Here's one of those comic strip samples I mentioned in My Life in Comics, Part 7D, featuring my cats, Stan and Ollie. There are three pages of strips like this in Innocent Bystander #4, my self-published comic book series from the 1990s ... this strip is just about 25 years old at this point, making... Continue Reading →
Innocent Bystander #3 did so well in the early part of 1997 that I was inspired to jump right back in and do another issue. Where I found the time and—more importantly, energy and MONEY—to do this, I have no idea. I often referred to my self-publishing side gig as my “early mid-life crisis” (I... Continue Reading →
It’s all Marvel, Marvel, Marvel for me in this first month of the year, as I catch up with some Christmas gifts and visit some old friends … namely 1960s Marvel Comics! When You Are Mine by Michael RobothamThis is the third year in a row that I read a Michael Robotham book to start... Continue Reading →
By 1997 I had two issues of Innocent Bystander under my belt and I was heading towards issue #3. Because of my daytime job (well, really a nighttime one, since I worked the 3:00-11:30 PM shift) as a TV news graphic designer at KDKA in Pittsburgh, time was limited for any personal creative endeavors. I... Continue Reading →
2021 marked my first (almost-full) year of retirement, so I had plenty of time to watch, read, and wander in my never-ending quest for new movies, TV shows, and books. Here are my top five picks for the year in comics and graphic novels, books, movies, and TV. Longer reviews of the books can be... Continue Reading →
And we round out 2021 with my last book report on the books I read in December. Over the course of the past year, I read 77 books by my count, and 69 on GoodReads, which was 115% of my goal (some books, like older comics series like the Blackthorne Dick Tracy reprints, just don't... Continue Reading →
December already? WTF?! Here's what I read in the fondly-remembered month of November. Gated Prey by Lee GoldbergThis is the latest (third) book in Goldberg’s Eve Ronin series and is definitely the weakest of the three. I think Ronin is a great character with lots of potential; she’s a dedicated cop trying to make it... Continue Reading →
Maybe it’s my age or maybe it’s retirement, but I have been having very warm, nostalgic feelings about comic books. Or maybe it’s the disconnection I feel from the comics of today. I still go to my local store every Wednesday and pick up at least a few books each time, but I find myself... Continue Reading →
Yes, I’m going to make you sit through all six issues of Innocent Bystander and then a quick recap of my part in ten issues of Geeksville, co-published with Rich Koslowski of The 3 Geeks fame (and Image Comics, for a time), before I get to the part you really want to read: "My Life... Continue Reading →
It seems like forever since I read some of these … is October really that long? I think I finished Batman in the Fifties and Countdown: Bin Laden in the first week of the month, which seems like an eternity ago. Anyway … here’s what I read in October, equally split between comic collections and... Continue Reading →
As promised (or threatened) in my last post, My Life in Comics, Part 7: The Innocent Bystander Years, here’s the first in a deep dive into the comics themselves. I’m going to try and post some actual pages, so you, dear reader, can have a bit of the Innocent Bystander experience as it happened, over... Continue Reading →
Looking back on it from the vantage point of 25 years later, it was probably just an early midlife crisis. Rather than a hot, young girlfriend, or a hot, expensive car, I decided to publish a comic book. In the early 1990s, I was into my second decade of gainful employment as a television news... Continue Reading →
Another month filled mainly with comic books and books about comics … what can I say? Retirement brings out the nostalgia in me. Billy Summers by Stephen KingThis was the book that occupied me for most of August. It’s a fascinating character study by King, devoid (for the most part) of his usual horror and/or... Continue Reading →
There is no live San Diego Comic-Con this year, and by “live” I mean that living, breathing organism that seems to mystically appear inside the San Diego Convention Center, transforming it into a whole new city by the bay for four and a half days. There is an online component again this year, with some... Continue Reading →
So there I was, in art school in Pittsburgh in the mid-1970s, a quiet, shy kind of guy, bombarded by the changes in life involved in moving from a small town to a big city. So what did I do to start some kind of social life? I joined a comic book club. My memories... Continue Reading →
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