You either have no comic books, one or two you remember, or your life might've drifted wayward, and you read them for a while. God help ya, you probably have ten-at least- you remember. Now, I won't belabor the changes in pop culture. There's a reason my talk with a co-writer of many stories wriiten for the original Savage She-Hulk series is a touchstone for a new generation to explore. Dwight Zimmerman talked Defenders with us at the Dollar Bill Birthday Global Blockbuster, which you can find in our previous post. It's a lot of fun to get this material down- but don't call it History. I mean, unless you're cool thinking of it that way. It's the Disney Plus TV series that will have many more people talking! I mean, that's why I can mention The Kingpin, and you might have more than a picture of an oval crimelord with ham-sized fists. That's OK, too, but Vincent D'Onfrio's take on the character? Iconic. He might not have stolen any...

We had a virtual birthday party for David Anthony Kraft, anyway! He had too much cheer for the happiness and friendships to end. So! Peter Benno Gillis also wrote the title which has become signature DAK, The Defender, by Marvel Comics Group. Dwight Zimmerman here became friends in art class back in North Dakota. One day, he put in a year's notice and joined Dave the Dude in the Big Apple! Jim Salicrup? Only the founding Mad Genius Associate. The Spider-Editor of my youth, and uncredited writer of Spidey Super Stories. He's busy with the Papercutz imprints today. Jo Duffy? She makes it over the roped bridge, past the gorilla, and gives DAK a sterling tribute. She pioneered writing and editing at Marvel, wrote Power Man and Iron Fist, Catwoman , and something called Star Wars . She's quick to explain, he basically WAS his Dollar Bill supporting character, dropped into the midst of the Defenders via Valkyrie's attempt to attend Empire State University...camera...

When I encountered the Prowler on the cover of The Amazing Spider-Man #93, I didn't actually have the comic, but I did read the story. The gadgets, the Ditko quality, his timeliness, yet, his modus operandi would’ve been more popular if he’d come along earlier in the Marvel Age. Truthfully, he would’ve been a brilliant antihero for DC Comics! But, I want to note, while the Flash’s Rogues Gallery was pretty much all using gadgets, and gadgets were a very common source of ‘powers’ for Silver Age costumed characters, by 1968, when they created and prepared The Prowler for his three-part (cut to two) debut in Amazing Spider-Man, he might be the last really great gadget-based character to appear, excepting Mister Miracle. You might not think either of those are very great, and the trend was not in favor of ordinary humans utilizing gadgets to have crimefighting advantages. Batman pretty much hangs up his utility belt as we knew it (especially on TV), as Denny O’Neil’s stories f...

SIMUL8: WB’s Charmed Ones SIM 4 Life So, basically, what if the cast of WB’s Charmed, premiering in 1998, were a household of friends making a living, selling paintings? When you’re playing the simplest version of Sims 4, it’s not like you have the Modifications to remake that world, though our player, Dawn, has bought one package of three ‘mods’ and a couple of other small ones. So, after that, she could’ve created the characters again as Magic Users. She’s only been at her latest game hobby basically here in April- it was Minecraft last month. She hasn’t tried Fortnight, where I imagine you could also build characters with similar powers. But it’s not quite the powers that make characters enjoyable, though when you’re a little kid, or just one at heart, imaginative appeal goes a long ways. She tried to recapture the looks of the actors, though she’s mused you don’t get to radically change heights. That’s too bad, because we’d already have our own Guillermo, a Sim of late night ...

So, Mad Scientist. After attending a couple of local karate classes at the end of 2018, I’d pictured a nebbish incel fellow- a stand-in for my own position, but someone more locked in his own little world- to characterize the Mad Scientist idea in my novel, Chrysalis of the Butterfly. Yet, when it came time this week to try out characters as Sims, he became a She. She, however, did not gain a name, other than, perhaps, Regina, in passing. Her Sim is named first name Mad, last name, Scientist. I’ve been developing Chrysalis of the Butterfly over five years, now. I thought I could put off working on it until I had reviewed and created an epilogue for I’d Go Anywhere With You, completed a short story called “Faded Einstein,” and written an epilogue, if not further chapters, on the book I’d called Great Job! You Get A Star! I’m thinking a bit of calling it The Five Star Kid. I thought, get music ready to play for people this summer and fall. Get those two previous books prep...

My original first posts were removed due to my own Copyright concerns at the time. When I began publishing here on April 4th, 2009, I had this story, and this photograph from the cosmos, and joy that I was allowing myself the decadent luxury of writing my own Fantastic Four story, while opening the door to my own Integr8d Soul fiction concepts. I felt compelled to try to re-capture something of the wonder I felt as a child, combined with soul-searching stories turned into adventures. Now, I realize those stories didn't have but a small slice of relatable every day stuff, and were more or less homages to the melodramatic comics style. When I included Escondido as my setting for "The Vanishing Wave"- an idea of mine long predating the Marvel Universe, which had only seen 'Iron Man' by 2009, but long after Jim Starlin's original Thanos battles in 1991 that led to people being snapped very temporarily out of existence- I really wanted to reclaim the feeling I...

Here's Penelope Medina's "Lupe's Story." This was her Merit Badge presentation. Her mom, Mo, asked friends to help voice a few of the characters. I tried reading several, because it was frankly more fun than I was having on average in January, 2021. I even read in Batman's voice for one character. If you can figure out which ones are Me, feel free to leave a guess! I encourage all of you to support your little Girl Scout friends.