More Weird Children’s Books: The Mushroom Planet, Suzuki Beane, Chicken Trek and More!

I have been writing this post since the end of March — yet another look at some odd children’s books I read in my youth, or that I’ve found out about more recently. I’ve just been pasting info/covers in here once in a while, so here’s the final post.  It’s not hugely long. The Wonderful …

Collection of Published Articles for 2013, Pt.2

As I’ve had some articles published all over the place recently, figured it was time to start a new compilation post. Very Sad: Beloved local used bookstore Nice Price Books is closing, and I talked to them and several other used bookstores to get the reasons why. Here’s an interview I did with reporter Jonathan M. …

ORIGINAL ESSAY: The History of Marvel Comics’ ULTIMATE ADVENTURES, with Special Guest Duncan Fegredo

On October 25, 2001, Marvel Comics issued a press release heralding the hiring of Ron Zimmerman, a TV writer best known as a regular contributor to Howard Stern’s radio program, as a writer on a variety of freelance projects. “Welcome to The House, Ron – we think you’ll find it even more strange than Hollywood!” it extolled.

Little did he know.

Two and a half years later, Zimmerman would be one of the most reviled names at Marvel, inciting a degree of Internet hatred so great that Joe Quesada himself would step in to publicly defend him. His legacy would be some of the strangest comics ever put out by the House of Ideas, including perhaps the most obscure Ultimate Universe book, Ultimate Adventures.

The true story of Ultimate Adventures is one that represents the nexus of Marvel’s output and attitude in the early 2000s, a combination of creativity and aggression that proved both admirable and regrettable.

Collection of Published Articles for 2013, Pt.1

UPDATED: This is going to be a repository for links to my published stuff for a bit. I haven’t been posting about toys because I got a paying gig blogging about them for MTV Geek!  Here’s my first few posts: Power Lords Return Django Unchained Toys Pulled from Shelves Django Unchained Toys Now Banned on …

CHILDREN’S BOOKS: Some Weird Picture Books That Are My Favorites.

Happy New Year!  Thought I would get a few recommendations down as I got back to work. These are some picture books that are so weird and wonderful and crazy that adults can enjoy them as well.  There’s tons of books like these out there, but these are a few of my favorites. First, a …

Children’s Books/Obscure Toys Post: THE IRON GIANT/THE IRON MAN

Combining a couple of my obsessions for an explanatory post… Was at a bookstore tonight and saw they had a new edition of the book THE IRON GIANT by Ted Hughes. Doesn’t look a whole lot like Brad Bird’s amazing animated movie from 1999, does it? Gather round children, I’ll explain this to the best …

Things I Did in 2012 That Which Were Cool

Here are some things I wrote and things I did in 2012 that I thought were kind of cool and possibly of interest to people In January, I wrote some more offbeat pieces, such as an interview with literary novelist Michael Malone about his time writing the daytime soap ONE LIFE TO LIVE as that …

ORIGINAL POST: Jan Pienkowski’s Amazing Picture Book Illustrations

I wanted to do a few original posts about children’s books I liked. This one is about a great author and illustrator whose work I discovered just a few years ago, Jan Pienkowski. I found out about Pienkowski’s stuff when I picked up a copy of his pop-up book ROBOT at a used bookstore a …

ORIGINAL POST: Uncomfortable Racism in Children’s Stories

Had such a good reception to the blogs about obscure toys that I’m going to try some more original pieces on a few of my other passions, and see if this leads anywhere. The first series is going to be about children’s books, and I want to do a few posts going over some of …

ALL My ADVENTURE TIME-Related Stuff for 2012!

My strange, deeply unhealthy obsession with Cartoon Network’s ADVENTURE Time yeilded a bunch of pieces this year. Here they are in chronological order, more or less. This is actually from Dec.27 of last year, but eh, it’s still close — I talk with Ryan North about the KaBOOM! AT comic book. Here’s an intro to …