Pop Culture



Has Comic-Con still got it?

   With several big studios skipping the ‘Con this year, has Hollywood lost interest in comic fans? Blogs have been a-buzz since the New York Times published a story last month warning of the absence of movie studios at Comic-Con.  Should fans be worried? Not at all. Of course, it’s...

Summertime Splash

  Well, the days are longer, Margie’s obsessing about the temperature, and we’re packing for Comic-Con – so it must be summer! From tiny squirt pistols to water balloon bandoliers, nothing kicks off summer like a good water fight.  But for such a universally simple premise – soak your adversaries...

Souvenirs and sweet memories

What do you bring back from your travels for friends and family? Jay recently came back from Eastern Europe and brought back some fun chocolates and candy bars for everyone in the office (which of course means mostly for Margie), and it got us thinking about souvenirs. By very definition,...

Thanks for your support.

  Voting for the Eisner Awards has closed, and we wanted to thank all of your for your support of our nominated book, Finding Frank and His Friend. We’re really looking forward to the award ceremony that will be held on Friday July 22nd as part of Comic-Con.  We can’t...

Friends help your collections add up

  Sometimes you start a collection, sometimes they’re started for you. Margie never intended to collect calculators.  But one day when she discovered an error in Jay’s expense report that resulted in a little extra cash in his pocket, he thanked her with a calculator-shaped chocolate bar.  Later on her...

It takes all sorts (or Allsorts?)

   One man’s treasure, so they say, is another man’s junk.  Collecting pop culture – especially when they’re cult objects – means collecting things other people think are, well garbage.  Movie posters from the 1920s?  Original packaging for a 1960s Barbie doll?  Boxes of Sunington Morn cereal with Spaceman jax...

Back to the Future of the Past

An upcoming exhibition at the British Library looks at our past visions of the future through the history of Science Fiction. From technological utopias to robotic uprisings, Science Fiction gives us a pretty clear look at our own society.  Though seemingly about the future (or events that took place long,...

Just our cup of tea!

  The cutest little vinyl toys, along with their custom-brewed friends, are on tour now.  Don’t miss the Mini Tea Tour if you can help it! Lunartik’s Mini Tea Tour features more than 70 custom works of art created from Matt JOnes’s toy, Lunartik in a Cup of Tea.  The...

Don't forget to vote!

  The history of election ballots and voting machines is a lesson in ingenuity. The humble election ballot has a rich history – starting with the ballota, or “small colored ball” voters dropped into a candidate’s clay pot and which gives our modern ballots their names.  The first lever voting...

“It’s an honor just to be nominated.”

  We’ve been hitting the cake pretty hard since the Eisner Award Nominees were announced last week and Finding Frank and His Friend was among the books chosen. The nominees represent a wide range of really stunning work.  From Juanjo Guarnido’s work on Blacksad, Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys and,...

WonderCon wrap up

  Mondays are no one’s favorite day of the week, but when it means no more WonderCon, a Monday is especially disappointing. We had such a great time in San Francisco at this year’s WonderCon.  We saw terrific art, met a lot of great people, and ate the best sandwiches...

Come see us at WonderCon!

  We arrived to absolutely beautiful weather in San Francisco – lots of sun and the bluest sky.  It’s a good thing that there’s so much to see at the Moscone Center, otherwise we’d want to be outside this weekend.  If you’re in San Francisco this weekend (and with this...