I’ll be off early tomorrow morning for Portland, Oregon to attend the World Horror Convention, but as my friends know, sometimes it’s debatable what’s actually bringing me to a town—the con or the food. And since I’m often asked where I plan to eat while traveling, here are are my Portland foodie destinations.

Friday night’s dinner will be at Pok Pok, chef Andy Ricker’s restaurant which, according to everything I’ve heard, serves Thai food unadulterated for U.S. tastes. Per their FAQ: “We serve food found at pubs, restaurants, homes and the streets of Southeast Asia with the majority of the food coming from Thailand, and specifically from the North and Northeast of Thailand. We do not make ‘fusion’ food here; everything has been researched, eaten, and/or prepared in the country of its origin prior to being put on the Pok Pok menu.”

My number one goal will be to sink my teeth into their signature dish, Ike’s Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings. They’re available regular and spicy, and I assume our party will try both. (more…)

Letters columns, when they exist at all in comics these days, are no longer what they once were—their importance has been supplanted by the Internet. They used to be where readers discovered they were not alone, and learned that their tribe was out there. It’s where we debated what we loved, found friends, formed fan clubs, and sometimes (as with Dave Cockrum and Andrea Kline) even met spouses.

But there was a time when Stan Lee, as the Marvel Universe was exploding, almost put the kibosh on all letter columns but one.

I imagine it must have been tough to keep up when all those superhero titles were launching, each requiring its own letters column. His solution—drop them, add the freed pages to the stories themselves, and answer all Marvel mail in the Fantastic Four.

In Spider-Man #7 (cover-dated December 1963), he asked readers if they thought this was a good idea.

Spider-Man #8 (January 1964) was way too early for Marvel to have received any letters, so Stan just asked for more feedback. (more…)

I dreamt last night that I wandered a theater lobby, and through open doors I could see a rehearsal was taking place. Then, looking at the cast up on the stage, I saw my cousin Herb Edelman* was running lines, and realized that somehow, I’d gone back in time!

It was 1996, and Herb was still alive.

So I walked toward the stage, and when Herb spotted me, he smiled. I told him I’d come from the future, which didn’t seem to bother him. Hey, it was a dream, so we both accepted that as fact, and didn’t worry about the how. We sat on the floor behind the last row of empty seats, and chatted. Eventually, I asked him a question which has always puzzled me in real life. (more…)

The same night Dave Beran wins the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes, Next restaurant reveals the trailer for the restaurant’s newest menu.

Dig that the size of that fortune cookie!

Next: Modern Chinese from next restaurant on Vimeo.

Ticket for Modern Chinese are now on sale.

I’ve been to five other Next iterations so far, and have enjoyed them all—yes, even Vegan—so I hope I can make it to Chicago before the restaurant morphs again in September.

We’re already a week into May, so it’s that time again!

Here are all of the dreams I tweeted about last month, gathered in one place to see whether they make more sense en masse than one at a time.

During April, I dreamt of Ronald D. Moore, Stephen Colbert, Ron Howard, Judy Garland, Robert Redford, Hitler, and more. And so …

April 2014

I dreamt I was taking part in a reality TV show set in the 1800s, and the lack of hot showers was getting to me. I tried to bribe the crew! Apr 30

I dreamt I was on a panel with @EllenDatlow, @neilhimself and two others when we suddenly all pulled out instruments and broke into song. Apr 30

I dreamt I stumbled upon Adam-Troy and Judi Castro at 4:00 a.m., and only after she hugged me did I realize I was wandering in my pajamas. Apr 29

Actual dream dialogue with @haszombiesinit. ME: Let’s go for pineapple buns. HER: I’m allergic to fish and potatoes. ME: Not even rutabagas? Apr 29

I dreamt I gossiped with others by the closed doors of a ballroom waiting for the Stokers to begin. And the floor was littered with comics! Apr 29

I dreamt @IreneVartanoff were considering a visit to a Star Wars-themed amusement. Oddly, the brochures were filled with Peanuts characters. Apr 28

I dreamt I handed my wife a complex, multi-page legal document delineating who would get control of my DNA after my death. (But why?) Apr 28

I dreamt I met Lake Bell while walking up a crowded stairway. We bonded over unicorns, so she visited, met my friends. We ran though snow. Apr 28

I’ve lost one of my dreams because this middle-of-the-night note no longer acts as a catalyst: SYFY JELLY BEANS / CONFUSED WOMAN / NIGHT Apr 27

I dreamt I was arrested at a protest and told to “wait here” by a cop. Then I was forgotten, and after hours wondered if I could just leave. Apr 27 (more…)

I started wearing a Fitbit Flex combination pedometer and sleep tracker one year ago today. In fact, it was probably right around this time on May 4, 2013 that the battery was fully charged and I wrapped it around my left wrist.

Every other pedometer I’d tried had failed me. Either it would fall off my belt and break, or get washed because I forgot to unclip it from my pants, or I’d forget to wear it at all. The Flex can be worn even while showering, which I knew would be a cure for my clumsiness and absentmindedness. Plus it would keep track of how well I slept, and since I’ve always been intrigued by my dream life, that was fascinating.

So how’d I do? (more…)

Back in 1972, I attended the first (and as far as I know only) EC Fan Addict Convention. Almost every former staffer or freelancer then alive was there, and publisher Bill Gaines, who’d retained all of the company’s original artwork, put on one of the greatest art shows I’ve ever seen at a comic book convention.

The program book was filled with Marie Severin’s caricatures of her coworkers, as well as the creators’ reminiscences of each other. Because Al Feldstein passed away the other day, I scanned the pages that pertained to him so you could all learn why he was a “reluctant dragon.”

You can find the spread about Will Elder from that program book here.

I learned a short while ago that the great EC Comics writer, artist, and editor Al Feldstein passed away yesterday in Livingston, Montana. I don’t think I have anything more to say about his influence other than what I already said when I presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association in 2011.

But since a picture is worth … well, you know … I thought I’d share thirteen of my favorite Feldstein comic book covers. Actually, I’d only planned to share ten of them, but there were so many which had impressed themselves on my memory that I ended up not being able to limit myself.

I feel privileged to have spent some time with him in 2008 at the San Diego Comic-Con and also to have had a story of mine appear in an issue of PostScripts which featured a recreation of one of his most famous covers as its cover.

Which happens to be the first one below …

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The 2014 list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants has just been announced, so if you came here to hear about comics or science fiction (or even the ukulele), forgive me.

I’ve dined at four of winners, the same four I ate at from last year’s list, only instead of coming in at 5, 9, 14, and 15, those restaurants are now at 4, 9, 16, and 18.

I’ll be adding a fifth restaurant to my personal list during my August trip to the London Worldcon, because I already have reservations at #5 below—Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. And who knows? If Fate smiles upon me, I might get in to the Fat Duck (#47) as well.

Check out the complete list below, with links to posts on my visits to Eleven Madison Park, Alinea, Steirereck, and Astrid y Gaston. (more…)

As you may or may not know, I turned from being a comics fan to being a comics pro (though I did not leave my faanishness behind) the day I started on staff at Marvel Comics editing its line of British reprint books. That day was June 24, 1974, by the way, so we’re creeping up on the 40th anniversary of my transition.

My two main responsibilities were writing a version of the Bullpen Bulletins pages for those weekly magazines, as well as creating new splash pages when Marvel’s U.S. books were sliced and diced for reprint. To explain— (more…)