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 …

(more…)

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…)

Last night, I attended a comic book event I wouldn’t have even known about had it not been for the ukulele.

During each of the past two Augusts, I took part in UkeFest, a ukulele workshop and festival held at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland. That got me on the art center’s mailing list, which alerted me to the exhibition “A Shared Universe: The Art of Comic Books,” as well as Thursday’s free opening reception.

The reception attracted a number of comic book locals, including Joel Pollack of Big Planet Comics, Sara Duke, curator at the Library of Congress, and my sister-in-law, artist and teacher Ellen Vartanoff (seen with me above). (more…)

A working draft of the World Horror Convention program schedule has been circulating on Facebook. Here are the panels to which I’ve been tentatively assigned.

Four Color Calamaties: Horror in Comic Books
Friday, May 9, 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
Creators from indie to mainstream in the graphic novel industry methods of getting your work out there and the challenges within the medium.
with Greg Staples, Cullen Bunn, Brian Keene, and Kari Yadro

Life After ‘The Walking Dead’: Zombie Fiction Today
Saturday, May 10, 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m.
Zombie stories are a tough sell after WORLD WAR Z and WALKING DEAD. But for some reason, when done well, the form just doesn’t stay dead. Find out what makes great zombie fiction come to life.
with Joe McKinney, Steve Rasnic Tem, John Skipp, Dana Fredsti, Brian Keene, and S.G. Browne

Unfortunately, I don’t land In Portland until 1:20 p.m. on Friday, so I won’t be able to make that 1:00 p.m. comics panel. Since I doubt it’ll be moved on my account, your only official chance to see me will be at Saturday’s zombie panel. Though the reading schedule has yet to be announced, so who knows?

Hope to see you at the con, whether on a panel, in the dealers room … or at the bar!

I went into D.C. Saturday to attend Awesome Con, where I took part in the panel, “Rise and Prevalence of Dystopian Science Fiction in Pop Culture” along with Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Robert Chase. When I arrived at the room in which the panel was to be held, I was surprised to find (since I’m used to programming at SF cons rather than media cons) a long line of con-goers that stretched down the hall and vanished around a corner.

Which meant that our panel was remarkably well attended, with at least 250 people showing up to hear us pontificate. (Perhaps there were even 300 or more. Once a room gets past a certain size, I lose all ability to guestimate.)

I’m fairly certain that the audience wasn’t there because they had any idea who we were. I’m guessing they’d shown up because the topic, which promised that we’d touch on such things as The Hunger Games and The Walking Dead, was compelling. But based on the reaction we received, I think we kept people entertained. There was much laughter, and many great questions.

Here we are after the panel ended, appearing remarkably cheery for three guys who’d just spent an hour discussing dystopias. (more…)