250 Words on Mythology

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Do kids still love mythology?

I remember mythology—Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian—being a big deal when I was a kid, but I’m not sure if that was just my particular experience. I loved myths and read every book of them I could. My lodestone was the classic Mythology by Edith Hamilton, which has been in print since 1942. 

Myths illuminate us as much as the people who created them. What we fear, what we value, what we admire. Poseidon was volatile and cruel because the sea could be volatile and cruel; the sun god Ra was also the god of order because nothing mattered more to ancient Egyptians than the constancy of the sun. Gods were arrogant, petty, violent, vain. We know people with those flaws, and it’s easy to imagine the havoc they’d wreak with limitless power.

I loved mythology for its potent combination of superpowers and drama—soap opera on a cosmic scale. I was drawn to Marvel comics because they made the connection explicit: Thor and Hercules were the mythological gods AND superheroes, fighting alongside Captain America and Spider-Man. Marvel might as well have injected narrative nitroglycerine directly into my veins. 

Do young adults raised on Disney’s “Hercules” believe that Zeus was a faithful loving father? Do people accusing others of narcissism know who Narcissus was? Do they know Thursday is Thor’s day? Myths are our linguistic and cultural heritage, as much as Shakespeare or the Bible. I hope they’re still loved and taught these days.

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250 Words on Being in the Sports Zone

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I have never been a natural athlete—except once.

In seventh grade, age 12, our PE class did a track and field unit. Coaches were scouting for talent. They set up all the equipment, and on that particular day I was the best high jumper in my middle school. Better than boys who were two years older than me. My form was perfect. It felt smooth and effortless. I floated and flew. I was in the zone.

What a tremendously exhilarating feeling!

The coaches urged me to join the track team, so I did.

And never came close to duplicating that spectacular performance again. 

I competed in high jump and long jump for three seasons, and stayed stubbornly mediocre at both. Whatever magic I’d had that day was gone. 

I did notch one triumph I’m proud of. Track meets are scored on a point system. The team that tallies the most first-, second-, and third-place points wins. At one meet, I was warming up to do poorly in the long jump when I noticed an 880-yard race about to begin with only one runner, so I ambled over and checked in. 

My competitor shot off like a caffeinated jaguar, while I plodded out the half mile choking on his cloud of dust. My coaches and teammates did a double-take, then cheered me on! I earned the second-place points for my team! A heroic heads-up play!

To this day, coming in second in a two-person race is my greatest athletic accomplishment. 

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250 Words on Gray Divorce

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

There’s a social trend called “gray divorce,” in which older people who’ve been married for decades split up, to the astonishment of their families and friends. Often the couples seem happy, faithful, settled, comfortable. Why upset the status quo? Why not just run out the clock?

I don’t want a gray divorce but I do think I understand it. As I get older, the idea that I have a finite and shrinking number of days on Earth grows more insistent, and I sometimes ask myself:

“Do I really want to put up with this for the rest of my life?”

“This” could be almost anything: Socializing with people I don’t like. Traveling to places I don’t want to go. Eating food I don’t want to eat. Caring what anyone else thinks. Enduring the hundreds of little obligations we all bear, many of them optional. 

There’s a perception that people lose their inhibitions and get cranky as they age. I don’t think their personalities change; I think they just drop their masks because they don't need them anymore. Sometimes that reveals an angry bigot, but more often, I think, it frees them to be who they want to be, do what they want to do, and fly their freak flags in all their colors. 

I’m no psychologist, but I imagine many gray divorces happen when one person looks at their spouse and thinks, “The obligation I really don’t want to put up with for the rest of my life is you.”

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BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! Mom's Cancer Anniversary Edition

In 2006, Abrams ComicArts published Mom's Cancer, about my mother's treatment for metastatic cancer. The story had already gotten some notice as a webcomic, for which it won an Eisner Award, and it's been in print ever since. The book has had a life I couldn't have imagined when I wrote and drew it, including being taught in medical schools.

To mark its 20th (!) anniversary, Abrams and I are publishing an updated edition with 32 pages of new material. That includes 22 pages of comics that tell the rest of the story after the events of the 2006 book, plus a new foreword by my friend and Graphic Medicine co-founder MK Czerwiec, as well as an author's note with background, sketches, ephemera, and my perspective on "what it all means." We didn't touch the original story, just expanded it to bring it up to the present.

The first page of new material.

If you're familiar with the original book, the new cover looks subtly different. I painted it with watercolors rather than digitally this time, which I think gives it a tad more life. We added the "Eisner" seal. Notably, the spine will be pink cloth instead of navy blue to differentiate it from the original. It echoes the pink that symbolizes women's cancer and the stripes in Mom's shirt. Also, a few years ago, a Brazilian publisher put out a Portuguese edition of Mom's Cancer that had a neon pink cover, and we all looked at it and thought, "Gee, I wouldn't have done that in a thousand years, but it's kinda cool!" So it's also a nod to that.

The very pink cover of the Portuguese translation from a few years ago.

My editor, Charlie Kochman, and I are very proud of this new edition. It was his idea to do it and I'm grateful. I hope/think this will become the definitive version of the story. In my mind, it gives Mom's Cancer the ending it deserved but never really had. 

The 20th anniversary edition of Mom's Cancer will be out in March 2026. We're actually reviewing printer's proofs now. You can find it at the Abrams website and, soon, wherever books are sold. Please patronize your local heroic independent booksellers!

Big thanks to my friends and readers (not to mention my editor and publisher!) for 20-plus years of support! It means everything. 

250 Words on the Best Spaceships

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Nerd Debate Day! In my opinion, there are three science-fictional spaceships that stand head and shoulders above all others.

Three: The Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which resembled a column of vertebrae connecting a skull to a pelvis. Its bulky nuclear engine was at the rear, far from the spherical crew compartment, which had a centrifuge to provide gravity. It was an elegant, practical-looking vessel, and director Stanley Kubrick shot it beautifully.

Two: The Eagle ships from Space: 1999 were better-conceived than the TV program they were on. Eagles were adaptable: different specialized modules plugged into a cockpit/engine superstructure to carry cargo, passengers, or scientific instruments. It was a utilitarian, no-nonsense vehicle and a reasonably speculative extension of NASA's lunar module design.

One: Star Trek’s Enterprise was, I contend, the first make-believe spacecraft that really felt like it flew people through space. Earlier ships looked like the sparkler-spewing models they were; one Enterprise contemporary, the Jupiter 2 from Lost in Space, was an unconvincing pie pan with lights and legs. The Enterprise had it all: scale, grace, dynamism.  

One quality my favorite spaceships share is verisimilitude. They feel plausible. Kubrick was a stickler for scientific accuracy. The Eagle’s modularity was elegantly engineered. Enterprise designer Matt Jeffries applied principles of real-world aeronautical design.

There are many other contenders: the Millennium Falcon, Firefly’s Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, Nostromo, Dark Star. I think much of what makes a spaceship great is the emotion we attach to it. Love the show, love the ship.

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Conjunction Junction

Karen wakes before I do and has standing orders to roust me out of bed if she sees anything interesting in the pre-dawn sky. Today was one of those days. If you rise before the Sun you may have seen it, too, but I can still shed some light (heh!) on a few details.

My iPhone picture isn't great but it's sufficient. Photo on the left, annotations on the right. The spectacular trio that really dazzles is the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus. Their conjunction is happening in the constellation Gemini, headlined by the stars named for the mythological twins Castor and Pollux. 

What you may not have noticed, and is faint in my photo, is the planet Mercury peeking over the horizon. It is said that the great astronomer Copernicus never saw Mercury. I doubt that's true--Mercury isn't that difficult to see--unless he wasn't such a great astronomer after all or just never bothered to look for it.

The scene will look much like this tomorrow except the Moon will have moved closer to the Sun, down near where Mercury was this morning. If you're an early riser, enjoy the show!

250 Words on Living Lighter

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

One consequence of the wildfire that destroyed our home in 2017 is that Karen and I are living lighter.

Possessions don’t carry the same emotional weight they used to, partly because very few of ours are more than eight years old. We did save some things when we evacuated, and were given some family artifacts afterward, and those are priceless. The rest of it? Whatever.

When we rebuilt our home, we had to think about how to fill it. For example, I used to have thousands of books and a good comic book collection. Should I reassemble that library? Mostly, I decided not to. I repurchased a few books that I considered essential, but otherwise resolved to start fresh. The fun part of acquiring my old books had been the thrill of discovery and the hunt. Even if I could afford to reacquire them, the fun would be gone. 

And now my bookshelves are packed with new books. 

We have a shelf full of mugs in our kitchen. Whenever we get a new mug, an old one has to leave the house to make room for it. Do I like this prospective mug better than an old one? If not, no sale. 

For nearly everything we buy, we ask ourselves, “Do we really want it? What are we going to do with it? Where are we going to put it?” We don’t live like monks—we still have plenty of junk—but it’s mostly gathered with thoughtful intention. It’s good. 

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250 Words on Three Telescopes

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

When I was about 12, my parents bought me a telescope. It was a refractor, the type with a lens at the front—exactly what you envision when you hear the word “telescope.” It was a terrible optical instrument from K-Mart, worthless for looking at anything but the Moon. 

I think well-meaning folks do more harm than good when they buy their kids subpar hobby gear that only frustrates them. Investigate more and get better stuff. Still, I spent hours with it. 

In college, I hosted my campus’s public stargazing sessions with a reflecting telescope inside a little domed observatory. The scope’s tube was about 7 feet long, and I got so familiar with it that I could spin it around to point at a nebula or galaxy with my back turned to the sky. We did real research with it, and I spent many nights pushing both its and my capabilities, hunting for the dimmest deep-sky objects I could see. 

Also in college, I had a few opportunities to visit Lick Observatory, built atop Mt. Hamilton east of San Jose, California. Established in 1888, Lick is a historic institution, and its 36-inch (diameter) telescope looks like a gigantic steampunk hallucination. Viewing the M13 globular cluster through that eyepiece was a religious experience. It’s a dandelion puffball comprising half a million stars, and I swear I could see every one. 

I was awestruck. Dumbstruck. Thunderstruck. I’ve visited some sacred places, but Lick’s dome is the holiest temple I’ve ever entered.

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250 Words on 250 Words

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Exactly one year ago today, August 5, 2024, I posted my first “250 Words” essay (it works out to the same date because I initially posted them on Mondays before switching to Tuesdays). I still enjoy doing them and don’t plan to stop. I hope you’re enjoying them, too.

Some readers have said that these posts are one of the few light or thoughtful things they can count on reading every week, and I appreciate that. That’s the goal. They’re a good length to express one idea with a beginning, middle and end that can be read in a minute.

When I started writing 250-word pieces as a private morning warm-up, I first tried 200 words. That was too short to finish a thought. I tried 300 words but that was too long. I decided that 250 was juuuust right. I think of this as writing a weekly column for a small daily newspaper. 

They’re all precisely 250 words, by the way. I work at that. 

As I review the preceding 52 essays, I see surprising cumulative weight. Each is a bite-sized nugget, but together they also provide a good, granular overview of how I think about things, what I care about, and my life. I always said that if someone wanted to know me better than my longest, dearest friends do, all they had to do was read my comics. Now I’d add these essays to the list. 

On to another year, or until it stops being fun! Thanks.

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Savage on the Hornet 4

Former Mythbuster Adam Savage has posted his fourth video exploring my favorite aircraft carrier museum, the USS Hornet - Sea, Air and Space Museum. I believe this is the last one, although who knows? If Mr. Savage's "Tested" crew got enough good footage out of their day aboard ship, they may go on forever. 

This episode focuses on aircraft restoration, most of which is done by a burly crew of gear-head volunteers as well as a neat corps of high school students. As always, I love Adam's enthusiasm, which is well-matched in this video by his guide, Anthony. One thing that's generally true about the Hornet staff: they're passionate about their jobs and their ship!

The Hornet is in the middle of its summer fundraising push and would love it if Adam's 7 million subscribers donated a dollar each. Well, that's not going to happen, but if you watch the video, maybe consider clicking on this link and sending them a few bucks? In addition, here's the Hornet's wish list that Adam and Anthony mentioned. They're a big ship with a small-museum budget and every donation counts. 

A Cold Load Off My Mind

There's something important I've wanted to get off my chest for 35 years, and I figure today is the day.

There is a scene in "Back to the Future Part III" (1990) in which time-traveling inventor Doc Brown, trapped in the year 1885, shows Marty McFly an enormous whirring, clanking, hissing machine whose purpose is a mystery until it deposits a few dirty ice cubes in a bowl. It's an ice maker! Very charming and funny.

My problem: artificial refrigeration had already been invented and was pretty widespread by 1885. Refrigeration doesn't require electricity; it can be done with steam power. Commercial ice plants were operating in most major cities, including Los Angeles, which couldn't have been far from Doc and Marty's fictional Hill Valley, Calif. (which was also somehow within walking distance of Monument Valley, Arizona, but never mind). If Doc Brown wanted ice, he could have had blocks of it shipped from L.A. on the train he later hijacked to accelerate his DeLorean to 88 mph and travel back to the future. 

The only way I can reconcile it is to think of the ice-making scene as a character bit, like how in the first "Back to the Future" movie Doc built an elaborate Rube Goldberg device to feed his dog and cook breakfast. Maybe his Wild West freezer was the same sort of thing: an unnecessarily complicated creation to accomplish something that could have been done much easier (and produced ice that didn't look like mud) but less cinematically or fun.

Otherwise, it's the one piece of the "Back to the Future" trilogy that shatters my suspension of disbelief. Or, as a disappointed Ant Man realized in "Avengers: Endgame," "So 'Back to the Future' is a bunch of bullshit?!"

CAM Commissions Completed

As I mentioned last week, I signed up to do art commissions to support the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco while Comic-Con International was raging in San Diego. In exchange for a donation, people could ask the artist of their choice to draw pretty much whatever they wanted. I've done it before, always enjoyed the variety and challenge, and this year was no different!

I wanted to share three of them. The commissioner of the fourth one wants to keep it private. All are done in ink and colored pencil on cardstock. These will be off to their new homes and owners in a couple of days.

Little John requested "Captain Marvel (Original Big Red Cheese)". There have been many characters called Captain Marvel over the years, including the most recent played by Brie Larson, but this is the original real deal who sometimes goes by the name "Shazam!" (for complicated historical legal reasons). I had fun drawing the lightning. 

The requester asked for "a gargoyle." I emailed back to ask what she had in mind: a character from the old "Gargoyles" cartoon show? Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame?" Any particular cathedral or era? She sent me back a photo of a concrete statue in her yard that resembled a traditional Asian dragon, so that was my inspiration. 

Heather asked for "Powerpuff Girls or artist's similar choice of (non-sexualized) female superhero." No alternative choice necessary because I love the Powerpuff Girls and have been drawing them since my daughters were little! The Powerpuff Girls are kind of like "Peanuts" characters in that their designs look very simple but you have to get them just right or they look completely wrong. Deceptively hard to draw, especially while trying to impart a little style of my own. 

These were all a hoot, and each stretched different art muscles. I don't otherwise do commissions, but I've always been happy to raise a few bucks for CAM, a fine institution of culture and scholarship. If you ever visit the San Francisco waterfront near Ghirardelli Square, drop in and tell 'em I sent you. They won't give you a discount or anything, but word might get back to me and it'd make my day.

250 Words on My Sitter Mona

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

When my sister and I were very small and Mom was at work, we were watched by a daycare provider named Mona. Mona was ancient, so probably much younger than I am now. She was also sweet, patient, and good with children. We loved her.

Mona had a large backyard across the street from a fire station. Very exciting! She left us mostly to ourselves, which is a great gift to give a child. I still remember picking clover, putting it in an empty can with a trapped bee, and waiting for it to transform into honey. 

What “educational enrichment activity” could top that?

Mona fried donuts in a giant kettle of boiling oil; none tasted better. She had an aluminum Christmas tree illuminated by a rotating wheel of colors. Enchanting!

Her only flaw was that she was an Andy Williams fan who hated the Beatles, so because we loved Mona we hated the Beatles, too. 

One morning, when my sister and I decided to run away from home, we wrapped up our most precious possessions and tied them to sticks, like little cartoon hobos, and headed toward Mona’s. Unlike our awful mother, Mona would surely love and cherish us! We might have made it if Mom hadn’t caught up to us two blocks from home, too relieved to spank but too angry to hug. 

I hope Mona knew how important she was to at least two of her charges, and that they’d remember her so fondly many decades later.

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Report from Mill Valley

I had a good time talking A Fire Story at the Mill Valley Public Library last night. Got about three dozen people, which I think is a great turnout for a library talk on a Thursday evening. 

It was also an unusually interested and knowledgeable group, including a retired firefighter with 30 years' experience, a man in the fire prevention business, and a woman who helps evacuate horses from wildfires (a very specialized form of aid in its own). It was great to meet the sister of an old work friend. Librarian Jenn was an excellent host. Best of all, my wife Karen, our two daughters, and their friend Emily all came, and we had a fine dinner afterward. Even sold a few books!

Librarian Jenn warming up the crowd which, as I wrote, numbered about three dozen (this photo only shows a little slice, many more were sitting off to the left). They were very engaged and we had a great Q&A and discussion at the end.

I showed the video of A Fire Story made by PBS station KQED, which I haven't actually watched in quite a while. I looked over at my family to see they all had tears welling up, as did I. That thing deserved its Emmy Award.

A good night with the best company!

Savage on the Hornet 3

Former Mythbuster Adam Savage posts his third in a series of videos exploring my favorite aircraft carrier museum, the USS Hornet Sea, Air and Space Museum. Again, I love his enthusiasm, especially as this episode focuses on the Hornet's Apollo-related artifacts (the Hornet is the carrier that plucked Apollos 11 and 12 from the Pacific). 

I've poked my head inside that Apollo test capsule (CM-011 for those following along at home) and been inside the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF), although the bunks Adam crawls into have always been off-limits. Lucky Adam! I have a story about my personal involvement with an MQF-related artifact that I'll share some other time. 

There are other museum ships and even other museum aircraft carriers, but the Hornet's involvement in the Space Race makes it very special (plus the fact that they employ one of my daughters!). I love seeing Mr. Savage bring it some attention it deserves.

Review: Superman

I saw the new Superman movie today. I approached it with some wariness because people whose opinions I respect seemed to either love it or hate it. Not many landed in the middle. So I was cautiously optimistic, hoping to like it but ready to not.

I liked it. My no-spoiler thoughts:

I have some misgivings--in particular, there's one moment that felt violently out of place to
me--but overall I think it's the best cinematic portrayal of Superman since 1978 (not counting the 1990s' animated Superman by Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and team, which was practically flawless). David Corenswet plays a sincerely pure-hearted superhero in a way that only two actors, Christopher Reeve and Chris Evans, have pulled off before in my opinion. 

With all respect and affection for their predecessors, Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult are the best Lois Lane and Lex Luthor ever shown on screen. Brosnahan's Lois seems sharper than Margot Kidder's, and a good even match for Superman. Hoult's Luthor has a complex personality and interesting motivation. As with all the best villains, you can kind of see his point of view.

Krypto the superdog doesn't work for everyone, but he worked for me.

One quality I liked best about the movie is one I've seen some reviewers complain about: the film drops us into a crowded world of complex mythology and a pantheon of heroes and villains without holding our hand very much. But isn't that how we all learned to love comics? Unless you bought Action #1 off the news stand in 1938, you just dove into the deep end and figured out who was who, what was going on, and the rules of the universe as you went. 

I have to admit, I liked the film's allegorical politics. Megalomaniacal billionaires have been reliable villains for decades--see almost any James Bond movie--but it seems especially relevant now, doesn't it? And yes, Superman is "woke" because he always has been, fighting Nazis and the KKK since his early days. As the meme goes, if you think the entertainment you grew up with turned woke, maybe you just turned into a terrible person. 

I think this is an interesting new direction for DC Comics filmmaking that sets it apart from Marvel's worldbuilding and tone, and I look forward to seeing what James Gunn and his crew do next.

2025 Comic-Con Sketch-a-Thon

Ah, the smell of FOMO in the morning! I will not be at Comic-Con International in San Diego this week. My friends who are will have to muddle through without me. However . . .

I will be supporting the Cartoon Art Museum (CAM) in San Francisco with one of their fun fundraisers in which artists draw commissions for cash! You can choose your artist at THIS LINK HERE, pledge the specified amount, and have them draw whatever you want (let's keep it PG-rated). From my perspective, I've been delighted to draw some weird stuff I never would have thought of and, in some cases, had never heard of. Some past examples are attached.

If you were at Comic-Con, you could drop by the CAM table and have a random artist sketch something for you. I've volunteered to do that before and it's fun but I don't do my best work in that situation. Somewhere in the world is a kid for whom I drew Chewbacca dunking a basketball who deserves a refund. Better to sign up for me online, where I can take my time and do it right. Honestly, I tend to go above and beyond on these things to make them as pretty as I can.

If you love a character of mine or have another favorite character that, for some unfathomable reason, you'd like to see my version of, sign up and in a week or two I will mail you a piece of one-of-a-kind original artwork suitable for framing or blotting up spilled coffee. My slots fill up fast and I don't otherwise do commissions, so don't wait. It's a good price and for a good cause!

Garbage collectors from the movie "The Burbs."

The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh

I couldn't draw it for my book, but I could draw it for you!

250 Words on Not Being That Guy

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I recently suffered a little identity crisis when Karen and I stopped for a bite at a small-town Mexican restaurant we hadn't been to before. The waitress asked if we wanted anything to drink. I replied, "Do you have a margarita?" "Yeah," she said, "but it's made with white wine. We only have a license for wine and beer." 

“Oh, a beer will be fine," I pivoted. "What do you have on tap?” 

"Nothing on tap, only bottles," she said. "Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Coors Light . . ." plus a long list of other brands before she named one I wouldn’t mind paying for and drinking. 

Our exchange was quick and perfectly pleasant, but it stuck in my craw. I felt like Thurston Howell III swooning because Gilligan's Island wasn't stocked with his favorite brand of tonic water. (Note to readers under 50: that's a reference to an old TV show about seven characters, including a snooty rich guy, stranded on a deserted tropical isle.) 

Have I become That Guy? I don't want to be someone who demands too much and whines when he doesn’t get it. Spoiled, picky, entitled. While I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a Mexican restaurant to serve margaritas or draft beer, I got a reflected glimpse of how I might look to someone else, and didn't much care for it. 

I took it as a reminder to improve my situational awareness. Don’t assume, pay attention, read the room. Or even read the menu! 

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Appearance: Mill Valley Public Library

Bay Area (and especially Marin County) Friends! This Thursday, July 24, I'll be talking about "A Fire Story" at the Mill Valley Public Library at 6 p.m. I don't have many public events coming up on my calendar, so if you want to say Howdy this would be a good opportunity! 

Event information is HERE. The library is asking folks to register. I'm sure they'd still let you in if you just showed up, but it'd be polite to give them a head count. Thanks!

Apollo on the Hornet

EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY! Just in time for the anniversary of Apollo 11, the USS Hornet - Sea, Air and Space Museum has posted never-before-seen home movies of the Hornet's recovery of Apollo 11! The film is from museum volunteer Joe Holt, who in 1969 was a Marine sergeant stationed aboard the Hornet. 

Nobody but Mr. Holt and his family have EVER seen this footage! The first half shows the recovery of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins and their spacecraft, Columbia, with glimpses of the astronauts inside the Mobile Quarantine Facility (a tricked-out Airstream trailer) and President Richard Nixon. The second half shows the crowd that welcomed the Hornet to Pearl Harbor where they offloaded the MQF, and then quite a survey of other Naval ships in port at the time.

I think eyewitness records like this offer a whole different perspective on historic events from people who played a role in them. Many thanks to Mr. Holt for sharing it with the world.

250 Words on Rules for Living

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Over time, I’ve accumulated some Rules for Living. They form a nearly unbreakable code that guides my actions.

Rule 1: Always stop for a lemonade stand. As young entrepreneurs, my sister and I opened many, and one customer made our entire day. The quality of the lemonade is irrelevant.

Rule 2: Always tip a street musician. I try to keep a buck in my pocket for just this purpose. The quality of the music is irrelevant.

Rule 3: We raised our children on this: If a kid wants to read a book with you, stop whatever you’re doing and read the book. 

Rule 4: We also raised our children on this: never let kids play one parent against the other. Even if one of us thought the other was wrong, we’d back them up and discuss it later.

Rule 5: Never mess with another man’s fire. I use the word “man” warily but deliberately, as I’ve never met a woman who has a particular way of building a fire that never fails and NO NO YOU’RE DOING IT ALL WRONG! Whereas I’ve met a lot of men who do. 

Rule 5a: Never mess with another man’s grill. A subsidiary rule because it’s cooking over fire, even if the flames are fueled by propane. 

The trick on the last two is to stand by quietly while your host botches the job and you can swoop in to save the day. The best heroes are silent but ready. 

What are your rules?

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Tuesday Zoom: Cape Cod Sierra Club

Here's a Zoom event I'm doing tomorrow afternoon: the Cape Cod Sierra Club is talking about wildfires and I will be one of two speakers. I was invited by my friend Chris Powicki, with whom I did science writing here in California before he moved back east and became one of Massachusetts's go-to experts on ecology and renewable energy. I have a short presentation planned, and then some Q&A. 4 p.m. Pacific/7 p.m. Eastern.

Click on that link above or here to register. It should be good!

Raise the Alarm

Nothing in this article about how Kerr County officials failed to use available alert systems to warn citizens about deadly flooding surprises me, because the same thing happened to us in 2017, Lahaina in 2023, and elsewhere elsewhen. 

The Washington Post reports that Texas emergency managers did not use their IPAWS system, which would have transmitted alerts to cell phones and could sent tailored messages to targeted areas. Kerr County officials haven't yet explained why they didn't push the button. 

In the case of our firestorm, as I wrote in my graphic novel "A Fire Story," they didn't want to cause a panic that might have gridlocked streets and led to a catastrophic death toll. Our county's warning system, called Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA), could have narrowly targeted particular neighborhoods, but local officials later said they didn't know it could do that. So virtually no alerts went out. Most of us were awakened by hot howling winds or the sound of neighbors or firefighters pounding on our doors.

In our fire's aftermath, one county official acknowledged to me that not pushing the button was their biggest mistake. They should have clanged every bell, blared every siren, and buzzed every phone they could, he told me. 

We won't make that mistake again. I am mad and sad to see so many others learning the same lesson the hard way.

Savage on the Hornet 2

Another report from Adam Savage aboard the USS Hornet, my favorite former-aircraft-carrier-turned-museum, this one touring the old girl's machine shop. I understand his team produced a total of four videos from his day on the Hornet; this is number two.

As a Mythbusters fan who's kept up with Adam since that program ended, I think his gift as a broadcaster is how he nerds out with unabashed glee and communicates that to the audience. He's so happy and excited he makes us happy and excited, even if the sight of a big lathe or drill press wouldn't normally delight us.

The best broadcasters (or artists or writers or graphic novelists) are the ones who know how to show their authentic selves. Audiences can tell when you're faking it. He isn't.

Savage on the Hornet

Mythbuster Adam Savage visited the USS Hornet - Sea, Air and Space Museum recently, and produced this video (with more to come) for his YouTube channel. It's a great piece!

About halfway through the 18-minute video, Adam rides the ship's old aircraft elevator. I have also ridden that elevator, and it is a thrill! As Adam says, it almost feels like freefalling as your eyes adjust from daylight to the dark cavern of the hangar deck in just a few seconds. It's like a portal between worlds.

My daughter Laura, who's the CEO of the Hornet Museum, doesn't appear on camera but did all the contacting and legwork to arrange Adam's visit (and now Laura gets to brag that she's met BOTH Mythbusters!). Adam's guide for most of the video, Russ, is a friend and a great guy whose knowledge and passion are evident. 

Obviously, the Hornet is hoping that Adam's enthusiasm is contagious and that some of his 7 million subscribers will come check it out. I'd encourage them to. I've spent a lot of time aboard the Hornet and love her nearly as much as the people who work there.

EDITED TO ADD: Here's the video I shot of MY elevator ride several years ago. I don't want to keep nattering about the elevator--there's so much more to the ship than that, and they don't routinely run it for visitors--but it was darn cool.

250 Words on Hats

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I wish I could wear a stylish hat. Men used to wear great hats—Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart—but whenever I do I feel like a boy playing dress-up in his grandpa’s closet. These days, wearing a hat is a bold statement that not everyone can pull off. 

Indiana Jones ruined the fedora, a perfectly fine hat. I once had one I liked. But you can only take so many gibes, including a Disneyland cast member in full Jungle Cruise uniform who chased me through Adventureland yelling “Indy! Indy! We need your help!” before the fedora winds up in the closet.

Incidentally, my archaeologist daughter reports that real archaeologists don’t wear fedoras (nor, should it need to be said, whips). They favor practical floppy-brimmed canvas or straw hats for minimum weight and maximum shade. 

Far down the list of the MAGA movement’s many crimes is ruining the formerly innocuous red baseball cap. From a distance, it’s impossible to tell if you support the San Francisco 49ers or fascism. Best to avoid red headwear altogether. 

You have to earn the right to wear a cowboy hat. I haven’t.  

Finding the right hat is hard. It’s got to fit the shape of your skull and the curves of your face. Some men can don a newsboy cap and look like Sean Connery in a ’54 Jaguar Roadster while others look like a doughy back-alley bartender. 

As in so much of life, the trick to properly sporting a hat is confidence. 

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250 Words on Career Advice

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I recently wrote about how I’m reluctant to give advice because it might be very wrong. Another reason is that it would be irrelevant. My career path is not replicable. Conversely, creators today have opportunities I never did. It’s a different world.

My first job out of college, I was hired by a small daily newspaper as a part-time night-shift sportswriter. That was my foot in the door of professional writing. Back then, that paper had an editorial staff of about a dozen people. Now it has three. My entry-level job is extinct. 

As a freelance writer, I sold articles to magazines. Today, many of them are defunct. The number of print outlets for freelancing of all sorts—writing, photography, illustrations, cartoons—has withered. 

I started my graphic novel career by mailing my Mom’s Cancer webcomic to four publishers. One, Abrams, plucked it from the slush pile and published it. I never heard from the others. I would not advise anyone to do that even though it worked for me.

On the other hand, the Internet didn’t exist when I was young. In a time when anyone can create and instantly distribute content worldwide, the challenge is getting noticed and paid. I know nothing about that.

Every successful creator I know has a different origin story. The only commonality I’ve found is that they did a lot of work, put it out into the world however they could, and did more of whatever people liked. That's my best career advice.

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250 Words on Moon-Landing Deniers

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I once went to a small press expo to support young creators who self-publish comics and zines. I’d just bought something from a young woman, maybe 20, who saw my “NASA” baseball cap and jokingly asked if I were an astronaut.

“No, just a fan of their work,” I said. “I’m old enough to remember the Moon landings first-hand.”

“If you really believe they happened,” she laughed.

If I hadn’t already paid, I’d have walked away.

I don’t understand Moon-landing denial, and am dumbfounded by the arrogance that accompanies it. No evidence or reason can persuade true believers. They make the same foolish points, as if they’re the first to notice that Apollo photos don’t show stars (due to the fast exposures needed to photograph astronauts in white spacesuits in full sunlight). Overhead photos of Apollo landing sites by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) are dismissed because they’re from NASA, and similar images from Chinese and Indian spacecraft are dismissed because they’re from foreigners. 

Worse, I see people online scoffing at the idea that humans have sent probes to other planets—photos from Mars, Jupiter or Saturn are “obviously CGI”—or that the International Space Station is orbiting Earth despite the fact that sometimes you can actually look up and see it. 

The Internet really is a cesspool of idiocy and willful ignorance that, along with recent politics, tests my faith in the entire human experiment. Our tragedy is that we can be great, but so many refuse to try. 

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Warning Labels

A supremely unhelpful sign. Photo by Patrick Pelletier via Wikipedia.

This article in the Washington Post says that the state of Texas, following the lead of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" agenda, will require food to carry a warning label if it contains one of 44 common dyes or additives. Because Texas is a big state, it's expected that manufacturers and other states will fall in line. I have thoughts.

Although I reflexively oppose everything the current administration does, this doesn't necessarily seem a bad thing. Even if the 44 ingredients haven't been proven harmful, what's wrong with giving consumers more information about what they eat? 

I can tell you how it's going to go because I've lived a version of it.

In 1986, voters in my state of California passed Proposition 65, which mandated that consumer products get warning labels if they contain substances that might cause cancer or birth defects.

You know which substances might cause cancer or birth defects? Almost ALL of them, if you eat, breathe, or absorb enough of them. 

The result of this well-meaning law is that nearly every commercial establishment in the state, including Disneyland, has a sign by the entrance warning that something inside can kill you. Alcoholic beverages get the tag. Gasoline pumps get the tag. Pillows and mattresses get the tag.  

The result, of course, is that the warning labels deliver zero information to help consumers assess their actual risk and are ignored by everyone.

I predict a similar expensive, litigious, but fundamentally futile experience in Texas. It must gall at least a few Texans to be following California's example 40 years later.

(Parenthetically, I remember when the right wing decried Michelle Obama's campaign to encourage healthier eating as nanny-state Communism. Nice to see them come around to her point of view. I'm sure their apologies to Ms. Obama are forthcoming.)

250 Words on the Examined Life

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” –Bertrand Russel.

It’s a truism of both fiction and life that everyone is the hero of their own story. Few villains consider themselves evil. In their minds, they’re doing the right thing for the right reason. They think they’re the good guys.

So do the good guys.

How can you tell which you are?

I try to weigh my actions and motives using three questions: Who does it hurt? Who does it help? What if the situation were reversed?

The last first: What if they were a woman instead of a man, poor instead of rich, white instead of minority, liberal instead of conservative? If the other team were doing the same thing as mine, would it be right and fair? It’s a good hypocrisy test. 

For example, If you don’t object when your party’s politicians betray their oaths, take bribes and commit felonies, but would raise hell if another party’s politicians did, you might be a hypocrite. Reverse the names, see if you feel the same. 

Who do I want to hurt? I’m like Captain America that way: I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I don’t like bullies. When I see bullies targeting the weak and vulnerable, that’s who I try to help.

I think those are good guides. I use them to check myself all the time, and have actually changed my own mind on occasion. I recommend them.

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SerioComics Interview

NEW INTERVIEW! 

Graphic novelist, writer and publisher Dave Cowen has done a nice review of A Fire Story and a good interview with me for his SerioComics Substack thingy (also posted to LinkedIn and Instagram, but I don't do those). The mission of SerioComics is to "make serious comics fun and take fun comics seriously." 

Dave has done 70 weekly reviews of nonfiction graphic novels and managed to land interviews with many of their creators, including some pretty big names, so I was honored to be asked. We focused on A Fire Story but also touched on Mom's Cancer, Expressionism, trauma, and advice for storytellers. 

Thanks to Dave for the thoughtful questions!

View-Master Synchronicity

The View-Master with three of its reels. The red stamp reads "Defective: Not For Sale," which may be how they wound up at a state hospital.

Synchronicity. My sisters have been doing some very deep cleaning, including going through things of Mom's that haven't really been looked at since she died in 2005. My sister Brenda, who some of you know as Nurse Sis, brought a box to me today that included a very early View-Master with a dozen or so reels.

Wonderful! I love 3D toys. But how old was it? Whose was it? What was its story?

We found a clue on the back of one reel, a stamp reading "S.D. State Sanatorium." In 1944, when Mom was 4 and 5, she and her brother, Cal, contracted tuberculosis and were quarantined to a sanatorium near Custer, South Dakota. They were the only children in the facility. The stamp told me that the View-Master was one of my Mom's very few permitted pleasures during the year they were confined to the hospital. 

The tell-tale clue: a stamp on a single reel.

Mom as a girl at the sanatorium. I have just a couple of photos like this and looked for the View-Master in them. Didn't find it.

Looking through the reels, they're typical travelogues and fairy tales: the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rainier, Niagara Falls, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White (non-Disney). And then there was one that made me gasp: the New York World's Fair of 1939.

The New York World's Fair!

Long-time readers will recall that the first chapter of my graphic novel Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? took place at that fair. Some of the sights Mom saw through her View-Master in 1944 were nearly duplicated by me 65 years later when I drew them for my book (which she did not live to read). She and I were unknowingly enchanted by the same event two lifetimes apart. 

The Avenue of Flags. On the left, I did my best to photograph the tiny View-Master slide using a light box; on the right is how I drew the same scene for my book. Note the triangular Trylon and spherical Perisphere in the background of both images.

The Circle of Life sometimes unwinds in mysterious, delightful, and slightly chill-inducing ways.

(BTW, if I ever tackle another big work of graphic medicine, it will be about Mom's time as a child in that sanatorium. It's a good story.)

250 Words on Falling in Love with Reading

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I saw a Facebook post asking people about the first book that made them fall in love with reading. I liked the question but didn’t have a good answer.

I don’t remember a time I couldn’t read. Family lore says I read the names of gas stations at age 2. Mom, thinking I’d simply associated the brightly colored signs with words I’d heard on TV commercials, printed out “Conoco,” “Sinclair” and “Standard” on a piece of paper, which I read back to her. Freaked her out a bit. 

Comics were very important in my development as a reader. The combination of words and images drew me in, and continues to. It’s a powerful medium. But I don’t think that answers the spirit of the question.

Children’s books influenced me. I’ve written before* about You Will Go to the Moon by Mae and Ira Freeman, which I love despite the cruel lie in the title. But I don’t think that answers the spirit of the question, either.

The first book I can recall drawing me into another world and which I couldn’t put down until I found out what happened next was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. No idea how old I was, maybe 7 or 8, but those characters and scenes branded themselves on my brain and have stayed with me since. 

Good books feels like telepathy between authors and readers. I’ve been honored to have a few readers tell me my books have done that for them.

* On my blog: https://brianfies.blogspot.com/2009/07/you-will-go-to-moon.html?m=0

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250 Words on Heaven

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Putting my cards on the table, I don’t believe in Heaven. I’m pretty sure that “you” are the thoughts and memories contained in your brain and when your brain is gone, so are you. There’s beauty in that. 

Still . . .

There’s a “Twilight Zone” episode starring Sebastian Cabot as an angel named Pip, who welcomes a crook named Rocky into Heaven. 

Rocky can’t believe his luck! He gets to live in a penthouse suite, drive fancy cars, romance beautiful women, and win every bet he places in the casino. A month later, Rocky is bored out of his skull and going mad, and begs Pip to send him to Hell.

The twist you saw coming is that Rocky was already in Hell. More recently, the TV series “The Good Place” took a similar idea and ran with it.

My deepest theological insight is that an afterlife where souls get everything they want could be both Heaven AND Hell. They could be the exact same place. An evil soul would be tortured by it, while a good soul would find contentment and bliss. All the books you could read, all the entertainment you could enjoy, all the fascinating people you could talk to, all the urban excitement or wilderness solitude you could desire.

The beauty of my Heaven/Hell is that it would give evil souls a chance to redeem themselves. All you’d need to do to transform Hell into Heaven is decide to want different things.

Maybe like life?

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Comics & Care Collective Event Upcoming

Advance Notice: I'll be doing a Zoom book club event with librarian Jameson Rohrer of the Comics & Care Collective on Monday, June 9 at 7 p.m. Pacific Time! Jameson invited me to discuss A Fire Story in the context of graphic medicine, which intrigues me. For obvious reasons, I almost always give graphic medicine talks about Mom's Cancer, but a big part of A Fire Story is trauma and grief. I think it fits and am interested to see how it goes. 

UPDATE: Unfortunately, this event has been canceled. I hope we can make it up sometime later, I think it would be an interesting discussion!

250 Words on Cooking

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I enjoy cooking. It’s a creative activity that others can enjoy. The combinations of different ingredients are nearly infinite, and fresh is always best.

When I was a kid, cooking was for girls. Boys who did it got sideways glances from adults wondering if they couldn’t be just a bit more, you know, masculine? “Well, the best chefs in the world are men,” said Grandpa, praying that that was my destiny because somehow that would make it all right. 

Then came a day that changed everything. After school, my sister and I were cared for by a woman whose kids were in 4-H, the agricultural youth organization. One afternoon we went to a competition in an auditorium, and on the stage were rows of stoves and young 4-H boys and girls cooking and baking. This was electrifying validation. Cooking couldn’t be for sissies if those cattle-ranching corn-farming 4-H boys did it!

About the same time, I got a “Peanuts” cookbook. “Peanuts” the comic strip, not the legume. Many of its recipes were ridiculously simple—a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?—but some were more challenging. The lemon bars turned out great!

Mom lovingly ate many failures. 

I still love to cook. I’ll try anything and have a good feel for how flavors will blend. No need to open a can of Cream O’ Blech soup when you can whip up a bechamel. 

I’m not one of the best chefs in the world, but I get by and nobody looks askance.

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