Free Comic Book Day 2026 Wrap Up!

Thanks to the Santa Monica Comics Co. for allowing me and a bunch of other creators to be part of the first Free Comic Book Day at their new store in West Los Angeles! I'm fortunate that the store is pretty much on my side of town since I live less than 5 miles away either by freeway or local streets. (I'm partly re-posting the store's post about the day because I ended up not taking many photos myself, aside from a video I posted yesterday—and I'm in one of the cover photos lol!) I had a lot of fun meeting great, interesting folks. One 11-year old bought a few issues that his dad first carefully leafed through—he wasn't harsh or anything, but he understandably wanted to make sure my comics were age appropriate. In fact, he specifically asked me whether there was any profanity or sex, and I assured him that the issues his son picked up did not have anything gratuitous. As a dad myself, I respected his due diligence lol.

I also met a gentlemen who was in town on business to find investors for his hedge fund who was staying in a hotel in Beverly Hills—but was also a good Catholic who attended my local church whenever he was in town (he asked if I might be there on Sunday, and I said, no, that's why I called him a "good Catholic" lol); a mother who bought my baseball issue because she loves the sport; and a long time comics fan who told me the story of losing what sounded like a prized childhood comics collection to water damage (yes, it was at painful as it sounds!) We had fun talking about the great artists of our youth, like John Buscema, John Romita (and John Romita, Jr.), Paul Smith, John Byrne, and titles like Creepy, Conan the Barbarian, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and more! He really knew his stuff.

A lot of people, of course, were locals—my first college apartment away from home was in this part of L.A., so I still know it fairly well and this occasionally came up in conversation, especially with somewhat famous University High School (or Uni High) nearby. Some of the people I met were either current students or graduates. (Given its location, many of its alumni were celebrities or their children—I know that comics and television writer Mark Evanier also graduated from Uni, and occasionally tells stories about his time there at his blog.)

The NuArt Theatre, an arthouse theater, is just down the street, and was a favorite haunt for friends and me when it was one of many revival houses in L.A. back in the 1980s and ‘90s. Another arthouse theater, the Laemmle, is even closer on the same street—I actually saw actor Leonard Nimoy there in the lobby during a showing of Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of Hamlet, and once ate next to Randy Newman at a sushi bar that used to be next door!

Anyway, it was a fun event in a part of town that has many great memories for me. This side of L.A. also is known for its Persian restaurants and businesses, and one of our favorite such restaurants is nearby, Javan. Afterwards, to reward myself after a long day (I pretty much skipped lunch), I stopped there for dinner to go since it was on the way! Next up for me is Comic Con Revolution - Ontario in a few weeks, May 16-17!

Free Comic Book Day 2026 is Saturday, May 2!

From the Vault: Unpublished Art (1)

While going through old art, I came across close to 80(!) pages of unfinished and unpublished art from stories I never completed (one was abandoned 18 pages in!). I can't recall why I stopped work on them—though I usually work from a completed script, I probably just felt I wasn't feeling it or the story was going nowhere. But in retrospect, they seem to hold up okay. Though some have the lettering lightly pencilled, as organized as I generally try to be, I actually don't seem to have the original scripts for many of these!

Anyway, here's a three-page sequence I vaguely recall was to be Rob's first appearance in a story, Rob breaking into a lab or something in Asia for some evidence. These were fully inked, but not yet shaded or lettered.

Web Tweaks 2026

Yesterday, on April 17, I deployed the re-designed and updated the WCG Comics website!

When it comes to my website, I am an inveterate tinkerer. Though not an expert by any means, I enjoy the process of building and coding web pages. In 1998, I started with html, moved to CSS in 2009, and Wordpress in 2022. These updates have included re-designs, moving to different web hosts, and migrating from PayPal to WooCommerce and Square as my payment processor.

While my website has always met my needs functionally—the main goal being the ability to make the purchase process at my webstore as smooth and painless as possible for users—a major goal in my bucket list has been to move to a more modern fluid and responsive full-width website design. Not only was my current website—using a template called MH Themes—somewhat outmoded because it was an older design, I did not have access to some recent Wordpress features.

Above: Recently retired WCG Comics website.

Over the past several months, I intermittently experimented and played with a variety of designs and themes. None seemed to adequately meet my needs—existing templates seemed too rigid and unsuited for what I wanted.

I realized that another daunting aspect of a potential re-design would be the need to re-create and migrate all my existing sales and products, images, and other features I’d incorporated over the years. Indeed, it was enough to make me believe that such a re-design was unfeasible and daunting to rebuild the website again from the ground up.

A major breakthrough was coming across the Staging feature in Wordpress, that allows a user to duplicate an existing website into a walled off sandbox and play with it without risk of breaking the original site. Just as importantly, when it’s ready, staging also allows you to deploy the website by simply writing over and replacing the existing website to make the new site live.

I also came across a theme that I thought might work for me—NewSpare by AF Themes. Though similar to the MH Magazine theme in that it’s a news site at its heart, it had a full-width design with a top banner image that gave me access to more modern features. While I still had to re-build (or rather, re-create) the front page from scratch, and ensure the webstore pages worked properly, the rest of my content otherwise transferred fairly smoothly into the new format. I still need to slightly tweak the containers of the other pages to ensure they do not run to the very edge, but fortunately, these are mostly cosmetic changes since the pages otherwise retained their layout and content, and were already fully functional and readable. Because of all this, what I thought might take me months was completed over a a few nights!

While I’ve learned to never say never when it comes to my website, hopefully this recent leap will be the last major re-design or update to the website I’ll need to make for awhile!

Below: The website from May 2024. 

REVIEWS: Love Story and Project Hail Mary

Love Story

I was initially apprehensive about Love Story, the biopic series from producer Ryan Murphy about the romance of John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. While alive, Kennedy and Bessette became tabloid fodder, only to become idealized in death, so I was wary of the show coming off cheesy or maudlin.

My interest in the show was admittedly partly driven by a measure of admiration for Kennedy. In addition to being close in age to Kennedy, and as a political and news junkie and history buff, I enjoyed and subscribed to Kennedy’s George magazine. (In fact, I still have every issue saved somewhere.)

Fortunately, the show successfully avoids most of the missteps I feared, offering a fairly grounded telling of the couple’s romance, wedding and marriage, focusing on what it was like to be inside the eye of a celebrity storm and, for Bessette, facing the twin challenges of becoming a mega-celebrity and a Kennedy. That said, I don’t doubt that much of the story has been fictionalized and structured for dramatic effect (see my mention of actress Daryl Hannah below), but I nevertheless thought the show approached the subject with intelligence and captured a measure of emotional truth that suited the characters, if not the real life players. I found it to be a surprisingly engaging production that faithfully captured the 1990s with attention to detail and featured some very perceptive writing and great scenes.

Ultimately, what elevates the production are the winning performances of the lead actors who portray John-John and Carolyn (Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon), as well as some very good writing. They make their counterparts relatable while also capturing their appeal and attractiveness (not an easy accomplishment!)

They’re ably supported by the other players as well, including Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy, Jessica Harper as Ethel Kennedy, and Alessandro Nivola as Calvin Klein. Special recognition needs to go to Dree Hemingway. She is both frighteningly and hilariously convincing as former Kennedy girlfriend Daryl Hannah, who is set up as a bete noire of sorts to Bessette—so much so that poor Hannah was compelled to release a statement that she’d never used cocaine, pressured anyone into marriage, desecrated a family heirloom, or crashed a wake (see the show if you want to know what the fuss is about!)

Anyway, we were pleasantly surprised and greatly enjoyed the series.

Project Hail Mary

Following the successful adaptation of Andy Weir’s book, The Martian, into film (a book I fortunately read well before the film even went into production), comes Project Hail Mary from directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and writer Drew Goddard, who also wrote adapted The Martian for the screen.

It’s a winning, uplifting space and science fiction film about cooperation and friendship between differing worlds and cultures, a welcome message in today’s fractured world. Anchoring the film is Ryan Gosling, as science teacher and reluctant astronaut Ryland Grace, in a role tailor made for the actor that takes advantage of both his acting and comedic chops.

Grace has been sent on a mission into the far reaches of space to find a way to battle a micro organism dubbed Astrophage that is threatening earth’s sun and, indeed, nearly every star in the known universe. He eventually joins forces with an alien being he meets when he arrives at a distant galaxy who, it turns out, is on a similar mission.

The two soon become a team and eventually develop a genuine bond. The depth of this bond and friendship is tested when circumstances arise when each must decide whether to put their lives and the mission itself on the line to come to the other’s aid. The film is the perfect message for our modern age, serving as a much needed counter to the division and tribalism that’s been sadly too prevalent in our world today.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life!

Report on the 2026 WonderCon

Even though attendance was reportedly down at this year's show year, I’m happy to say that WonderCon was a solid success for me. Sales were just slightly off from last year, but that was a stellar year—so no complaints! Sales were particularly boosted by more big-ticket purchases of trade paperbacks and other bundled options. 

As I reported in an earlier post, the more relaxed vibe provided an opportunity to have nice, fun chats with people! I even networked a bit—a couple of people I planned to reach out to ended up stopping by my booth, which led to some upcoming scheduled appearances.

On a previous post, I meant to mention that I was sorry to miss the No Kings March on Saturday—I joked with a fellow exhibitor that morning, “I missed the No Kings March for THIS?!” Ah, well, my wife participated and represented the both of us. I wore a Banksy Subway Sandwich Thrower t-shirt that day to show my support.

Another highlight was picking up the Illustrator Card featuring me that fellow comics creator/cartoonist Calvin Nye invited me to participate in! It’s blank on the other side in case fans want to get a sketch and an autograph—collect them all! He was selling them in blind packs of five at the show.

Cosplay was in full force. A highlight for me was Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, as well as someone dressed up as a knight from the film—we had seen the musical, Spamalot, just a couple days before WonderCon, so that was a cheap thrill. (And, yes, Tim the Enchanter and his wife told me they had seen Spamalot just a few weeks earlier too.)

Anyway, thanks to everyone who stopped by! 

Scroll down for additional photos at the show. Or go to the full gallery.