On September 10, 1904, New York’s Evening Telegram published a new comic strip by Winsor McCay, the talented cartoonist behind the fairly popular strip Little Sammy Sneeze — a boy whose violent sneezes cause catastrophic destruction in every episode. It was an amusing premise, but other than sublime draftsmanship and a tendency to break the fourth wall (in an art form barely ten years old, yet!). it wasn’t anything truly special.
The new strip was definitely something special, though, and it made McCay famous. It was called Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, and much of it is still hilarious.
Continue reading Dark and Still Funny: Winsor McCay’s Dream of the Rarebit Fiend →
I finally stopped my spacetime experiments when I accidentally created leprechauns. No, I mean really — nobody had ever heard of them before. Until the night I flipped that switch Lucky Charms were just Cheerios sprinkled with freeze-dried marshmallow polyhedra.
Originally published on Sunday, June 28, 2009 @ 3:54 am
This is, unfortunately, a true story.
It was about 10:30 on a sweltering June Friday night in 1988, and I was in the back seat of a crowded car mid-way between Los Angeles and San Diego. One of the strangers in the front seat turned on the radio, and The Plugz’ Hombre Secreto, their inspired cover of the Johnny Rivers classic Secret Agent Man, came blaring out of the speakers. I cheered. It was perfect, for that night we were headed into Mexico.
Continue reading Mi Weekend Loca →
(In which I explain its absence with a depressing story, but then lighten the mood at the end)
It’s been what? about two and a half four years since I took this site down, although regular readers know that I’d stopped working on it a long time before that. Why did I abandon a blog that I started in 2001? Simple: every time I thought about writing a post I was overcome with dread.
Continue reading Atomic Deathray Is Back! →
If you're here, you're there.
