My most recent short story, “Oh, to Be a Wooden Ship, Sailing an Endless Sea!,” a strange little tale of found family, was released October 2025 in the anthology Bizarro Circus of Madness.

My books have run the gamut from collections of science fiction, fantasy, and horror short stories to a Lambda Award-nominated vampire novel to unauthorized wrestling biographies of Chyna and Steve Austin.

I’ve been going to science fiction, comics, horror, and fantasy conventions since I was 15, and after all those years am now replicating in podcast form one of my favorite parts of any con — good conversation with good friends over good food.

Back when I worked in the Marvel Bullpen at 575 Madison Avenue, we all had to have nicknames. Stan “The Man” Lee dubbed me “Sparkling” Scott Edelman. And it’s all been downhill from there. Check out my four-color fantasies.

I started out editing magazines made out of dead trees more than 30 years ago. These days, I’m editing electronic bytes. But whether forged of paper or pixels, words still remain words.

Don’t touch that dial! Here come my televised works, as performed by the likes of Yeardley Smith, Jeff Conaway, Roy Dotrice, Mabel King, Larry Manetti and the Herculoids.

While we’re all celebrating the fact that the Comics Code is dead, here’s a document that takes me back to when it was very much alive. Let’s see how different things used to be, shall we?

Among the many facts we’re told by a July 20, 1976 newsletter put out by the Comics Magazine Association of America is that “there are now only about 400 wholesalers (against more than 700 not that long ago).” Horrors!

What else was new? “Veteran artist Joe Kubert has opened a school of Cartoon and Graphic Art, to train artists for comics, featuring a two-year course.” Wonder how that worked out?

Plus, “Publishers Weekly reports that sales of books in the first quarter of 1976 were better than in the first quarter of 1975.” (What? No info on how ebooks did during those years?)

Check out the whole thing below.

I wish I could remember courtesy of whose Twitter feed I found out about the 1881 book, The Agony Column of The Times: 1800-1870, because I’m finding it fascinating, and am very grateful.

The book (which I downloaded here) is filled with evidence of how little we’ve changed over the centuries, how people are filled with love and longing and loss (and hope, too!) whatever the year.

I’ve always enjoyed reading classified ads detailing missed connections of those who smiled at each other on the subway, passed in a supermarket, nodded in the street, and then went on, with no word spoken, and nothing exchanged but a dream that enflamed a regret. And so they placed an ad describing the encounter, hoping their possible future could be found.

All such ads I’d seen up until now have been contemporary, but here’s an example from just over 210 years ago.

A Gentlemen wrote to a Lady on December, 18, 1800:

If the lady who a Gentleman handed into her carriage from Covent Garden Theater, on Wednesday, the third of this month, will oblige the Advertiser with a line to Z. Z., Spring Garden Coffee House, saying if married or single, she will quiet the mind of a young Nobleman, who has tried, but in vain, to find the Lady. The carriage was ordered to Bond Street. The Lady may depend on honour and secrecy. Nothing but the most honourable interview is intended. The Lady was in mourning, and sufficiently cloathed to distinguish her for possessing every virtue and charm that man could desire in a female that he would make choice of for a Wife. Deception will be detected, as the Lady’s person can never be forgot.

Did he find her? Did she answer? And if she did answer, how did it go? We’ll never know, unless as I move forward through the book, I discover a follow-up notice.

Such poignancy can be beautiful. And heartbreaking.

As heartbreaking as stories without endings.

I know I was a pretty annoying comic book fan, as my previous posts easily prove. But I’d forgotten how annoying I was when I first became a comic book professional.

As a fan, I was always bothering the pros for sketches, autographs, and behind-the-scenes info. But once I became a pro myself, that pestering was instead directed toward the other pros who were now my bosses.

Pros like … Stan Lee.

I’ve been going through my stash of Marvel memos to pick out ones that might be useful to Sean Howe (who definitely needs a Marvel nickname), who’s writing a history of Marvel in the ’70s, and while doing this I came across one of my many suggestions to Stan. I had the bizarre idea that we could start a Dial-a-Superhero service than would allow fans to hear pre-recorded messages from Marvel’s greatest.

Check out my note to Stan below.

Stan’s response? Take a look.

He liked the idea, and asked me to see if I could make it happen.

I couldn’t.

Why? After all these years, I no longer remember whether I reached out to an existing company that already knew how to provide such services and was rebuffed, or if some other reason prevented the concept from coming together. But consider yourself lucky.

And if you think that was the craziest thing I ever suggested to Stan, well, all I can say is … you’ll see.

You’ll see.

February’s begun, and you know what that means—it’s time to gather in one place all the dreams I tweeted about during the month of January.

As usual, plenty of members of the convention-going crowd are included, but this month you’ll also find Conan O’Brien, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Richard Dreyfuss, and other unusual suspects.

Who knows? Maybe you’re in there, too!

JANUARY 2011

I dreamt I tried to help a drug addict on the subway by telling him how well rehab had worked for my sister-in-law. (Which is not true!) 30 Jan

I dreamt when I left the Syfy office, my elevator zoomed to a basement where I was tossed in a van because they suspected I was an alien. 30 Jan

I dreamt I visited American Idol, where Randy told me of the time he worked with my cousin Herb, and Ryan offered me a low-paying job. 30 Jan

I dreamt I was driven in a speeding car while trying not to spill an overfull bowl of matzoh ball soup delicately balanced on one knee. 30 Jan

I dreamt my father was upset because I visited FL on his birthday rather than my mother’s. (It didn’t bother me that he was suddenly alive.) 30 Jan

I dreamt I was woken by the rowdy singing of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and looked outside to see a group of mourning AA members. 30 Jan

I dreamt I was a doglike alien creature in a pixelated video game world, cheerfully exploring — opening doors, looking under things, etc. 29 Jan

I dreamt I bought three extremely large almond croissants at a bakery. Together, they were so HUGE no bag was large enough to hold them. 29 Jan

I dreamt I was researching apartments rather than hotels for a long trip to Australia, and the cheapest I could find cost $8,000 per month. 29 Jan

I dreamt I bumped into Eric Van and David Shaw at Readercon, and was surprised to see them wearing identical wild, blinding, garish shirts. 28 Jan (more…)