250 Words on Less is More

[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 am sorry this letter is so long, I did not have time to make it short.” –Blaise Pascal*

When I lecture about comics, I often show that quote and talk about how the real art of cartooning is distillation. A cartoon isn’t an accurate rendering of reality; it’s not a high-definition video or a stenographer’s transcript. Comics may start with reality but then they amplify and simplify, polishing away everything unnecessary until they arrive at one gleaming gem of an idea. 

Whenever I rewrite or redraw a piece I’m not happy with, I always remove details, never add them. If I could ever draw a single black dot that conveyed exactly the message I intended, I’d die a very satisfied cartoonist. 

To be fair, there are others approaches to comics. There are artists who never use one line when a thousand would do, rendering elaborately cross-hatched minutia, and some of them are all-time greats! But temperamentally and philosophically, I lean the opposite way. 

I often end my comics talks with another quote, this one from cartoonist Larry Gonick: “Our brains represent things in some stripped-down, abstracted way. We don’t remember things as photographs or movies. We remember them as cartoons.”

I think that’s exactly right. When a cartoon is firing on all cylinders, it can feel less like reading and more like telepathy between writer and reader because a comic’s combination of words and images is speaking our brains' native language. That’s the goal: direct, instant, clear, intimate communication.

*Also attributed to many others, including Cicero, Pliny, Mark Twain, and George Bernard Shaw.

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

250 Words on Hummingbirds

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

Ask people to name their favorite animal and most will say a charismatic megafauna: elephants, giraffes, whales, dolphins, gorillas, pandas, lions, tigers, bears—the especially attractive animals on zoo billboards. 

Mine is the hummingbird, which is not a magical mythical creature but might as well be.

I can watch them for hours—hovering, divebombing, zipping their long tongues in and out of flowers, pulling G-force maneuvers that would make fighter pilots black out. More than 360 species, all beautiful and fantastic.

Hummingbirds may appear to be gentle iridescent sprites but they’re brave and fierce, with a complex structure of hierarchy and dominance. Our yard always has one boss bird who surveys his domain and decides who enters. If you’re not on the approved guest list, expect to find a needle-sharp feathered bullet shooting toward you at Mach speed. 

At the same time, they can cooperate. We have friends whose home draws literally hundreds of hummingbirds that collectively drain several feeders per day. 

We once had a couple from Ireland visit the neighborhood who couldn’t wait to spot hummingbirds. It was one of the goals of their trip. At first sighting they were confused: they had expected hummingbirds to be larger, and wondered if they'd seen insects. We confirmed their ID and our visitors were delighted by their New World discovery. 

As am I, every time I’m in their presence. It feels like a privilege to encounter them, as if they were fairies from another realm. I’m not convinced they aren’t.

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

The day after my sister's wedding, my family and I took a few hours to visit the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in L.A. We happened to hit it on a free admission day, but I enjoyed it so much I'd have paid for it! 

In addition to its permanent collection of props, costumes, production equipment and ephemera, the museum had exhibitions on Jaws, Barbie, Cyberpunk, and the films of Bong Joon Ho. Something for everyone! Recommended.

I was stunned to see the Aries 1B lunar lander from "2001: A Space Odyssey," partly because it's from one of my top-five favorite movies but also because I knew director Stanley Kubrick had ordered all the models from the film destroyed so that nobody could make a cheap sequel. I also knew the Aries was one of the few props that escaped that fate but had no idea where it was. And, suddenly, there it was! She's a beauty.

Swatches that defined the color palette for the "Barbie" movie. I love this process stuff.

The red-armed C-3PO from "The Force Awakens."

Iron Man's helmet and, in the background, Captain America's shield and, in the even further background, the back side of Morpheus's costume from "The Matrix."

This one is hard to see, but it's a matte painting from the film "The Running Man" (1997). It's a sheet of glass maybe 3 by 5 feet in size, so you're seeing reflections of museum visitors in addition to a backlit cityscape. Matte paintings were used from the earliest days of filmmaking. In the pre-CGI days, artists painted vast backgrounds on sheets of glass, through which live action was shot or projected onto the scene. One of the most famous is the enormous warehouse at the end of "Raiders the Lost Ark"; only the worker pushing the cart is real, everything else is a painting. I've always been fascinated by the process and never seen one in person. Cool! 

The Hollywood Sign, visible from the upper floors of the Academy museum, just in case you weren't sure where you were.

Congrats to Lis and Randy!

My family and I went to L.A. this weekend to help my little sister get married! It's her story to tell, not mine, but it was fun and beautiful and nearly flawless, at least until Darth Vader showed up and force-choked me. All our love to the bride and groom, my new younger brother.

In a weekend of lifetime memories and highlights, I was especially happy to reconnect with Steve De Jarnatt, a film director who's known Lis for nearly 20 years and me since my book, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? came out. 

Steve directed the movies "Miracle Mile" and "Cherry 2000" in addition to countless TV episodes, but our connection is the 1939 World's Fair, which I featured in my book and Steve is an avid fan and collector of. After our fire, Steve sent me a care package full of vintage Fair memorabilia and ephemera, which was one of the kindest, most generous things anyone did for me in those days.

Happy Daughters AND Comic Book Day!

I'm reminded that today is both International Daughters Day and International Comic Book Day. I am in the very unusual and nifty position of being able to celebrate both simultaneously, as my daughters have appeared somewhere in every graphic novel I've done (yay, crowd scenes!).

This drawing features me, my wife Karen, and our daughters Laura and Robin. Long-time readers may not recognize this art because it's from an as-yet-unpublished book that I suspect will probably stay that way. Alas. But at least I get to use it for today. 

Happy International Daughters/Comic Book Day, Chiquitas!

250 Words on Artistry Unleashed

[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’m fascinated by artists whose creativity runs amok toward the end of their lives. Not just those who start when they’re old or work steadily until they die, but artists whose motivation seems to suddenly turn to pleasing nobody but themselves. It’s self-indulgence that can be baffling and even off-putting, but it’s also always interesting.

Beethoven was 55 and deaf when he composed his late string quartets, including Die Grosse Fuge (“the Great Fugue”), in 1825 and 1826. He died in 1827. The pieces were discordant and difficult to play. Audiences were bewildered. Critics called them “indecipherable uncorrected horrors” and “a confusion of Babel.” To modern ears they sound like Jazz a century before its time, and are now considered among his greatest masterpieces. 

Charles Schulz was no Beethoven, but I think he had a comparable late Renaissance. His comic strip, “Peanuts,” began in 1950 and became a cultural juggernaut in the 1960s. “Peanuts” was good in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but I think Schulz’s creativity reawakened in the ‘90s until his death in 2000, producing some of his most personal, thoughtful, and formally inventive work.

I’m also reminded of director Francis Ford Coppola’s recent movie “Megalopolis,” which he funded himself when no one else would. Critics’ reactions ranged widely, but all agreed they’d never seen anything like it. 

I think you can get the clearest distillation of a master’s artistry when they have nothing left to prove and don’t much care what anybody else thinks. That’s the pure spirit.

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

Gornpyramide

 I made this.

It's my take on a German Weihnachtspyramide, a candle-powered carousel that is a traditional Christmas decoration in both that country and ours. Except instead of the Christ child in a manger or jolly Santa in the sky, I recreated the classic battle between Captain Kirk and the Gorn from the "Star Trek" episode "Arena" (1967).

Note the carefully observed details, including the Enterprise in orbit overhead, the Gorn's handmade weapons, and Kirk's bamboo cannon, diamond projectiles, and chemicals he found to make gunpowder. Also enjoy the scenic and iconic Vasquez Rocks, the shooting location of many "Star Trek" episodes and countless TV shows and movies, separating the combatants.

My tiny Enterprise, made of dowels and toothpicks.

The reptilian Gorn, with his silver eyes, gold toga, snare net, and obsidian dagger.

Our hero, James T. Kirk, smug in the knowledge that he has everything he needs--bamboo cannon reinforced with native fiber, diamonds, charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate--to defeat the Gorn.

My glorious inspiration.

I don't know how the idea came to me but I've wanted to make it for a long time. Like, for years. Finally decided "Just do it already!" It was a tricky build--you have to optimize for mass, balance, and friction, and I basically had to build it twice to learn from my mistakes and get those right. Even still, it needs enormous vanes to catch enough candle heat to keep moving.

But, to quote Galileo, "It moves."

My wife, Karen, says she's never been prouder, but sometimes she's sarcastic and I can't tell.

I'm just happy in the knowledge I've created something that has never existed before in the history of the universe. Isn't that what Art is all about?

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.

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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. 

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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.”

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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.

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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. 

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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.

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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.

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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.

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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! 

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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?

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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. 

* * * 

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.

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.

* * *

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.