In recent years, comics history as a discipline has become quite popular. Back in the 1970s, when my older brother occasionally drove me to Bob Sidebottom’s Comic Collector Shop on San Fernando Street in San Jose, the only widely available explorations were Jules Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes, Steranko’s two-volume History of Comics, and […]

Lugosi lives on for posterity not so much as an actor but as the personification of his greatest character. When he performed as Dracula, Lugosi spoke for his own personal legacy as much as for his character when he pronounced the immortal line, “I am Dracula.” – Biography.com The very essence of vampiric dreadHad fled […]

A juggernaut, he parts the startled crowdWith promised force alone.  The mothers hideTheir children, chiding those who speak out loud;The men retreat, unmindful of their pride.All travelers give him space, and no one wakesThe colors on his skin, bizarre designsEntwining his arms, ouroboros snakesBeginning where they end and primed to strike!He moves unquestioned like an […]

. . . so then I said, “That brings to mind the debtsIncurred by Edward, King of England, howThe Bardi and Peruzzi almost metTheir ruins for loaning him such large amounts.”I tried to help him, but he never getsIt.  “Old-world financiers could make it out,”I’d offered while he rolled his eyes, “And soCan you.”  But […]

Torn up by buckshot hormones, teenage mindsCan’t take in any information, saveThat spring consumes itself outside.  Ten daysUntil school’s through!  The learning curve defiesMy chalkboard stats.  A talk on suicidePrevention must seem strange when kids have madeOut graduation gift lists, and far awayReside the thousand natural shocks of life. The teacher snuffs his cigarette, says, […]

No spring in sight.  The wounded morning shedsDark, clotted clouds across a winter sky.Another shift wraps up.  I helped a manWho’d sealed himself inside a plastic sofaBag then sprayed himself with golden paint —The fumes would kill him, but he’d leave behindA scintillating corpse.  AmbivalenceWon out for him, but not for this year’s spring.A slight […]

I wept openly while watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  There I sat with my popcorn and my water bottle, suddenly shedding gigantic, happy tears after nearly two hours of fist pumping and cheering internally.  What finally broke me occurred after Hydra had obliterated SHIELD.  Those SHIELD agents and employees who weren’t Hydra suffered the […]

A Facebook friend shared this photo with me: Meg from the blog Happy Looks Good on You handcrafted these ornaments for her husband, Curtis, to celebrate Christmas 2011.  Her blog entry details her process, and the comments resound with praise and awe.  Not one person asked, “Why Captain America and not Wonder Woman?”  Captain America […]

In an article on Panels.net entitled “Secret Identity: The Book That Made Me Get Superman,” Chris Rohling admits to not having cared for Superman until a certain occurrence.   “I wasn’t one of those people who decried his every appearance and busted people’s chops for a being a fan of the guy,” he explains “It was […]

The events of World War I catalyzed certain technological advances in combat.  What humanity now calls weapons of mass destruction first appeared in the form of chlorine gas, concocted by Fritz Haber, head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physical Chemistry, who after using himself as a test subject witnessed from a distance its use […]