Friday Foto #104...
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Steel Pier by Steve Liebowitz
There was a time, dear readers, long ago and far away when the one thing I lived for was summer vacation. My family and I would take the last week of August each summer--as close to my mom's August 24th birthday as possible--and go to Atlantic City, New Jersey for a week, Sunday to Sunday. We started in 1964 and I believe my last time there with my parents was in 1976 or so, right around the time casino gambling came in and changed the ocean resor

On Comics (sort of): Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness, Trotsky, and Boilerplate: History's Mechanical M
We pause this Wednesday--New Comics Day!--to look at three recent biography/graphic novels I've read. That's an easy way to sum them up, but truth be told one of them isn't a graphic novel per se.We start with German writer/artist Reihard Kleist's amazing Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness published by Abrams Comicarts. This translation of the original graphic novel is one of the best books I've read this year, and I'm not even much of a Johnny Cash fan. Kleist has produced a

Oh, the commercials inside are frightful...
Wow...I don't know if it's just me or what, but I'm already overwhelmed with the amount of holiday-themed commercials on the air right now. I know that traditionally--at least in recent memory--the Christmas shopping season unofficially starts with the November 11th Veterans Day holiday, but right now as I type this a commercial for Dora's Christmas Holiday is airing during the Madagascar Christmas special on NBC. On November 17.Whatever happened to Black Friday--the day after Thanksgiving--being the slam dunk jumpstart for holiday shopping? Target had their Christmas stuff up--at least the big display decorations--before Halloween! Is nothing

The itch that must be scratched...
I've been involved the past few days in creating things. No, this isn't going to be a post about trying to have a baby at my advanced age. I'm talking about other stuff. Creative stuff. The one thing that I realized the other night is that I'm at my happiest--or what allegedly passes for "happy" for me--when I'm doing something creative.That something is twofold right now. I'm in the beginning stages of a new issue of the magazine I write, edit and design for my employer. This time around I thought it would be just a going-through-the-motions type of thing, since the decision has been made to print only one magazine a year from now on, and t