It's Real

Maybe the most magical moment of making a book is when the abstract thing you've been working on for a long time--until now a jumble of ink on paper, Word files, Photoshop files, PDFs, proofs, and many many emails--becomes a solid object. Editor Charlie just sent me the first copy of the 20th Anniversary Edition of Mom's Cancer, still warm from the printing press (metaphorically), and it's a beauty.  

Y'all will get to see it in a few months, and I hope you'll take a look. We added 32 pages of all-new content, including 22 pages of comics, a new foreword from my graphic medicine pal, MK Czerwiec (thanks again, MK), and a long afterword by me on What It All Means. It's the definitive edition that you definitely need on your shelf!

Schroeder

In 1884, sculptor Frederic Bartholdi and engineer Gustave Eiffel built the Statue of Liberty in the middle of Paris before disassembling it for shipment to the United States. It's weird to see such a famous icon in a totally unfamiliar setting.

I've been thinking of that as I wrap up my work refurbishing and painting a (smaller) statue of the "Peanuts" character Schroeder that is destined for a local park. My wife, Karen, is part of a non-profit that purchased an acre of land to save it from becoming a monstrous apartment complex, way too big for the property and neighborhood, and develop it as a community playground instead. Before our 2017 fire it had been a pre-school; since, it has been an empty lot.

Another member of the non-profit contacted someone with the Charles M. Schulz Museum, which is a few miles from the park, to ask if they had any "Peanuts" statues. This being Mr. Schulz's adopted hometown, dozens of similar statues are all over the region, sponsored and painted by various businesses and service organizations as works of public art. They had one: a Schroeder statue that had been returned when a bank back east went out of business.

It had been exposed to the elements and so needed patching, caulking and sanding, then priming and painting. I just finished putting roughly a hundred coats of polyurethane on it, so I hope it will last a while. 

Sometime in the spring, when the park is done, Schroeder will be installed in his new home (situated to be as kid-proof as possible). With luck, decades from now these photos of Schroeder in my backyard will look as weird as those of Lady Liberty looming over Paris.

Cthulhu Chiffonade

Once a week, Karen and I volunteer to distribute food for the food bank, which is not the point. The point is that today I pulled a carrot out of a 50-pound bag that looked like a monstrous ancient cosmic god from another dimension, and I didn't know whether I should burn it or offer sacrifices to it. It's possible I have found a new religion.

250 Words on Disneyland

[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 a child in South Dakota, I knew about Disneyland long before I visited it, thanks to an hour-long advertisement called “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” that aired every Sunday night. Growing up modestly in the Midwest, Anaheim seemed as remote as Mars. I had a friend who made the pilgrimage and returned with a mouse-ear cap, which we revered as if it were a holy relic. 

My grandparents took my sister and me to Disneyland during a swing through the Western states when I was 9. It was the era of ticket books and “E ticket” rides. Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion were new and amazing, and both remain favorites to this day. I know how every illusion in the Haunted Mansion works (there are no holograms!), and have even adapted some for my homemade Halloween haunt, but the original is so masterfully done I can only gape and grin.

After my family moved to California, Disneyland trips became more frequent. I remained a fan. Luckily, my wife, Karen, felt likewise, and we’ve indoctrinated our daughters as well. 

I’m not naïve. I understand that Disney is a multinational corporation that manipulates emotions and plays upon nostalgia to maximize shareholder value. Its goal is to part me from as much of my money as possible. 

When I pass through Disneyland’s gates and walk through the tunnels beneath the train track, where even the air feels charged with enchantment, that seems like a fair deal.  

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Time Traveling

Today is "Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day"--really, you can look it up!--and, in remarkable synchronicity, less than 24 hours ago I did some time traveling with no idea that the auspicious occasion was nigh.

My daughters and I went to The Great Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco yesterday. It's like a Renaissance Faire but indoors and 300 years later, recreating the life and times of "A Christmas Carol." They're a little loose with the time period--anything vaguely Victorian fits in, from Sherlock Holmes to an occasional cowboy. It's about equal parts food, shopping and entertainment that is impressively immersive for taking place in a big warehouse. There is also a time machine available for photo ops. We have a good time.

Oh, here's some unsolicited relationship advice from someone who's been married a while. Try to find a partner who, when you announce "Google says that 'Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day' began in 2007," will reply: "Or did it?!" That one is a keeper. 

Anyway, happy "Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day," particularly to any friends who happen to own a DeLorean or an old English police call box.

250 Words on Knowing the Night Sky

[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’ve been an amateur astronomer most of my life, peaking in college when I had access to good telescopes and worked as an astronomy lab teaching assistant. I stargazed a few nights a week and really had it down. 

One of the joys of being very familiar with some aspect of the natural world is recognizing something out of place that others might not. I remember being 12 and watching a crescent Moon rising in the east at sunset. The hairs on the back of my neck tingled. “That ain’t right!” Turns out the Moon was (properly) full and I’d caught a lunar eclipse in progress.

A friend who writes mystery novels let me read a draft. One of his characters stepped outside at 9 o’clock and saw a gibbous Moon in the southwest. “That ain’t right!” I told him that the Moon at that time and place would be a crescent, but if he meant to prove the witness was lying, well done! He changed it to a crescent. 

A star where there should be no star is probably a planet, and its location, brightness and color announce which it is. The International Space Station moves briskly from west to east and, unlike an airplane, has no blinking lights. Comets don’t flash across the firmament like meteors, they appear stationary.

When it comes to the night sky, I have a well-honed sense that knows something is off before my conscious mind registers what it is. Then the fun begins.

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The Captain America Minute Podcast

I may be the last person on Earth who's not doing a podcast, but I rectify that oversight today. 

It's "The Captain America Minute Podcast," in which my cohosts and I talk about the movie "Captain America: The First Avenger" at the rate of one minute of screen time per episode, so that a 124-minute movie like "Cap" yields 124 episodes. It sounds like an odd way to analyze a film, and it is, but it allows for some deep dives, interesting digressions, and great guests. 

I've been Internet friends with my cohosts, Jim O'Kane and Hal Bryan, for a long time--in fact, I introduced them to each other--and Jim and Hal have done many "movies by the minute" podcasts for films such as "The Rocketeer" and "October Sky," which both happened to be directed by "Cap" director Joe Johnston. 

I was an occasional guest on those other podcasts, and when they told me they planned to do "Cap" I said, "Hey, I'd be happy to be your guest if you need a Captain America comic book expert!" since I once had a complete run of every "Avengers" issue ever published. They looked at each other slyly; their trap had been sprung. Next thing I knew I was a cohost and, well, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. 

New episodes drop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We've already recorded enough to make it into 2026, so I can promise some good conversation and interesting guests, including director Joe Johnston himself, who joined us for this first episode! They'll be available at this link as well as Spotify or wherever podcasts are found.

The Intellectual Life #27

A Peek into the Intimate Intellectual Life of a Long-Married Couple, Part 27:

Because we were born in the 20th century, Karen and I still subscribe to magazines. The latest issues are stacked on a table in our living room.

We recently had two houseguests from New York City. Now, I always feel a bit like the Country Mouse when these City Mice come to visit. They have very nice apartments in Manhattan and eat 9 p.m. dinners at fancy restaurants. I have a house in the suburbs, where the only restaurants open that late are In-N-Out and Denny's. To compensate, I try to make a good impression.

One of the magazines I subscribe to is The Atlantic, among the last bastions of long-form journalism and prose. It publishes deep-dive articles on politics and history, profiles of noteworthy people, analysis of current events, etc. Because I wanted my guests to know I read substantial magazines full of big ideas by important writers, I put the latest Atlantic, a double-size issue devoted entirely to the American Revolution (extra pompous!), on top of the stack before their arrival.

Passing through the living room later, I saw that it had been supplanted by the latest issue of Karen's Cuisine at Home magazine, featuring a triple-layer cake topped by gingerbread Christmas trees.

This would not do. I quietly reshuffled the stack to showcase The Atlantic.

Passing through later still, I noticed that Cuisine at Home was back on top.

Now I was stuck. I couldn't just move The Atlantic to the top yet again, nor could I admit to Karen just how neurotic, insecure, immature and pathetic I was in trying to show my cosmopolitan friends that I was a smart and cultured Country Mouse. 

I had only one desperate option: I had to sit down and actually read the magazine, in her presence so she'd see me do it, then casually leave it on top of the stack. Fortunately, I hadn't finished it yet, so I put in a solid half hour and then placed it at the summit, satisfied that my ploy had worked.

An hour later, Cuisine at Home was back on top.

Me: "Ahem. I'm surprised you haven't finished reading that Cuisine at Home magazine."

Karen: "I did."

Me: "Then how does it keep ending up on top of The Atlantic?"

Karen: "It has a prettier cover."

That was the moment I knew I was done, all my shallow pretensions a smoldering ruin. My City Mouse friends stayed two nights and had a fine visit, and if they had any opinion about my evident passion for "Very Merry Cakes," they kept it to themselves. 

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple. 

250 Words on Comedy

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

Several months ago, I saw some classic “Popeye” cartoons from the 1930s in a theater with 100 other people. I’ve always respected “Popeye” as a pioneering character but never much cared for him myself. Yet, there was something about sitting in a full house, in the dark, surrounded by laughing adults and children, that instantly recalibrated my opinion. I thought the cartoons were creative and clever. Most importantly, I laughed.

Sometimes I’ll share something I find hilarious with someone, only to have them sit in stony silence. Suddenly I don’t think it’s nearly as funny, either. “Wait, the best part is coming up! Give it another minute!”  When you start explaining the jokes, you’ve lost.

Comedy is such a delicate thing. Comedians will tell you that every audience is different, and material that’s a hit one night can bomb the next. Humor that slays in an intimate club dies in a cavernous auditorium, and vice versa.

It’s a wonder anything manages to be funny at all. 

I’ve also noticed that my sense of humor has evolved. I’ve always been drawn to silliness and pratfalls in addition to “cerebral” humor, but I think I now appreciate gentleness and whimsy more than I used to.

For example: In Laurel and Hardy’s film “Way Out West,” the boys did a famous dance routine that, when I was younger, I would have found insipid and boring. Now? I love it unreservedly and unironically. It’s sweet and funny and makes me smile every time. You?

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250 Words on Double-Deckers

[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’ve had good and bad jobs, but the one that always makes me smile is a job I had in college: driving double-decker buses. 

The University of California, Davis, had (and still has) a student-run bus system called Unitrans. It was centered on campus but served the entire city. What made Unitrans unique was its fleet of authentic 1950s red double-decker London buses. 

They were finicky beasts: hard to learn but rewarding to master, each with its own personality. Drivers sat up front in a separate cab—naturally on the wrong side of the vehicle, but that wasn’t the tricky part. The tricky part was shifting.

I’m no gearhead so don’t hold me to this, but as I recall they had a manual pre-select pneumatic transmission. This meant that, as you rumbled along preparing to shift from one gear to another, you moved the stick into the next slot without pushing the “gear-change pedal” (not technically a clutch but effectively one), then pumped the pedal to shift gears with a great wheeze of compressed air and, if you knew the temperament of the particular bus you were driving, minimal bucking and lurching. 

Because the driver was in the cab, double-deckers needed a conductor in the back to handle fares and passengers. A good driver-conductor team could wordlessly anticipate each other’s moves. It’s not how I met my future wife, Karen, but it is how we passed many hours together. 

I think it helped seal the deal. Chicks dig red cars. 

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Seventy-Five Essential Peanuts

I had a busy fun weekend.

On Saturday, the Charles M. Schulz Museum launched "The Essential Peanuts," a book-and-more celebrating the 75th anniversary of Schulz's comic strip "Peanuts." 

I had nothing to do with the book itself, but it was published by my publisher, Abrams, edited by my editor, Charles Kochman, written by Mark Evanier, designed by the great Chip Kidd, and it includes essays by a lot of cartoonists and other people I happen to know. 

Karen and I put up Editor Charlie and Chip in our guest rooms for the weekend, and were very happy that "Mutts" cartoonist Patrick McDonnell and his wife, Karen, had time for a quiet dinner with us on Friday night. There's scant opportunity for a real conversation at these events, so we appreciated getting some quality time with them.

The event at the museum was a sold-out success. It opened with a panel moderated by cartoonist and Schulz Studio editor Lex Fajardo, followed by the biggest book signing I've ever seen, involving 13 people who contributed to the project. Everyone left town Sunday morning, headed to a similar event at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco that afternoon. 

Lex Fajardo introducing the panelists in the Schulz Museum's small theater. From left are writer Mark Evanier, cartoonist Patrick McDonnell, Schulz Studio head and cartoonist Paige Braddock, designer Chip Kidd, and museum curator Benjamin Clark. Many other people who worked on the book were in the audience, but I think the museum was smart to limit this panel to these five. In my experience, a panel that gets much larger just doesn't work (too chaotic, nobody gets time to talk). They put together a different panel for the Cartoon Art Museum event on Sunday, so other contributors did get a chance. 

After the panel, the museum lined up all available contributors in its main Great Hall for a mass book signing. From background to foreground are Mark Evanier, Patrick McDonnell, Jean Schulz, Paige Braddock, and Chip Kidd. 

Then you turned to the next table for signatures from Lex Fajardo, Benjamin Clark, Charlie Kochman, "Jump Start" cartoonist Robb Armstrong (my first time meeting him!), and writer Derrick Bang. 

Then the next table held cartoon director Rob Boutilier, composer Jeff Morrow, and "Rhymes with Orange" cartoonist Hilary Price. 

Just a word about the book itself: it's terrific! The meat of it is a comprehensive overview of "Peanuts" organized by decade, built around the conceit of listing 75 "essential" comic strips plus many others that developed those themes or were otherwise especially memorable. Some "essentials" were no-brainers--the first time we can read Snoopy's thoughts, the first appearance of Woodstock, the first mention of the Great Pumpkin--while others were more nuanced. I probably would have come up with a slightly different list myself but can't argue with any of theirs, and that's the fun of it.

In addition, the slipcase includes a pack of extras, including stickers, postcards, and a reprinting of an early "Peanuts" comic book. It's a nifty package that would make a great gift for any "Peanuts" fan.

It was a treat to run into Art Roche, a cartoonist and friend who works for the Schulz Studio. Art used to live in Santa Rosa, Calif., where the studio is located, but a few years ago moved to Georgia, so we haven't touched base in real life in quite a while. Great to catch up! 

Another treat was meeting actor Brinke Stevens, who came as Mark Evanier's guest. Brinke was once the wife of the late Dave Stevens, the great cartoonist who created "The Rocketeer" and died of leukemia at a much-too-young age. I had never met Brinke but I had a heads-up that she would be there, so I made a print of the Rocketeer artwork I drew for the Cartoon Art Museum's recent exhibition and charity auction in tribute to Dave, gave it to her, and had a nice conversation. Dave based the look of the Rocketeer's girlfriend Betty on '50s pin-up model Bettie Page but Brinke was his life model for the character, so it was great fun for me to give her a drawing that had a rendering of herself in it. 

Sunday morning I dropped Charlie and Chip off at the museum to rendezvous with Patrick and his wife Karen (who took this photo) for their trip to San Francisco. An unforgettable weekend! 

250 Words on Mom's Home 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 was an adult before I realized my dear mother was not always a terrific cook. 

When I was young, she was a single working woman in her twenties with a full-time job, two feral children, and little money. I can't imagine the crushing responsibility, and have enormous admiration for what she accomplished in those days. However, haute cuisine was not among her accomplishments.

Typical fare: a bologna roll—a tube of pink meat goo tied into a ring—that Mom boiled in water, sliced, and served with catsup. Canned spinach on the side, sprinkled with vinegar. That was dinner. 

Another regular meal was frozen cheese pizza doctored up with a tin of anchovies. I can’t explain the anchovies except that Mom always loved them. They were a great treat! To this day, my sisters and I are the only people I know who like anchovies on pizza. 

We ate breakfast for dinner: pancakes, eggs, cereal. A lot of fast food: McDonald’s, A&W, Dairy Queen, Pronto Pup corn dogs.

We loved all of it, but now I wonder if Mom felt bad because that was the best she could do for us. More likely, she was grateful to fill our bellies so cheaply and easily.

When I was a teenager, around the time my much younger second sister was born, Mom took cooking classes and got legitimately good. Her sauce-stained recipes remain in the family and bring back many happy culinary memories. But occasionally I miss eating pancakes for dinner. 

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250 Words on Analog Art

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

Some cave paintings in Spain may be 64,000 years old. The earliest decorated pottery was made in China and Japan around 18,000 BC.

Meanwhile, somewhere right now, an artist is desperately failing to recover a digital image they stored on a balky computer drive in 2007.

I treasure original art—both cartoons, which are my professional interest, and more generally all of it. It was in the artist’s studio. They touched it. You can see their preliminary layers, study their decisions, grasp their process and mind. I’ve seen fingerprints in 2000-year-old paint. It makes an intimate connection that crosses centuries.

More and more of my cartooning colleagues have transitioned to digital art. They compose on a Cintiq or iPad using programs like Clip Studio or Procreate. I understand. The ease and speed are seductive; so is the “Undo” button. 

I’ll always cartoon with ink on paper. Not that I’m right and they’re wrong. Whatever gets the job done. But I mourn what’s lost.

It’s a broader issue. Historians can research the American Revolution or Civil War by reading period diaries and newspapers. Old ads and posters are a treasure trove. Those media are nearing extinction. In a hundred years, nobody will be able to decode a PDF or JPG. Future historians will see the art and culture of the early 21st century vanish into a black hole. 

Even if digital copies survive, the tangible connection between artist and audience will be gone. No fingerprints. It will be a profound shame. 

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