Comic book artist Mike Zeck—who drew the Drax the Destroyer/Thanos story I’d written that was published a lifetime ago in Logan’s Run #6, recently uploaded to Facebook some photos he’d taken at the 1971 Phil Seuling 4th of July Comic Art Convention. (They’re here, but unless you’re Facebook friends with him, I don’t think you can see them.)

I enlarged his pics of the dealers room until they were nothing but pixels, because I was on the hunt for a very special photo—one of me and Irene from the years before we met on my first day at work at Marvel Comics. I’ve always hoped that serendipity would deliver to me a photo of us in the same room at some early con, perusing boxes of comics, unaware of each other’s presence, blind to the future that lay ahead.

When I mentioned this to Mike, he sent along his outtakes, and though I didn’t find that Holy Grail of me and Irene, I did come across one photo which included me in the crowd. Check it out below and see if you can spot me.

Did you find me? Probably not. I’m a little … incomplete. So let me give you a hint.

Got it figured it out now?

I just received my programming assignments for next month’s World Fantasy Convention in Toronto, and unless there’s shuffling about to accommodate the schedules of others, here’s where you’ll be able to find me.

REMEMBERING TWILIGHT ZONE MAGAZINE
Thursday, Nov. 1, 9:00 p.m. (Vaughn East)
Our panelists—several of whom contributed to the late, great Twilight Zone Magazine—will include writers discussing how they broke into the TZ market, their relationships with TZ editors (including the legendary T. E. D. Klein), and their own personal memories of the magazine. Other panelists will reminisce.
Lawrence C. Connolly (M), Nancy Baker, Scott Edelman, Elizabeth Hand, Darrell Schweitzer, Steve Rasnic Tem.

OUR SELVES, OUR MONSTERS
Friday, Nov. 2, 2:00 p.m. (York B & C)
The best monsters—ghosts, vampires, werewolves, zombies—all begin as human beings, as US. All have their roots in the ideas of lost/strayed/stolen humanity. Freud alludes to the factor of semblance in The Uncanny, and that idea, with the tensions inherent in duality/dichotomy—an otherness both projected, and found within—is crucial. Think of works such as Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, and Dracula like a hall of mirrors, begetting their own reflections. Is our continued fascination with these monsters our way of grappling with our own demons? And which fantasy characters are most persuasive in convincing us that they are not really monsters; that they are, in reality, a reflection/distortion/creation of us? A second opportunity to hear this fascinating discussion with an alternative set of panelists.
Ellen Klages (M), Patricia Briggs, Scott Edelman, Jo Fletcher, Anya Martin, Ben Percy.

And now that I have the full schedule in hand, I can decide which of the other panels and readings I want to attend and finalize my culinary adventuring.

Last month, I expressed my regrets for having gotten rid of whichever Marvel comic book it was that had included my name as one of the early members of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. (Printing 25 different names in each issue every month was a thing Marvel made a habit of back then.)

I had a memory of my name appearing in an issue of Tales from Suspense which pictured Iron Man battling the Titanium Man on its cover, and I asked for your help in tracking it down. Well, some has tracked down my name—though where exactly it was tracked down from remains to be seen.

Over on LiveJournal, Doc Hermes posted the following scan, and if you look at the box of names, you see mine in the third column, four up from the bottom.

So if I now have a scan of the page containing my name, then why did I state in the header above that my mystery wasn’t fully solved, but “almost” solved?

Well, first of all, if you click on the image above, you’ll see that as of yet, I don’t have a full-sized scan.

But the real reason the mystery remains is because Doc Hermes scanned the page without making a note as to where it originated. Also, he thinks “this was from an issue of STRANGE TALES, early on in the Nick Fury run (before Jim Steranko),” which completely contradicts my Tales of Suspense/Iron Man memory.

So—I’ve got the puzzle partially completed. Any chance these additional clues will help you fill in the final piece?

Next, the restaurant which reinvents itself several times each year, offering up a cuisine for several months that then vanishes, never to be seen on the menu again, has asked over on Facebook what we’d like to see in the future. So far, the query has received 772 comments, which represents an even greater number of suggestions.

Since I learned during my Sicilian meal that Next serves the platonic ideal of whatever concept they’ve chosen—so much so that I was moved to purchase Kitchen Table tickets for its Kyoto dinner—I feel very invested in the outcome.

So which three menus should they serve in 2013?

Here are the most intriguing suggestions so far. (more…)

I was tweeting last night about Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, which I’m currently about 75% of the way through (more on that later), and in response to my statement that I was glad I’d left Marvel before things got truly ugly there, I was asked whether I’d moved on before or during the Jim Shooter era.

Well, not only was I there during the beginnings of the Shooter era, but he and I actually once fell from the sky together!

In case you didn’t know that, check out this sidebar I wrote that appeared in the December 1976 issue of Marvel’s fan magazine FOOM.

And since the pics accompanying the article are quite fuzzy thanks to FOOM‘s far from state-of-the-art printing process, here are some of the original pics to show how insane (and young) we once were. (more…)

I remembered fewer dreams than usual during September, thanks to my lengthy trip to Chicago for Worldcon and many culinary adventures. Dreams tend to fade before I can scribble them down when I’m exhausted and in a strange bed, which always gives me a sense of loss, because I enjoy my dreams, revel in them, really, and hate to forget even one.

But what remained was still choice, and as always, the dreams benefit from being collected and allowed to rub up against each other this way. September’s guest stars included David Boreanaz, George R. R. Martin, Alanis Morissette, Tom Hanks, Harlan Ellison, E. Nelson Bridwell, and many others.

SEPTEMBER 2012

I dreamt I was in The Colbert Report live audience, and when he introduced Alanis Morissette, the camera instead cut to him dressed as her. 30 Sep

I dreamt I was on a train to Machu Picchu, and when I looked up from my iPad, I saw Tom Hanks and Will Sasso (as Bill Clinton) were there. 30 Sep

I dreamt @scalzi got mad at me because while visiting him, I destroyed my first drafts. But more because in doing so, I flooded his house. 29 Sep

I dreamt three old guys drove to our door to deliver a kingsized mattress, only I looked at them and thought … no way they can lift it. 28 Sep

I dreamt my wife was cradling my son, suddenly a baby once again, and then passed him to me, and I rocked him. Oddly, he could still speak. 28 Sep

I dreamt I talked to my grandmother about my memories of my great-grandmother (even though grandma is dead, and I never met great-grandma). 28 Sep

I dreamt my boss @CraigEngler drove up, and I served him most of a chocolate cake with my bare hands, saving one slice for @IreneVartanoff. 26 Sep

I dreamt I worked as a baker at my friends’ cafe, and decided I was going to attempt to convince them to sell me part of the business. 25 Sep

I dreamt I was on a pitch black cruise ship searching for a light switch, as I was scheduled to teach a juggling workshop and needed to see. 25 Sep

I dreamt I came up out of the NYC subway to discover fanciful architecture that never really existed — stone towers, ornate gardens, etc. 24 Sep (more…)

So there I was in a checkout line at Walmart (which I know many of you have an objection to that reaches an almost religious fervor, but let’s leave the discussion of that for some other time, OK?) when I noticed something intriguing about the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. You know all about the brouhaha over the magazines, right, how many stores hide most of the covers, leaving only the logo visible, so cleavage doesn’t offend the unwary?

One example—my local supermarket, which only let me see Zooey Deschanel from the lips up this afternoon.

Walmart, on the other hand, was OK with letting me glimpse Deschanel’s cleavage, as you can see from the U-shaped shield below— (more…)

I’ve been to Bryan Voltaggio’s Volt, his high-end restaurant where Irene and I experienced a seven-course anniversary dinner tasting menu. I’ve also been to Voltaggio’s Family Meal, for which the chef created a menu devoted to comfort food like chicken and biscuits and fried green tomatoes. So I figured it was time I tried out Lunchbox, his attempt at a gourmet sandwich shop.

And since I’d planned to head over to Maryland today to meet with a master tailor who could perfect the fit of those two jackets I first showed off at Chicon7, this seemed like the day for it.

I arrived at exactly 11:30 a.m., right when Lunchbox opened, so I was the first customer of the day. When I entered, I was welcomed enthusiastically, with one of the women behind the counter offering to explain the various sandwiches, since they weren’t your usual Subway grinders. I probably should have let her go ahead, just to see her shtick, but I’d studied the menu at home, and so already had an idea of the sandwiches which most called to me.

The two that seemed the most tempting were “mom’s meatloaf: tamarind ketchup, gruyere, onion marmalade, ciabatta” and the “pork shoulder: ham, pickle, gruyere, pickled cabbage, egg yolk, cilantro-lime, baguette,” though I must admit the “tcb: nutella, bananas, potato bread” looked tempting as well. (See what I mean about Voltaggio trying to put the “gourmet” in sandwich shop?) (more…)

As I told you a couple of weeks ago, I fell so in love with Next restaurant while in Chicago last month that I was unable to resist booking a Kitchen Table for its current Kyoto menu, which only runs until the end of the year.

One reason I wanted the Kitchen Table, which seats six, rather than the other tables for two or four, is that it’s the only table per seating that gets a few extras unavailable to the other diners. (And you know how much I love my amuse bouche.) And while searching on @NextRestaurant over at Twitter—because I’m hungry not just for food, but for learning more about the food which will be satiating that hunger—I discovered that a fellow foodie by the name of MaryMary had tweeted the following photo.

The pic seemed amazing to me, and not just because the duck made me think, “Get in my belly!” No, it was the caption:

“Duck, served out of a 200 year old duck”

I knew that even the settings on which Chefs Achatz and Beran served their food was mind-blowing, but a 200-year-old bowl? Astounding.

Why am I bringing this up to you, especially since most of you will likely never get to enjoy this meal? Because I’d like to hear from you—is it possible for a meal to be spoiled? (And no, I don’t mean that way. I mean the other way.) (more…)

One of my favorite parts of a newspaper is the obituaries page. I love seeing how lives are summed up by friends and family (and sometimes, the deceased themselves), how a lifetime can be condensed into paragraphs. And often, I’m reminded that science fiction is everywhere.

Take this obituary that appeared in yesterday’s Washington Post for Evelyn Offutt, who died on September 2 at age 94. It states that, “Her parents divorced when she was young. Fred, a professional athlete, moved to California and made a new life as an actor.” Note the phrasing, how he didn’t just try to make a new life as an actor, but he actually did make a new life as an actor.

As you can see below, Evelyn Somers led a fascinating life, but the question I was left with after reading that sentence in her obituary was …

… who was this Fred Somers? (For Somers was Evelyn’s maiden name.) Should I have heard of him? Have you? (more…)