Web Tweaks 2026

Yesterday, on April 17, I deployed the re-designed and updated 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 websites. In 1998, I started with html, moved to CSS in 2009, and Wordpress in 2019. These updates have included re-designs, moving the site to a different webhoster, and migrating from PayPal to WooCommerce and Square as my online 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 item on 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 Wordpress’s more recent 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 really seemed to 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 would take too long.

Fortunately, I did not give 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 risking 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 it 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 and 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 shop pages worked properly, the rest of my content otherwise transferred fairly smoothly into the new format. I still need to slightly tweak the contains of the other pages to ensure they do not run to the very edge, but fortunately, these are mostly cosmetic changes as the pages otherwise retained their layout and content, and already fully functional and readable. Because of all this, what I thought might take me months was done 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.

Capsule Reviews: Fremont, Rental Family and EPiC

In this era of big Marvel and DC superhero action films, it was nice to recently come across some films that were much smaller in scale and much quieter, yet nevertheless indelible in ways that only arthouse films can be.

Fremont (Prime)
From 2023, this quiet moving film about a young Afghan woman who has resettled in the Northern California city of Fremont (near San Francisco) after having served as a translator for the U.S. in Afghanistan. Though not many details of her previous life are offered, it’s clear she has suffered some trauma and feels isolated and adrift, as she tries to adjust to her new life. This is in spite the fact she lives in an Afghani community and holds a job at a fortune cookie factory. The one star in it was Jeremy Allen White. It’s in black and white. But there really isn’t much about Fremont itself lol, though that is where she lives. A very quiet film of small moments, but I liked it a lot.

Rental Family (Hulu)

Another quiet moving film about an American expatriate (Brendan Fraser), a struggling actor living in Japan who finds work at a family rental agency. I’m not sure how accurate the film is in terms of the kind of work these workers actually do (though I had vaguely heard about people paid to attend funerals), but it explores the sticky ethics of such work (especially when it involves deception), and whether it’s possible for the workers to keep their work and personal feelings and lives separate. Full of warmth and humor, Brendan Fraser anchors the film, joined by a dominantly Japanese cast.

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert

When I heard about this film, I opted to see it in a theater to enjoy a full theatrical and sound experience. Part documentary and part concert film, it mostly strips away Elvis’s bigger-than-life image to focus on his music chops and performance, particularly his early in residence Vegas years. (Though you do see a bit of weight fluctuation in some of the footage, there’s little of the later “Fat Elvis” years—in fact, in the earlier footage, The King looks downright terrific and slim. Kind of a mini-version of the Beatles’ Get Back documentary, the film provides a brief bio of his early musical and movie career, then focuses on both studio rehearsals and concert performances. It was a treat to see Elvis in concert, he was truly electric, giving 110% in every performance. And to go back to the Get Back comparison, it was a blast seeing him perform three Beatles tunes: Yesterday, Something, and, live in concert, a terrific mashup of Little Sister with Get Back!

WonderCon 2026

 I'll be at WonderCon in Anaheim, California, March 27–29, 2026!

Rock Me Amadeus!