Columnist, Falling Off The Shelf
Found online at:
Tumble Tap: Where Good Comics Happen
Tell me about your column and your latest projects.
Falling Off the Shelf is primarily a review column. Mostly, it's book reviews, but I also review comics, webcomics, movies, games, and other geek ephemera. I occasionally run five mini-reviews in a segment called "Cool Crap Five". As for current projects, I've partnered up with Ben Ohmart of Bearmanor Media to start a graphic novel publishing company called TumbleTap. Our first two publications (not counting a special preview book) are complete collections of Rogue Satellite Comics by Chris Reilly and Kevin Atkinson, and Steve Ahlquist's cult classic Oz Squad (in one complete, annotated volume). I have some future projects in mind, but as I'm currently in the midst of moving to new digs, I won't be sending out proposals for a couple of more weeks yet.
Meanwhile, Rogue Satellite Comics and The Complete Annotated Oz Squad will debut at the San Diego ComicCon (courtesy of Messrs Reilly and Ahlquist) and will be available for order soon after.
Who or what are the biggest influences on your work and If you could pick one person to collaborate with living or dead who would you pick?
Easy pick--George Carlin. He was sort of a spiritual mentor to me. We had similar views on religion, philosphy, and "stuff". In classic Oedipal fashion I once wrote a poem about having to kill him, but after his passing I pulled the poem from submission circulation. I may publish it one day in a collection, but until then it will sit respectfully in my files.
Dream collaborators? Bill Maher or Steve Martin--other philosopher-comedians.
What album had the most influence on your adolescence?
Todd Rundgren's "The Ever-Popular Tortured Artist Effect". That album ushered me out of the typical teenage wasteland of heavy metal/soulless rock and into really exploring music's potential. John Hartford's "Aereo-Plain" guided me to bluegrass and folk music.
What were your favorite toys or games from your childhood?
I mentioned The Merlin in a recent "Cool Crap Five" column. I was also a first-generation Dungeons and Dragons player. That, more than anything else, helped warp me into the man-child I am today.
What is your pop culture guilty pleasure?
My wife got me hooked into watching Big Love with her--the drama about the polygamist Mormons. In my defense, it also starts Harry Dean Stanton and Bill Paxton. I also watch Hee-Haw whenever it's on.
6. If you could own one piece of artwork by any artist, who would you choose and why?
"The Old Guitarist" by Picasso.
I've had a full-sized framed print of this painting since I was a kid and it's been part of the backdrop of my life for as long as I can remember. The poet Wallace Stevens even wrote about it:
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, “You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.”
The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”
And they said then, “But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.”
What are your favorite television shows that you feel ended too soon?
Firefly, obviously. And the original Star Trek series. And Millennium. I'd have said Family Guy and Futurama--but the fans have spoken and they keep coming back.
Who is your favorite super hero?
Top 3: Travis Morgan, aka The Warlord. The Question. Green Arrow.
If you were to have dinner with 5 people living or dead, who are they and what would you serve?
Living: Bill Maher, Steve Martin, Lewis Black, James Burke, and Bill Clinton.
We'd eat mandarin orange slices, drink Orangina, and wonder what the host was thinking.
Dead: George Carlin, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Somerset Maugham, and Charles Nelson Reilly.
We'd be eating brains.
What fictional character do you identify most with?
Jesus.
What 5 movies could you watch again and again?
Star Wars, Jaws, Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, and My Man Godfrey
What book or author do you regularly recommend?
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham and The Ginger Man by JP Donleavy
What are your favorite web sites?
Wikipedia, IMDB, Facebook, The Session
What are you most looking forward to geeking out over in the coming year?
Getting my writing groove on and finishing some SF stories I've been working on, and publishing some interesting comics. (Say...quick poll... if I had a line to a comic strip that Gary Burghoff (aka Radar from M*A*S*H) had a hand in... would y'all buy it collected in bound form?)
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