Year: 2010

Originally published May 14, 1993, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1017

Several years back, I wrote a four-issue run on Web of Spider-Man about a group called the “Cult of Love.” A grief-stricken Betty Leeds was easy pickings for the mind-manipulating group, and the story focused on Spider-Man’s attempts to get her out of the Cult’s clutches.

(The story also featured a subplot about Mary Jane contemplating posing nude for Playboy—a storyline which was the victim of last minute editorial cold feet. It was art-and-dialogue-changed to MJ’s trying to decide whether she should model skimpy lingerie—rendering the subsequent angst totally nonsensical. So if you ever happen to reread the story, all you have to do is substitute “naked” for “in skimpy underwear” and mentally undress MJ during the photo sequences, which shouldn’t be too much of a chore. But I digress.)

At the climax of the story, a crazed cult member wound up torching the whole establishment. Most of the cultists managed to get out, although the leader did not, when the roof collapsed on him.

The storyline was written up in the Skeptical Inquirer, a publication that debunks professional scam psychics and other “paranormal” activities. They said nice things about it because it helped to explain, in detail, some of the tricks that cult leaders use to convince their followers that they are genuine miracle workers.

It was a nice little four-parter (Mary Jane story butchering aside), but I hadn’t given it much thought until recently when I was at home watching CNN, which was covering the FBI tear-gas assault on the Branch Davidians, the followers of self-proclaimed messiah David Koresh. And I watched in amazement as, suddenly, fire started to break out in several different places in the compound.

Continue Reading “Stranger than Fiction” →

Originally published May 7, 1993, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1016

Previous installments:  Part 1 – Part 2

In the past two weeks I’ve been juggling a young adult novel, a screenplay, income taxes, and my daughter’s Bat-Mitzvah. With all those balls in the air, I’ve got my butt in a sling, which means—yes, that’s right—a quick fill in. And that means one of two things:

1) Top 10 list

or

2) Barf bags

Show of hands. Who wants a top 10 list? Please, no pushing. No, you over there, you can’t raise both hands. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Hands down.

Okay. Who wants barf bags?

Ah, that’s rather overwhelming. OK, then—

Continue Reading “Barf Bag Hand Puppets, Part 3” →

Originally published April 30, 1993, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1015

“Tragic failures become moral sins only if one should have known better from the outset.”

The above quote is from The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond, a fascinating book on humanity—where we’ve been and where we are, in all likelihood, going to wind up.

I finished reading it during Wonder-Con in Oakland. It was unquestionably the best of that series of conventions I’ve been to: the best attended (it seemed) and most enthusiastic.

However, in the course of the weekend I was also witness to, or made aware of, two incidents that directly relate to Diamond’s gem mentioned above. Both of them, interestingly, are also germane to comics as well.

Continue Reading “Planet of the Apes” →