The first—and last—comic book to which I ever subscribed was Fantastic Four.

It was my first because after all, it was the “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine”—wasn’t that what Stan Lee had been telling us on the cover almost from the beginning? And for several amazing years in the ’60s, that seemingly hyberbolic claim may not have been all that hyperbolic after all.

And it was my last because—have you ever seen a subscription copy of a comic book from the ’60s? If not, you might not realize how poorly they were treated. They were folded in half lengthwise and then wrapped in brown paper on which an address label was slapped. By the time copy arrived in the mail, that fold was an eternal crease, a condition from which any true comic book collector would recoil.

But if you’ve subscribed to a comic book during the past few decades, then you know that this destructive practice was eventually eliminated. Would you like to know when? (more…)

Today’s May 4th, which makes it Star Wars Day, but what’s uppermost in my mind isn’t that—instead I’ve been thinking about how this marks the second anniversary of the day I strapped a Fitbit Flex to my wrist. I’ve worn the exercise tracker continually 24/7 since then, except for when I’ve been recharging or forced to remove the device while passing through airport security.

I took note of where I stood on my one-year Fitbit anniversary, so I’ve been wondering what year two was going to look like. As it turns out, it ended up looking a lot like year one.

The first year, thanks to the gamification of my walking, I took 4,078,838 steps, which came out to 2,030.89 miles.

Now that the second year is over, I see I’m up at a total 8,186,353 steps and 4,076.00 miles. Which means that during year two, I took 4,107,515 steps and walked 2045.11 miles—which is nearly identical to year one!

The difference, however, is in the details. (more…)

I bought a copy of Harry Warner, Jr.’s 1969 history of science fiction fandom, All Our Yesterdays, during the early ’70s when I was first entering that fandom. I read it and loved it, but I haven’t reread it since.

So why am I rereading it now?

Amazingly, Warner himself—who won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer as a result of this book—answered that question in the second half of the last sentence to his Foreword:

Finally, I cling to a hope that today’s active and gafiated fans will find pleasure in reviewing the events in which they took part, and that the fans who came into the hobby recently will find in the book reason to take more philosophically their fannish troubles, through the discovery that we went through the same mishaps so many years ago.

Emphasis mine.

And that’s exactly why I’ve started rereading All Our Yesterdays. Because considering our own current “fannish troubles,” I thought I might find some solace there, and do what Warner suggests—take it more philosophically.

Either way … I’ll let you know.

April’s over, and though it brought plenty of those April showers, it seemed to bring fewer dreams than most months. In fact, I didn’t wake with a remembered dream until the sixth of the month, which is unusual for me. Guess that birthday trip to Copenhagen really wore me out!

In any case, during the rest of April, I shared over on Twitter the dream appearances of Bill Murray, George R. R. Martin, Frank Frazetta, Tracy Morgan, Al Williamson, David Letterman … and the Hulk!

Here they are, collected in one place so their surreality may perhaps start making sense.

APRIL 2015

I dreamt I was at a crowded Comic-Con hotel, and the manager asked me, “Are you happy?” My answer was so complicated I woke while giving it. Apr 30

I dreamt I rode through city streets on a lawnmower which unfortunately ran out of gas … so I had to push it the rest of the way home. Apr 29

I dreamt @shunn and @chavoen left me in charge of their dog for some reason, and it took the entire weekend for me to gain her trust. Apr 29

I dreamt our cabbie got in an accident and then expected US to pay for his damage. Much arguing ensued, the police were called, and I woke. Apr 28

I dreamt I found myself walking behind @GRRMspeaking and @KevinStandlee, realized they were chatting privately, and so let them go on alone. Apr 27

I dreamt my Mom was dating again, and my Dad (dead 6+ years IRL) tossed me a pair of paints so I’d be dressed appropriately to meet the guy. Apr 26

I dreamt I planned to swim to an island in the middle of the Hudson with a group of friends to protest … something. But I don’t know what. Apr 26

I dreamt I brought chocolate-covered mushrooms to @tinytempest, who (in the dream) I knew had eaten them before and loved them. And we ate. Apr 26

I dreamt my wife handed me an antique violin, apparently anticipating I’d know how to play it. I couldn’t, of course — so I woke instead! Apr 26

I dreamt I bumped into Stephen Jones at a con and discovered — he’d gone blond! And now he looked like a John Constantine doppelgänger. Apr 24 (more…)

Step One: Go back in time to 1959 and pick up a copy of Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #14.

Step Two: Drool over the prizes offered in the Charlton Giant Contest, especially the First Prize of a Buster Crabbe swimming pool—named after the Olympic gold medalist who later portrayed both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. (more…)

Remember Brenda Starr’s cousin Abretha Breez, a woman mocked for being too large to fit through a kitchen door to get more cake? As you may recall, she had a crush on steam shovel operator Everett Diggin, which didn’t work out, since the guy had a crush on Brenda. Was Abretha able to find a soulmate, or was she destined to forever be held up as an example of a woman too overweight to ever be seen as desirable?

We seem to find our answer in Brenda Starr #9 (July 1949), though you never know—since I was unable to find anything but the covers to issues #7 and #8, there could have been answers there as well.

The lead story in this issue begins with Brenda and Abretha heading off to an auction at a Chinese antique shop, where Brenda wins two bookends for a buck. But something’s up with those bookends, because a latecomer offers Brenda $100 for them. She refuses, of course (or there wouldn’t be a story), so the man offers her $200! But Brenda turns him down again. And why would she refuse $200 in 1949, which is apparently the equivalent of $1,948.64 today?

“I’m a typical woman,” she says. “If anybody else wants it, I’m determined to keep it.”

Since we can read the guy’s thoughts, we know something’s up, because he gripes that “she’s walking off with a fortune and she doesn’t know.”

Brenda then leaves Abretha alone with the bookends because she wants to “run over to a couple of shops and see some of the new gowns.”

I’ll leave it to others to explicate the meaning of Brenda’s cliched behavior so far, because I’m more concerned with the treatment of Abretha—who I’m happy to say in this story now looks like more a human being rather than the caricature she was before. (more…)

If you were here to peruse the knick-knack shelves in my office, you’d eventually come across a bent key.

Why is it bent? Who bent it? What door does it no longer open?

I guess the title of this post gives away the answer to my last question. But as for the other two questions … (more…)

I’ve already shared a bit about how the stars seemed to align in my favor to make last month’s international birthday celebration not just possible, but extraordinary.

Like how Chef René Redzepi personally reached out so I could have my birthday dinner at his hard-to-get-into Copenhagen restaurant Noma, currently rated #1 in the world.

And how I was able to use my frequent flyer miles to book a trip on exactly the dates I wanted for only $100.60 in taxes and fees, instead of … gulp!

How, after I bemoaned the fact that a trip to Denmark during the time of year when Tivoli, its top attraction, would be closed, and that it would be depressing to peer through its locked gates, the amusement park announced it would opening several weeks early this year—on April 1, the day after my birthday, making a visit possible.

My trip was filled with many incidents of luck working in my favor, but I thought I should share one more, which occurred at the very end, and demonstrates that what are mishaps for most usually turn out to be gifts for me.

Ah, the power of serendipity! (more…)

When I was interviewed by Dewey Cassell about the origins of Marvel’s Scarecrow for an article which was to appear in Back Issue magazine #60 (October 2012), one of the things he wanted to know was—who was originally intended to be that character’s first artist?

The reason that even came up was because back in the the pages of Dead of Night #11 (August 1975), I’d mentioned in an essay that “the artist who the assignment was given to had since disappeared into the wilds of the city.” So Dewey asked … which artist?

It had been more than three decades since he had vanished, but I had a pretty good idea who that artist had been—Bill Draut. After a little research, though, I began to doubt my gut, and as you can see in an excerpt below from Dewey’s published article, I’d decided I must have been wrong.

But thanks to the latest installment of Comic Book Legends: Revealed, I learned today that I’d been right all along! (more…)

I wish I could have shared about my lunch at Chef Rasmus Kofoed’s Geranium two weeks ago, but first I had to get home from Copenhagen (since I was having too much fun while there to spare any time for blogging), then I first had to tell you about my birthday dinner at Noma, and then spend a week preparing for our annual Thank God It’s Spring daffodil party. So only now do I have the spare brain to tell you about our afternoon at what’s currently #42 on the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Here are a couple things you should know before I move on to what you’re really here to see—pics of food porn. (And I will, for the most part, let those pics stand for themselves. Additional words would not do them justice.)

First, Chef Kofoed is a three-time winner of the Bocuse d’Or cooking competition, having walked away with the bronze, silver, and gold. Which had us impressed before we ever took a bite of his creations. (The closest I’d ever gotten to that famed event previously was when Next restaurant offered its Bocuse d’Or-themed menu.)

Second, the restaurant is in an unusual location. Rather than being in the center of Copenhagen, it’s on the eighth floor of Denmark’s national soccer stadium. Not at all a place where I’d have expected this level of cooking. But, oh—the view! Here’s the scenery out the window from our table.

But enough of the restaurant’s reputation and view—what counts is the food we were served. And so … (more…)