Commentary

What if we’re in hell and we just don’t know it? That’s the question explored by every single episode of Beverly Hills Teens, last seen in my 1-900-HOTDOG debut. We return to that poisoned well today with “Look Deep Into My Eyes,” a hypnotism episode that asks, “What if young Donald Trump had been given … Read more

Sure, name one Vanilla Ice song and survey says it’s “Ice, Ice, Baby.” Name two and it’s “Ninja Rap.” Name three and I am growing uncomfortable with this line of questioning, sir, get out of my living room. But if you want the most characteristic Vanilla Ice song, it has to be the confused seduction … Read more

Advertisers in the ’80s had no idea what to do with video games. Think of everything you’ve seen depicted in Mad Men, now picture those exact same survivors of childhood in the Depression, but older and just burning their days until retirement, trying to sell 8-bit computer games to children in a decade exultant in … Read more

I wrote this in 2013, recently rediscovered it, and still enjoy it. We are so lucky to have Mel Brooks. If you’re not laughing, you’re not living. And if you’re not living you’re–A ZOMBIE! KILL IT! But for lessons in how to do that, you’re better off consulting World War Z author Max Brooks. So until the zombie … Read more

Hello, world. I’ve been learning Python, Javascript, and Java the past week, and as a complete newbie, I had a warm moment to learn that “Hello, world” is the common first thing to run in each program. It’s a nice way to start a journey. Being who I am, it came to me (and likely … Read more

I’m back at Does This Still Work?, where I finally get around to watching Die Hard, and I’m here to tell you: it’s got all the elements of a Christmas movie, just set against the heartwarming action of a hostage situation. The part we should really be concerned about is the inspirational B-story of a … Read more

Material You is ugly, Android 12’s design choices tank its functionality, and Boomers ruin everything. And worst of all: it’s imposed on you without option to revert under the hypocritical guise of “personalization.”

Hi, it’s me, the guy who hated Hereditary so hard I now own all the Google results for any variation of “Hereditary bad.” I watched Midsommar with my girlfriend, who rented it over my objection that we steal it and reclaim the money A24 will never refund to us. And guess what? I really liked … Read more

I am now a monthly columnist at 1-900-HOT-DOG, building upon my previous guest posts. Featuring a snazzy new painting of moi by old friend and polymath comic wizard Michael Bramley! First article: War Crime Comics: The Hood, a Nerding Day adventure in which I look into the Golden Age of superhero comics to examine not … Read more

What’d you do with 2020? I spent every day grinding through Indelible, Inc. #6, which wasn’t originally a grind until I got into the third month or so of trying to organize the century-long spell that binds its villainous conspiracy. Along the way, I did an immense amount of reading into the history of, among … Read more

I’m doing some pop culture stress-testing over at RSVLTS, the pop culture site turned clothier turned pop culture site again, and first at bat, is revisiting The Goonies to see if the math shakes out on this fun childhood fantasy about saving the day, kissing the girl, and one-upping your tough older brother. The RSVLTS … Read more

My longtime stand-up comedy buddy Joe Dixon (he hosted the first open mic I ever played) and my more recent buddy via Joe, George Romaka, host a podcast where they check how well old movies hold up artistically, creatively, and culturally. From their list, I picked The Jerk because I knew it was prime Steve … Read more

Ugh, teens, they’re the worst. Except for the elderly, who are trying to take us all with them when they die. And middle-aged people, we’re boring. And children, who are irrational animals. And babies, who pollute everything. Anyway, the worst teens, as you might expect, are the rich ones. That’s why over at 1-900-HOT-DOG I … Read more

I’m far from a structuralist hardliner. By all means, flip things around. Change the way stories are told. Form follows function, and if you can make it fly, I’m buying a ticket. But ughhhhhhh, nothing happens in The Assistant. At its most generous description, The Assistant is a series of vignettes very well enacted by … Read more

Gentlemen and brutes, you would both do well to study the life of John L. Sullivan, aka The Boston Strong Boy. He was not only the first world heavyweight champ of gloved boxing, but the last bare-knuckle one. A mighty Irishman with a prodigious appetite for food, drink and fisticuffs, Sullivan fought over 450 matches in his career, … Read more

If I made it to the top of the Hollywood heap and directed the highest grossing film of all time, I know exactly what my next move would be: Grimjack. I’ve mused on how it could be done a hundred times — all of them terrible ideas because I’m not a film-maker. But to my … Read more

or, How a Lunatic Murderer Coached My Teen Years It’s the smile that makes Grimjack who he is. You might argue his trademark characteristic is the scar on his eye — and it’s true that was the first thing I noticed when I discovered him a lifetime ago — but it’s not, nor the streak … Read more

Just in time for NY Comic-Con, I wrote a piece for MEL magazine analyzing how Thanos is a nice guy in the least nice sense of the word. In fact, going back to 1973, his near-complete history of villainy — almost all of it written by Jim Starlin — is driven by textbook “Nice” Guy … Read more

Oh, does your musical biography picture show the musician displaying early talent as an irascible child? Bully for you, but the Little Richard biopic will still have it beaten, because it’s going to feature a 14-year-old Richard “War Hawk” Penniman opening for Sister Rosetta Tharpe in a turban before going full drag as “Princess LaVonne.” … Read more

From the gleeful schadenfreude of this Guardian review of Serenity comes this brutal slice at the — apparently very bad film’s– knees in one proper noun and its least relevant / most pertinent adjective: The arrival of Baker’s femme fatale ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway, blonde)  Whoof. Don’t ever let me on your bad side, Charles … Read more

Last night, for the first time in my decades upon this earth, I asked a movie theater for my money back. They declined, and I can have no peace, because the most heartfelt statement of my 2018 will be this: God, I hate Donald Trump. But a close second? Hereditary is a bad movie. Not only bad, … Read more

Like everyone else in America who wasn’t eradicated in the course of Thanos’s quest for the Infinity Stones, I was front and center for Avengers: Infinity War. I was present for the original one in comics, too, both the brain-meltingly high-stakes Infinity Gauntlet that this film most resembles, and the follow-up Infinity War. (I think I ran out of … Read more

Back a ways, I wrote a piece for Cracked, 9 Iconic Superheroes Based on Real People in which I said Howard Chaykin had designed the uniform of my favorite superhero, Guy Gardner. That’s the way it was always told to me, and that’s the way I even recall reading it in an article or two. Well, thereafter, … Read more

Over at the ol’ Thrillist I had time to compile the most stunning moments in 2017 television (warning! TV spoilers are like the entire point of that article) alongside my colleagues Christie and Andrea. It didn’t matter if it was a cliffhanger, a twist, a reveal, or whathaveye as long as it made us leap off our collective American … Read more

Hey, look! New article by me at Thrillist: The Best Shows & Movies to Stream on Amazon Prime, in which I run down the broadcasts most worthy of your time, both native and immigrant to the streaming service. Is Veronica Mars on there? You’d better believe Veronica Mars is on there. And also some neat stuff you’ve probably never … Read more

Pursuant to today’s Google Doodle, here’s a piece I wrote for Maxim years ago, about why Hedy Lamarr is your hero and/or fantasy woman: TIME CRUSH: Hedy Lamarr Listen, brother, there are more ladies in Heaven than Earth, and these are the ones we dream of in our philogyny. If Maxim were around in Ancient … Read more

Look! Superheroes you didn’t know had real-life counterparts! So: story time. My favorite Super Bowl memory was that time I didn’t see Janet Jackson’s breast. 

I started to do this for Man Cave Daily, and then the schedule exploded and now it’s well and truly past its opportunity. Anyway ComicsAlliance did it more intelligently than I ever could, and others have done it more thoroughly. And poignantly (though with some errors, e.g. Nora O’Rourke). Anyway, here’s what I managed to get done. 

I’ll catch up with everything I’ve gotten done at Man Cave soon (and boy are there loads of it), but this is too cool not to share: fifteen minutes in Heaven with Grant Morrison, talking about next week’s Ultra Comics, general description of The Multiversity, and what he’s got cooking with Wonder Woman. Oh, and we … Read more

I’m back at Cracked! This week’s article is about people who either lacked talent but succeeded BECAUSE of it, (not despite, which would describe most of the Billboard 100 who are just ciphers for the music industry execs to make the records they want to make) although in editing the title got changed to 5 Star Performers Who … Read more

Boy, did I have a good time in Chicago. I usually just wander around, say hi to some friends in artists’ alley and see the city. Generally, the less I’m at the show, the more fun I have (and the more local cuisine I sup up). But this year I was interviewing creators for my … Read more

I apologize profusely for this but I’m working through my grief. Spoilers below the cut

We know Adam Sandler is funny. We’ve seen it happen. It’s not a fluke. And look, everyone has their missteps. But at least something like Little Nicky, you can say he tried for an intriguing idea, or Zohan, you can see why it would be funny in the right hands. But I don’t think he’s trying … Read more

Today is Great Poetry Reading Day at the end of National Poetry Month, so I took some time over at Cracked to catalog The Most Cold-Blooded Poems of All Time. In western lit. In the last few hundred years. …Yeah, this might just be a list of poems I like because they’re cold-blooded. But it’s still … Read more

Had a new piece awhile back on Cracked, but my website got hacked, so I couldn’t post it here before. Apocrypha — there’s always some. A lot in this one, actually, but hey, them’s the sponsored articles.  This was originally the lead. It still rules. Get bent, editors: No doubt a few of you gamers … Read more

This was an article I did for Asylum back in 2010. I don’t think it ever ran. These folks had developed software that would paste your photo on celebrities’ skulls, without any regard for how giant your face was. And then they sent a stunning redhead to demonstrate it to me because someone told them … Read more

I wrote Five Reasons Cinco de Mayo is the Most American Holiday Ever last week, and then Five Folklore Monsters Hollywood Should Make into Films a couple days later. But–what, ho! A twist! The latter was completed first?! Zounds! All the “Tip!” pictures on the Cinco de Mayo page were from my vacation in Mexico … Read more

Today is Mr. Rogers’s 85th birthday and the tenth year since his passing, so I wrote a column about him over at Cracked. A lot of people liked it, and one guy even started a petition to the White House calling for March 20th to officially become Rogers Day—a day to do something kind for … Read more

Hi, internet! Let’s be best friends forever with my newest contribution to the Cracked collective:  Five Physical Traits that Determine if a Character Is Evil. You’ll like it because it names a lot of movies you recognize, and then you can feel safe because we all share these pop cultural experiences even if we didn’t … Read more

At long, long, way-too-long last: a new Cracked column! Five Reasons the Scariest Thing Ever Written Is a Kids’ Book. Because we all read and loved Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Or we were taken away in the night and replaced with a changeling that does not feel. Sorry for all the delay. … Read more

I’m trying to break out of my slow, skull-crushing, overwrought column work, and I miss writing comics, so I slung one stone at two birds and dashed off this script questioning Battleship’s existence. And Mauro, being Mauro, drew it lickety-split. He also did the colors on this one. Coming Soon to a Theater Near You … Read more

I didn’t have much in 2010, but for half an hour a week, I had a place to go that wasn’t blistering with fury and hunger and loneliness and poverty. It was a despair cocktail, but thankfully I had two things: a few true friends, and a show that could make me laugh no matter … Read more

This ran in Maxim last month (hooray! I’m in print! Boo! I’m in a dying medium.) but we clipped it down to more of a timeline. As a reward for enduring this surprisingly harmless and not-terribly-stupid-but-yeah-kinda-dorky-yet-charming show, they plopped me down the next month in front of the first season of Game of Thrones. I’ve … Read more

I wrote and ‘shopped this for National Lampoon last year and it’s finally up. Copied it below as well since they’re undergoing some site changes. Few joys on God’s earth compare to the delight of seeing a woman naked for the first third any time. When a lady chooses to reveal herself to a man, … Read more

Here’s the king of all action in my final Maxim Dirty Briefs writeup. Goodnight, Dirty Briefs. I’ll miss you like I miss Bruce Lee. EDIT: Apparently that article didn’t survive their site reboot, so here it is.

I’m talking turkey all around the web this week: “When Turkeys Attack!” on TheFW and “Gaga or Thanksgiving Table Setting” is scheduled to run there today. At some point you should get “Beyond Turducken: Turkey Monstrosities” on Guyspeed, while over at Maxim they’re holding posts for “Strange Foes: Turkeys vs U.S. Postal Service” and “Damn … Read more

A couple new Maxim pieces for you: The Banh Mi is your newest Damn Good Sandwich entry. If you’ve never had one, slay all who did you the quiet violence of fostering your ignorance. If you haven’t had one by the time you finish reading this entry, that’s your own fault. Do the noble thing. … Read more

I was excited to draw this page for The Gutters, because the only people who get to draw Grant Morrison into comics are artists for Animal Man or The Invisibles. This page, in no small part due to the fantastic colors (which are not my work), came out looking pretty good after a very, very … Read more

Did you know there’s going to be a Kanye West musical? I can’t wait for the bit where he leaps around the theatre while the Green Goblin pursues him. Original text below. The good: There’s going to be a Kanye West musical! The bad: It will affirm everything he tells himself about himself in the … Read more

Over at Asylum they asked me to do a flashy chart for Andy Green’s article on horrifying facts about lady parts. And I said “Flashy? No no no, let us be demure.” What’s a tasteful way of making a visual representation for that kind of thing? I went for an anterior view of the pubic … Read more

MTV asked me to make some mock movie posters showing why the fifth film in a series is always a bad idea. More pictures in the link, but my unsanitized text below the cut here. UPDATE: Lost these images in a site upgrade and all my backups went the way of the dinosaurs in a … Read more

I wish them the worst thing benevolent intentions can deliver: clarity and self-awareness regarding their awful actions. But till then, here are some people messing with the Phelps family and the Westboro Baptist Church over at Asylum. Your friends at Asylum hold a lot of different beliefs. Some of us believe in God, some of … Read more

A gigantic infographic featuring the most devastating warriors of womanhood went up at Asylum. It took me 15 22 28 hours to make and is literally six feet tall. Well-behaved women rarely make history, but they once made movies. From then, it’s been a long, slow climb to today, where Hollywood actually allows women to … Read more

The Gutters is running a page by our own Mauro Vargas starring Aquaman and Black Manta recreating a scene from The Holy Grail. Go read it there so they see how much traffic he generates.

I wrote an article on National Anthem Fails for Asylum. It’s awesome, and will make you love America. I heard the CIA is using it to undercut al’Qaeda’s recruiting efforts, but I’ve said too much already. No I haven’t: Trombone lengthening carrot ball tuna hat! Silly putty! Fotzpa overshoots Tur! There, now I’ve said too … Read more

I illustrated another script at The Gutters, which, if you like it, you should make a point of mentioning in their comments section so they continue to give me work. This one mocks Top Cow’s talent search contest in the manner of an old Goofy instructional video. Here’s your guide to the Easter eggs that … Read more

I want there to be a Marvel superhero whose idiosyncratic gesture of superpowers is jazz hands. The sound effect would be “Fosse!” The guys at The Gutters asked me to draw a page, and since their script was making fun of that Spider-Man musical no one should have ever approved, let alone executed, let alone … Read more

Pursuant to the “Hulk to Smash” article, some old pitches and notes: –“Corpse Bride” Sequel Planned sub: Hilton to Wed in June (a brief one about Paris Hilton’s upcoming nuptials, with wedding director Tim Burton coordinating the ghastliness) –“LOST” Villains Revealed sub: Seven stranded castaways behind campaign of terror (this, naturally, would be about Gilligan … Read more

–God was originally going to spend 14 billion years making the universe what it is today, but Don Draper talked him down to 6 days so they could play golf and drink. –When Don Draper steps outside in a rain coat, the sun has the good sense to hide. –Don Draper is obligated to notify … Read more

A roommate once watched “Resident Evil” and rebuffed my teasing by saying it was surprisingly good. Or rather, surprisingly, not bad. For a video game movie and a zombie flick that was more concerned with conspiracies than zombies, yeah, it struck a pretty good tone from the films. I watched it myself, and concurred. Unfortunately … Read more

The character Salvatore Romano on AMC’s Mad Men is particularly repressed. While his fellow ad agency employees stifle their desires and dreams in roles carved out for them by society’s expectations, they are able to sublimate them into imperfect but acceptable relationships. Not so, Salvatore, whose homosexual identity is stymied at every expression. His co-workers, … Read more