While the death of Peter O’Toole, whose work I admired in such films as Lawrence of Arabia, The Ruling Class, and My Favorite Year, saddened me, I was far more moved by learning today of the death earlier in the week of Tom Laughlin, who starred in, directed, and co-wrote the 1971 movie Billy Jack. O’Toole was, of course, the far better actor, but in terms of which man affected me the most, there’s no contest. Laughlin kicked me where it counted.

And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

I saw Billy Jack multiple times when I was a teenager, had its dialogue memorized, imagined myself standing up for the downtrodden in that famous ice cream shoppe scene (so iconic it was later spoofed by Paul Simon in a Saturday Night Live sketch), and for a time even wore a BILLY JACK FOR PRESIDENT button.

So when Marvel Comics decided to devote an issue of its Deadly Hands of Kung Fu magazine to the phenomenon as a tie-in to the 1974 The Trial of Billy Jack movie, who better to write a think piece about the meaning of it all than the guy who was nuts about the first film? (Beneath that wonderful Neal Adams cover you could also find a second article on the sequel by Black Panther/Killraven writer Don McGregor.) In order to make my point in the essay, I managed to drag in Paul Kersey from Death Wish and Jesus Christ from, you know, The Bible.

As I reread the piece now, I can see that it’s overly influenced by the stylistic pyrotechnics of Harlan Ellison and Tom Wolfe, it suffers from the fact that I was still a beginner at this writing thing, and it contains all the self-righteous earnestness of a college dorm room bull session.

And yet, through it all, my love for the Billy Jack films and the work of Tom Laughlin is evident, so I think it’s still worth sharing on a day like today. (more…)

I know about Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox the way many people do. Meaning—it’s not from reading the original stories, but rather from the Disney cartoon, the Classics Illustrated comic, tales improvised by camp counselors around a fire, or just absorbing the inescapable pop culture references.

Of course, those original stories weren’t so original, as they were folktales long before they were written down, but since I’m not going to get a chance to sit at the knee of a French Canadian in the 19th century and hear them as they were first told, the works of James MacGillivray and James Stevens are the best I can do.

In any event, what this means is that it wasn’t until today that I got to meet Cream Puff Fatty and Hot Biscuit Slim, two of the greatest (fictional) chefs that ever were.

I’m sure you can figure out which is which in the illustration above. (I haven’t been able to track down the name of the artist responsible for that image. If you know, please speak up!)

I discovered them because for some reason, Irene and I got to talking this afternoon about parsnips, which led to us debating whether Paul Bunyan had died from eating poisoned parsnips, which led to me reading about Paul Bunyan’s Black Duck dinner … which introduced me to Cream Puff Fatty and Hot Biscuit Slim, two cooks so amazing that after they fed a team of loggers, not only were none of Bunyan’s team able to rouse themselves to appear for the following meal, but “for five weeks the loggers lay in a delicious torpor.”

What kind of meal could do that? An epic one! Read an excerpt below from the June 1924 issue of the American Mercury for one of the greatest fictional meals I’ve ever encountered. (more…)

Advertising used to be a lot more refined—even as it was selling snake oil—as can be seen from this final dip into the January 1898 issue of The Nickell.

Captured in an elegant drawing reminiscent of Charles Dana Gibson, two upper-class diners ever-so-delicately discuss the lady’s indigestion, which it seems can only be solved by swallowing a Ripans Tabule and waiting 10 minutes.

But what’s Ripans? And what the heck is a Tabule? (more…)

How much did we love bicycles in 1898?

So much so that the January 1898 issue of The Nickell was packed with ads for bikes and biking accessories, such as the Columbia Chainless Bicycle (“totally unaffected by mud, dust, rain, or sleet”), the “Serrate Tread” Tire (if your dealer doesn’t have the new ’98 model, “tell him he’s not up to date), and The Wheelmen’s Gazette (“an illustrated monthly magazine devoted to the grandest, healthiest, most manly sport in the world—cycling”).

But what really proved to me that bicycling wasn’t just a hobby in those days, but a craze, was the poem “Ye Ballad of Ye Mermaiden,” in which a mermaid was spellbound … by a cyclist.

Or the wheelman’s “wondrous shell on which you travel so fast and well,” anyway.

I assume “she scorches beneath the sea” in the poem’s final line merely meant she was going very fast. But if you’ve got a better handle on the slang of the late 19th century, let me know!

So as I continued flipping through the January 1989 issue of The Nickell, a tiny ad, no more than 1/16 of a page in size, caught my eye. It was mixed in with other similarly small ads for things such as skate sharpeners and cancer cures, only this one, instead of being quaint, was puzzling.

It offered to sell readers a “bold, brave book” about the “ethics of marriage,” but as I looked more closely, I wondered whether the fine print was a coded message for information about contraception.

After all, what else could have been meant by the term “controlled maternity”? (more…)

I was flipping through the January 1898 issue of The Nickell—which, as you know, is the kind of thing I love to do, because it’s the closest to a time machine I’m going to get—

—when I spotted a poignant advertisement filled with nostalgia not just for the late 19th century—but for the early 19th century as well. (more…)

Way back in the ’70s, Marvel’s Sol Brodsky commissioned me to write an Incredible Hulk coloring book. I wrote the script, turned it in, got paid for it … and then never heard a thing about it ever again.

Not until last week, when I spotted a cover from 1977 over at The Marvel Age of Comics Tumblr which had me wondering … is that the same coloring book I wrote? I couldn’t be sure, but luckily, within a few hours, Paul Di Filippo alerted me to an eBay auction, and I jumped, exercising the Buy Now option so there’d be no chance I’d lose out.

Well, now that I’ve had a chance to read the thing—all 230 words of it—I’m going to say that this is the coloring book I wrote all those years ago. And I’ll keep saying that until someone comes along to contradict me. (more…)

Looking back at November, it seems I had fewer dreams that month than any month I can remember. And I have no idea why.

No matter. I’m still tossing my dream tweets together here to see if they make more sense when rubbing up against each other this way.

November’s guest stars included Caroline Kennedy, Robert Silverberg, Jay Lake and the doctors and interns of Seattle Grace Hospital …

November 2013



I dreamt I was about to do a reading and ‪@jay_lake wheeled in a cot so I could tuck in with the audience as if sharing a bedtime story. 30 Nov

I dreamt I was in a hospital for tests, and my nurse handed me a needle and told me to find a vein and draw my own blood. I told her … no. 

30 Nov

I dreamt I took an intensive writing course, which was great, but my teacher could only speak Spanish … and so we had some difficulties.

 29 Nov

I dreamt I peered outside in search of deer, and instead saw a large lizard, at least six feet long, ambling along. Which didn’t seem odd. 

27 Nov

I dreamt a woman was being attacked by a crowd in the UK, and I intervened to save her — but when I looked around after, she’d disappeared.

 27 Nov

I dreamt I was first in line at ‪@FranklinBBQ, with ‪@IreneVartanoff, ‪@Shunn, and ‪@Chavoen. Then a cook ate brisket next to me, torturing us! 

25 Nov

I lost one of last night’s dreams because I have no idea what my scribbled note, meant to act as a memory catalyst, means: MACY’S DREAM BOOK

 23 Nov

I dreamt I bumped into David Kyle and Robert Silverberg at Worldcon. We hugged and wouldn’t let go, as if we knew it was the last time.

 23 Nov

I dreamt I visited a museum in darkness, deliberately so. We we meant to touch the statues and imagine them. Only then did the lights go on.

 22 Nov

I dreamt I stepped outside to discover someone had built a huge brick house on the lot next door, one I’d never noticed being constructed. 

21 Nov (more…)

So last night, when we realized we’d be cruising through Frederick, Maryland at around 8:00 p.m. without having had a chance to eat dinner first, we realized—hey, this is finally our chance to eat off Family Meal‘s dinner menu!

Irene and I have had many brunches and lunches there, starting last July right after they opened. But for a variety of reasons, dinner remained elusive. And so, as we neared Frederick on our way home from a day down county, we thought—gotta be Family Meal!

Turkey pot pie fritters

We’d had chicken pot pie fritters during our second lunch at Family Meal, but never the turkey ones. Glad I finally got to pop a few of these in my mouth. Best delivery method for pot pie filling ever. Better even than pot pies themselves! (more…)

I received an email notification Monday that Marvel Comics had sent me a mysterious FedEx package. What could it contain? I had no idea.

Marvel’s plans are usually a mystery to me, and I tend not to find out that early comics work of mine is being reprinted until it actually has been reprinted and I receive either a check or the printed book. So I had no idea what I’d find when I returned home last night and tore open the envelope.

Well, it turns out that an eight-page story I wrote starring The Vision, which was illustrated by Herb Trimpe and colored by my (at the time) future bride Irene Vartanoff …

… which first appeared in Avengers Annual # 6 way back in 1976 … (more…)