Email: zack.zacharymsmith@gmail.com
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. …
Continue reading “Collection of Published Articles for 2013, Pt.2”
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.
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 …
Continue reading “Collection of Published Articles for 2013, Pt.1”
A couple of pieces I’m very proud of — a look at some of the great Christmas stories on TV over the years. Here’s a look at the many Rankin-Bass Specials, and how they do (or don’t) tie together. And here’s a look at everything from Charlie Brown and the Grinch to more obscure ones …
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 …
Continue reading “Things I Did in 2012 That Which Were Cool”
Yes, I haven’t updated this site in forever. I was busy. And sick. And busy again. And disorganized. Well, new year, new opportunities, and here is some of the stuff I wrote that is worth archiving. Pop Cultural and Nerd Icon John Hodgman came through town, so I talked to him about moustaches and the …
Reprinted from the Independent Weekly British actor Richard Ayoade (The I.T. Crowd, The Mighty Boosh) makes a stylish debut as a writer-director in this adaptation of Joe Dunthorne’s novel about an intellectual, self-obsessed Welsh teen (Craig Roberts, who could not look more like he’d stepped out of Harold and Maude if he’d been cloned …
The former MTV comedian talks about his new stand-up tour and his web show. Read the full interview here!
Comedians are often friendly and thoughtful people in interviews, but rarely are they actually funny. But Emo Philips proves the exception to the rule, rambling off sometimes a dozen hilarious one-liners in the course of a single sentence. Here, for example, is his explanation as to why he’s playing the NC Comedy Arts Festival …
For a generation of comedy fans, Bobcat Goldthwait is known as that guy with the weird, grating, man-child voice—one he used to great effect alongside Bill Murray in Scrooged, John Cusack in One Crazy Summer and multiple Police Academy films as reformed gang leader Zed. But in recent years, the once larger-than-life Goldthwait is keeping …
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