The year ended with a big month of reading: NINE books, including a biography of Agatha Christie and a stack of graphic novels. I read more than 80 books in 2022 and I surpassed my GoodReads challenge by sixteen or so additional books, topping off at 76 from an additional goal of 60. (Some of... Continue Reading →
From the Home Office in San Diego, CA I had a most-excellent 2022. Despite some money setbacks (a large rent increase and a large investment decrease to my retirement funds … thanks, Wall Street!), the year was as close a return to normal for me as I could possibly expect. When I started thinking about... Continue Reading →
Over the past few years, I have slowly built up a second comic book collection, this one far more curated than the “buy anything on the stands” or “I have to have EVERY Marvel comic they put out” approach of my youth. That first collection, shared—and largely bankrolled for the first quarter century or so... Continue Reading →
I don't know about you, dear reader, but I am winding down for the year. And make no mistake, 2022 was a very good year for me, particularly considering the previous two years! I hope to be more motivated to write and post in 2023, including finally finishing my series, "My Life in Comics." There... Continue Reading →
I always think about Peanuts and Charles M. Schulz at this time of year. A Charlie Brown Christmas is so ingrained into the hearts and minds of anyone who grew up in the last half-century—especially those of us who saw it when it first debuted in 1965 on CBS—not to mention Schulz's ongoing Christmas strips... Continue Reading →
Don't worry, I'm fine. But this photo takes me back to when the chairs out in my "backyard" were multi-colored, and not just painted black like they are now. The now-not-so-new owners of my apartment complex evidently hired some kind of color consultant who wants everything to be just simple black and white. They painted... Continue Reading →
One of the few things I miss about living back east is the leaves falling in autumn. This photo is from (I think) New York City, probably Central Park a few years back, and I really miss the color, the crunchy sound, and the ability to just kinda plow through ankle-deep piles of leaves that... Continue Reading →
Kind of a mixed bag of books for November ... but I enjoyed all of them. August 1961 and June 1962 Marvel Omnibuses These Marvel Omnibus editions reprint the entirety of a month’s worth of Marvel Comics in the historic months of August 1961—when Fantastic Four #1 debuted—and June 1962—when Amazing Fantasy #15 (the first... Continue Reading →
I probably don't have the correct architectural terminology here, but this is a quintessential California image for me, one that I snapped in Santa Monica years ago. The house, the palm tree, the clouds ... all just scream the state's name loudly to me. I don't go to Santa Monica anymore. It's another "lost city"... Continue Reading →
For over 18 years, I lived in downtown San Diego, and while the next line in the song "Downtown" is "You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares ... so go downtown ..." it's really not like that anymore. In fact, it's a little scary. But here are two photos (above and below)... Continue Reading →
Last post, I mentioned the view from Fort Mason Center in 2014 during the final Comic-Con sponsored APE event (look at my previous post for all the gory details). Well, here it is. That's the Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance from Fort Mason's Festival Pavilion. Hard to believe this photo is two years... Continue Reading →
(Above: a badge from APE 2008 designed by me (far left); the APE Exhibit Hall at the Concourse Exhibition Center; and Paige Braddock's simian cartoonist for the APE 2008 Program Book cover, colored by me.) When I look back over my 20+ year career with San Diego Comic-Con, I can definitely see what meant the... Continue Reading →
We sure do have some bee-u-tee-full sunsets here in San Diego-land. This one was taken after a Happy Hour excursion at my favorite Coronado restaurant with one of my favorite San Diego friends. We were driving back to my place and saw the sun setting as we got into my friend's car and decided to... Continue Reading →
I guess a better title for this would be “What I’ve Watched,” since I’ve finished everything I’m writing about, but here we are, so there. Happy Valley Streaming on AMC+ I originally watched this series (which, at present consists of two six-episode seasons) years ago—it first aired in 2014 and 2016 on British TV. A... Continue Reading →
You can pretty much see all of these photos in my UK 2022 Trip Diary posts (scroll down for them), but I wanted to single out a few of my favorite photos from each destination in that trip, before I lay it to bed. It was such a great trip, it's been a bit tough... Continue Reading →
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