Looking back on my first thousand

This seems like a fine time for me to reminisce about the history of this blog. Initially I didn't have much to share on the blog outside of advertising my Marvel Comics publications; I never felt comfortable talking about what went on behind-the-scenes there - and I still don't. The blog has no particular focus - it's about comics, primarily - films, secondarily - old-time radio, tertiarily - and whatever else beyond that.

But thanks to my friend Colin Smith I became inspired to write about comics on a more meaningful level and more fully discuss what I found enjoyable about the medium; my essay "Why Do I Like Super Heroes?" is probably the best of those. I am also proud of my opinionated editorial "The Quality of Mercy." Probably the two most important works on this blog are my first "Unearthed" entry, a review of All-Star Comics #62, which began my occasional forays into comic book back issues; the other being my long list of creator credits for the 2012 Avengers movie, which began my regular feature on crediting the people who developed ideas seen in super hero films.

I've written many decent essays about comics history; the best of them ran through topics such as the shape of Dr. Strange's eyes, adaptations of John Dickson Carr in Suspense comics, a defense of Steve Ditko's Speedball, exposing the many art swipes in Ross Saakel's Captain Wonder, a multi-part feature "The Troubles of X-Factor", another multi-part feature looking back at Roy Thomas & Howard Chaykin's Star Wars, a multi-part feature on Captain America & Iron Man's hostility, and examining the sources which inspired Iron Fist.

Beyond that I was very pleased to write an article expressing my fascination with the character of Karamaneh, a look at episodes of the Jack Benny Program without Jack Benny, comparing Chaplin to Gandhi and my Star Wars Episode I anecdote.

This blog will continue to be what it is; views have increased steadily in the last year and while comments are scarce, I'd happily keep blogging into oblivion regardless of the impact it has; it's been a fine release of various tensions inside me over the years. Thank you for indulging me.