My Superman Story
A couple nights ago I couldn’t sleep. When this happens, I tend to listen to old-time radio — The Saint, The Shadow, Rocky Jordan, Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel, etc. This time I turned on my old favorite, The Adventures Of Superman.
Superman has been on my mind a lot lately, mostly because of the renewed debate over Zac Snyder’s Man Of Steel. Listening, I was thinking of how forward-thinking the radio show was, having him fight the KKK in 1946, equating them directly with Nazis. I’m glad that story has gotten a comics adaptation.
My Darling Sharon
This is going to be a little raw. I hope you’ll forgive me. In the summer of 2012, my wife was directing me in Richard III at the Michigan Shakespeare Festival, flipping the script from twelve years earlier when I had directed her in the show. I was playing King...
Grief in a Time of Plague
“His Lyre is now Attuned only to Woe” The eyes, the face, the limbs of heavenly mold, So long the theme of my impassioned lay, Charms which so stole me from myself away, That strange to other men the course I hold; The crisped locks of pure and lucid gold, The...
Nellie Bly – The Research
For me, inspiration always comes from reading. Be it history, fiction, essays, or comics, I find my best ideas are sparked from gaps I discover in narratives. What was the cause of the famous Capulet-Montague feud? What was Shakespeare doing during his...
Why Nellie Bly?
Late one April evening in 2016, sitting at my desk not writing, this article in The Atlantic caught my eye. The premise was that there were more female action stars 100 years ago than today. Most were in the mold of the Perils of Pauline, with an intrepid young woman...