I was watching the opening of Annie Hall recently, and was immediately distracted by a comic book Woody Allen’s character Alvy Singer is seen reading in a flashback. Distracted because, whenever I see a comic in a movie or on TV, I’m immediately overcome by a desire to know what that comic is, and whether it’s real or merely a prop mocked up for the screen.

Sometimes it’s the latter, as when a kid in a 1975 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show was reading an issue of The Fantastic Blob. But often the comics are real, which I know because I’ve been able to track those issues down, such as The Eternals in a 2010 episode of Law & Order, Justice Society of America in a 2012 episode of Alcatraz, or Saga of the Human Torch in a 2013 episode of Revolution.

So when a comic book guest-starred in Annie Hall, I had to know—was the comic book real, and if so which comic was it? (Of course, the other question is, why hadn’t I noticed this before? But let’s set that one aside for another time.)

Here’s the issue spread open in a screen grab.

I can’t seem to find anyone else online who attempted to figure this out. I’m hoping now that I’m asking the question, perhaps you can figure it out. (more…)

I’ve been reading a lot of old timey romance comics lately thanks to the wonderful site Comic Book Plus, and previously shared three stories that dealt with the issue of weight—1950’s “Too Fat for Love,” 1949’s “Was I Too Fat to Be Loved?,” and 1952’s “Too Fat For Love” —only one of which didn’t demand that its heroine slim down in order to be seen as worthy of a happy ending. But I’ve now come across a fourth weight-themed story, this one so mean and nasty and insulting that it makes the flaws of those other stories seem minor by comparison.

“I Was a Fat Girl” appeared in Love Diary #13 (February 1951), and starred 18-year-old Nancy, who as drawn when the story begins, didn’t seem to have weight issues yet … well, except for on the splash page, which made sure to show her at her heaviest. (more…)

Time to once more round up a whole month’s dreams from Twitter and see whether a theme can be found running through them. I haven’t discovered one yet in this or any other month, save that pop culture has rooted firmly in my subconscious, but who knows, something more meaningful might pop up yet.

Last month’s guest stars included Key and Peele, George Segal, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Christopher Lee, and more …

JANUARY 2015

I dreamt I wandered the streets of NYC with Jon Stewart, who showed me that there were now free buffets at all train stations and bus stops. Jan 30

I dreamt I listened as Stephen Jones and @effjayem coedited Famous Science Fiction Stories Inspired by Other Famous Science Fiction Stories. Jan 30

I dreamt I topped a sand dune to find a Great Gatsby-type party below on the beach. I played darts in one of the tents with a society dame. Jan 29

I dreamt my boss was Barry Malzberg and he had difficulty telling me I wasn’t getting a raise I expected. We swapped morgue stories instead. Jan 27

I dreamt I somehow gained Flash-like powers and used them to run all over NYC and take revenge on bullies. My father … was George Segal. Jan 27

I dreamt I was explaining the plot of Of Mice and Men (in which I once starred IRL) to two good old boys and trying very hard to not to cry. Jan 27

I dreamt a baker friend offered me one of her gourmet cookies, but whenever I’d lift one, all the tantalizing toppings would fall off. Nooo! Jan 26

I dreamt my wife and I were on opposite sides of a wide NYC avenue, and she shouted not to forget the ham. So I trudged the city, searching. Jan 26

I dreamt I was in a hospital, debating with friends the ripeness of carrots. Having never eaten an unripe carrot, no idea what that means. Jan 24

I dreamt my mother opened and read a letter from my son which seemed to be extremely important. Sadly, I woke before learning its contents. Jan 23 (more…)

Earlier today over at io9, Charlie Jane Anders posted about Archy and Mehitabel, the philosopher cockroach and the alley cat created by Don Marquis 99 years ago in the pages of the New York Sun. Back when I was a teenager living in Brooklyn, I was so in love with the prose poems purportedly written by Archy as he bounced from key to key on a manual typewriter that I did an homage for the student newspaper of South Shore High School.

Here’s what I looked like back then. Here’s what I sounded like back then. And below, from the February 1973 issue of Shorelines, is what I wrote like back then, when I was but 17 years old.

Well … what I wrote like when I was 17 and channeling a cockroach anyway.

If I’m recalling correcting, the piece won me some sort of student journalism award from The New York Times. And no, I don’t know what they were thinking either.

But now that I’m in the fullness of my powers, however, it occurs to me that it might be time for another homage.

Hmmmm …

Turns out that the first story I wrote once I got back in the groove again at the beginning of 2014 will also be the first story of mine published in 2015—a 13,000-word tale titled “Becoming Invisible, Becoming Seen,” which will be out later this month in the quarterly horror magazine Dark Discoveries.

Editor Aaron French revealed the cover today over on Facebook, and as you can see from that list of names, I share the issue with an amazing group of writers.

Here’s what Aaron about to say about the contents of Dark Discoveries #30 —

The theme of this issue is Sinister Appetites and includes both erotic and non-erotic forms of desire and lust. Brand new stories from Storm Constantine, Scott Edelman, Ray Garton, John Everson, Cecilia Tan, D. Harlan Wilson, and Erinn Kemper. Also a great article on Robert Aickman by Lawrence C. Connolly and a piece on Aleister Crowley’s dark fiction by Donald Tyson. Plus awesome new columns from Gary A. Braunbeck, Yvonne Navarro, Michael Collings, Robert Morrish, and Richard Dansky, and the next comic installment by Patrick Freivald and Joe McKinney. New artwork from Steve G Santiago, Greg Chapman, and Luke Spooner as well. Plus so much more!

You can advance order a copy here. And if you do, be sure to let me know what you think of my story!

I normally don’t pitch my friends’ books here, because due to that friendship you probably wouldn’t trust me anyway, but since the last time Sam Maronie and I were together in the same place, this happened—

—I figured I owed it to him to bring to your attention that, many decades later, long after he recovered from the wounds I inflicted, this happened. (more…)

I keep hearing that we’re supposed to be careful about what we post online, because once something is up on the Internet, it’s there forever. But that’s not always true, going by my recent experience shifting older posts from LiveJournal over to my own site here. I’ve been doing this not just to make that older content more searchable and available, but also because of my fears that the blogging service I started with back in 2007 might vanish someday, taking those posts with it.

What I’ve discovered is that though all of my earlier posts still seem present, many of the images associated with them have vanished from the LiveJournal gallery. This means that often, all that remains are blank boxes with questions marks in the middle, such as this instance from February 26, 2010.

Luckily, I had saved all the images I’d personally uploaded, so I was able to restore that one when I added the post here. (more…)

Remember Candy Candido? He’s the comic singer I thought I’d never heard perform before last month who it turns out I’d known all my life, in everything from The Wizard of Oz and Sleeping Beauty to the ’60s TV series Gentle Ben, where he provided the voice of … the bear.

I fell in love with the guy, and immediately tried to track down everything about him I could, which in addition to the videos I’d shared earlier led me to a 1988 radio interview and something far more mysterious—a reference to a TV pilot unmentioned by either IMDb or Wikipedia.

A man named Ray Fiola, whose company Chelsea Rialto Studios restores classic film soundtracks, mentioned on a bulletin board that he owned “a very rare 16mm print of a Hal Roach TV pilot, BOTSFORDS BEANERY, in which he co-starred with Don Barclay.” How rare is info about this pilot? So rare that the only reference I could find anywhere online was in 1949 and 1952 issues of Billboard, as well as Hal Roach’s 1992 obituary in the L.A. Times—none of which mentioned Candido. No wonder the project wasn’t turning up on any Candido-related pages!

Apparently, as the market for film shorts was dying, Hal Roach, famous for his Our Gang and Laurel and Hardy films, decided to enter the TV market, and so filmed six TV pilots, of which Botsfords Beanery was one. As far as I can tell, though some local stations aired some of these as one-offs, none of them ever made it to series.

I immediately contacted Fiola and begged him for a copy. But he did better than that—he posted the entire pilot to YouTube, so now you get a chance to see it, too.

The star of the pilot is Don Barclay (perhaps best known to modern audiences as Mr. Binnacle in Mary Poppins), playing restaurant owner Montgomery Botsford, with Ann Triola (best known for her comedy numbers in Lullaby of Broadway) as Agnes his wise-cracking waitress. Candido, who gets third billing, is the proprietor of Joe’s Barber Shop, with broad strokes reminding me of another TV Italian from that era, Joe Kirk as Mr. Bacciagalupe from The Abbott and Costello Show. (more…)

My father, who died six years ago today, was a modest man, and far less likely to brag about his accomplishments than I am. Which means it wasn’t until recently, as I emptied out the desk in his studio while helping my mother pack for a move, that I learned he’d won the Jesse H. Neal Editorial Achievement Award for his work as the Art Director of Engineering & Mining Journal.

Folded tightly into a small presentation box with his award was the following telex from 1970.

I would have been 14 years old. (more…)