Remembering Matthew Perry

Kingston Firehouse Theater

In my last post, I recounted my recent trip to Seattle. The primary reason for the trip was to visit and spend time with longtime friends from L.A., who moved to the area a few years back—indeed, the husband is one of my best friends from college who now owns the Firehouse Theater, a lovely two-screen movie house in Kingston, Washington, a charming lakeside community along the shores of Puget Sound.

My friend took over the theater in 2022 with the goal of showing both first run and repertory movies for the community and a program that reflects his own eclectic tastes. (When I visited, the theater was showing the new Taylor Swift concert film, as well as Jaws. During the upcoming Halloween season, the theater is scheduled to show the Little Shop of Horrors and the Mummy, with Killers of the Flower Moon and The Marvels coming up.) It was a treat to get a behind-the-scenes tour and learn a little about the nuts and bolts of the business. My friend and I saw tons of films together when we were in college—at campus screenings, at the premier first-run movie houses just off campus in Westwood, and at revival houses throughout L.A.—so it's inspiring to see him fulfill this dream of being involved in movies.

The theater definitely reflects my friend's tastes and personality—in fact, the movie posters that decorate the theater are from his personal collection, as are the Batman maquettes on display inside the candy counter.

And if you visit the theater, consider buying some comics! Prior to moving to Washington, my friend worked for many years as an editor and writer at Bongo Comics, publisher of the Simpsons and Futurama comics—he also had a hand in the forthcoming comics based on the Netflix Matt Groening series, Disenchantment. As you can see from the photos, there currently are Simpsons comics for sale at the theater. The theater's website is at kingstonfirehouse.com.

So if you live nearby or are in or near the area, be sure to visit the theater and take in a film!

Goodnight, Seattle!

We took a quick visit to beautiful Seattle over the weekend! Though we’ve continued to take small vacations, this was our first out of state and by air since well before the pandemic. We traveled primarily to visit longtime friends, but of course did a few touristy things, including visits to Pike Place Market and the Space Needle—from the top of which, we saw Mt. Rainier (as seen in one of the photos).

Our trip also included the opportunity to take our car rental across the Puget Sound by ferry. Having grown up taking the Staten Island Ferry in New York often—which also takes cars, but I usually only took it as a passenger—it was a nice callback to my youth.

And since I was in the area, I made it a point to visit the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery in Georgetown, a funky neighborhood of Seattle! Back in the 1800s, it was an industrial/railway district.

I actually visited Seattle in 1995 to participate in an indie comics creator tour called the Spirits of Independence that cartoonist Dave Sim organized, when the city was one of the stops. I didn’t see much of the city during that visit, so it was nice to return and enjoy the vibe a little.

Below are select photos—go here for the full gallery...

Flash Gordon to Return

Well here's some exciting news—the iconic Flash Gordon comic strip, created and originally drawn by the great Alex Raymond, is apparently returning! While details are a little thin right now, with no start date or platform information available yet, an announcement nevertheless has been made. Cartoonist Dan Schkade will be handling the strip, following in the footsteps of Raymond and, more recently, cartoonist Jim Keefe, who drew the strip as a Sunday from 1996 to 2003. The new iteration will reportedly be both a daily and Sunday.

That said, the syndicated comic strip has been going through some great change in recent years, but hopefully the new series will find new generation of readers. I think the new strips looks great and I'm quite looking forward to it...