my blog and hitting the road, at least to Anaheim and WonderCon, my... Continue Reading →
Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1, June 1968. Cover by Steranko. TM & © MARVEL. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! One of my fondest memories of buying comics as a kid was walking into Moser’s newsstand in downtown Tamaqua in 1968 and finding Nick Fury, Agent... Continue Reading →
Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! In the first chapter of “Everything Else,” (click here to read it), I mentioned 2015 was my favorite year. It was certainly my busiest. In addition to all the publication and website work I was doing, I also did a special... Continue Reading →
No, I won’t just be loitering outside in Balboa Park … I will actually be talking and running a PowerPoint presentation on Comic-Con’s Souvenir Book covers from 1970 through 2022. I’ll be joining moderator Jackie Estrada and artists Bill Morrison and William Stout (both are tied with Jim Lee for illustrating the most covers, with... Continue Reading →
WHEW! February blew by with a series of storms and not as much reading as I'd like, but at least one of the book-books (as opposed to graphic novels I read) was a really dense 500-pager. Here's what I read in this stormy, wintery month ... Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz I watched the Masterpiece... Continue Reading →
Batman #147, May 1962. Cover by “Bob Kane” (Sheldon Moldoff) TM & © DC. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! Batman was in a scary place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both his books, Batman and Detective Comics, had reduced the Dark Knight from a... Continue Reading →
It's a shame that I have no idea where I took this photo. It almost looks like it's in the desert, but that one lone streetlight gives it away as somewhere, I think in San Diego, maybe in Balboa Park, across the pedestrian bridge into the flower and plant garden on the other side of... Continue Reading →
Fantastic Four Annual #1, July 1963. Cover by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers. TM & © MARVEL. Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! I cannot begin to tell you how excited 8-year-old me was to find out there was a Fantastic Four Annual coming out in the... Continue Reading →
Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! My father taught me two things in life: 1.) When it’s cold outside, make sure your head, hands and feet are kept as warm as possible, because you lose most of your body heat through your extremities. And 2.) Nobody is... Continue Reading →
I've been concerned lately about how much everything seems to be changing. Some of this is due to "progress" (definitely a subjective term), and some of it due to the pandemic, of course. Downtown San Diego is a definite microcosm of this. I don't have very many photos that document these changes, but here are... Continue Reading →
For episode 007 of Tales from My Spinner Rack, there’s only one comic book to fit the bill … featuring Bond, James Bond. Showcase #43, March 1963. James Bond TM & © EON Productions Limited and Danjaq LLC Click on the images in this post to see them larger on your screen! Who would have... Continue Reading →
While I’m hopefully not running the risk of sounding like a motivational poster that involves a kitten dangling from a high wire with the partially obscured message in the photo above (taken by me on 2/04/2023 at the beach behind the Hotel del Coronado), I am writing this post in celebration of the two-year anniversary... Continue Reading →
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