This weekend, during the Baltimore Comic Con, I'll be signing copies of From Krakow to Krypton at 1pm on both Saturday September 27th and Sunday September 28th. The event takes place at the Baltimore Convention Center, and I'll be at the Comics Pro booth, # 2106.

Here's their official site: http://www.comicon.com/baltimore/index.htm

Also, I was recently interviewed by Joe Franklin, the King of Nostalgia, for his radio show. Today, I spoke to Joe (not to name-drop, but I know everyone in showbiz, and they're all dear dear friends of mine), and he told me when it's airing:

The interview, which will be airing as a two-part, 14-minute segment, can be heard on Saturday September 27th, on Bloomberg Business Radio 1130 AM radio WBBR's "On the Weekend."

You can hear it at 4:37am, 9:37am, 2:37pm, and 7:37pm

I grew up in Baltimore, where I attended an all-Jewish parochial school. When I was in kindergarten, my Hebrew teacher Mr. Manischevitz taught us how to draw an Alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, by drawing a picture of Popeye on the board. One of Popeye's arms went straight up, and the other went straight down, just like an the two "arms" that stick out of the sides on an Alef. I think Mr. Manischevitz was trying to use cartoons to get his students hooked on Hebrew. And maybe for the other students, that was true. But as far as I was concerned, he'd used Hebrew to get me hooked on cartoons.

This weekend, I'll be doing a book signing at the Baltimore Comic Con. Yes, I'm going back to my hometown, where I'll see some old friends and reconnect with family. It'll be like a less depressing Garden State (and I put less product in my hair than Zach Braff). The cool thing about going to another city to do a promotional event for a comic -- or a book about comics -- is that people invariably come up and tell you about comic book creators who hail from that area. It genuinely seems to be a point of pride for them. For example, when I did a signing at the Detroit Jewish Book Fair two years ago, a woman told me that (years and years ago) she'd dated Al Milgrom, co-creator of the DC Comics superhero Firestorm. A bunch of other people remembered a Nice Jewish Boy named Sam Raimi who had a crazy idea that he and his friends would get together and make a no-budget splatterfest called Evil Dead. Wonder how that turned out. And a couple of weeks ago, in Ft. Myers, Florida, right after I gave a lecture, one of the people in the audience told me that he was the cousin of comic book writer/movie producer Michael Uslan (The Dark Knight). Ft. Myers is also the home of Firestorm artist Rafael Kayanan. (What's up with every town having a Firestorm connection? Are there any Firestorm artists in Baltimore? Idea for book: "The Firestorm Diaries." Premise: I go to every major city in America and research that city's Firestorm connection.) It's actually pretty surprising though, because comics really do seem like such a niche market these days. And the stereotype of the nerdy comic book geek is still pretty prevalent. For all the noise the media makes about comic book movies, there aren't nearly as many people who'd read a Spider-Man comic book as there are people who'd see a Spider-Man movie. Which...well, it is what it is. (And what it is is a topic for another time.) But in each of these cities, people -- mind you, not necessarily people who are themselves comic book fans -- are eager to share stories of the comics creators they know or have known. And it gives me a sense of the larger comics community out there. But it also makes me think that as much as people openly mock geeks, every city has a strong sense of geek pride. Every adult geek was once a kid geek, be it in Ft. Myers, Detroit, or wherever.

And maybe in Baltimore today, there's some five-year-old who just learned how to draw an "M", but all she cares about is how -- if you draw stripes on it -- the letter looks like Garfield's ears.

Okay, so I told myself I'd be blogging about From Krakow to Krypton very very very frequently, and make it really "in the moment." Whenever something happened that was book-related, I'd blog about it right away. Of course, that didn't end up happening. Things got too busy real fast.

Oh well.

But ever since the book first started trickling into comic book stores and, um..."book" book stores, I can tell you now that it feels really surreal. Because after several years, From Krakow to Krypton is finally out! And it was a really long pregnancy. In fact, it was on October 4, 2003 that I received that first e-mail from JPS editor-in-chief Ellen Frankel asking if I'd like to turn my articles on Jews in comics into a book.

For those who don't know, this book started as a three-part series of articles that appeared in the fall 2003, winter 2003, and spring 2004 issues of Reform Judaism Magazine. (An interesting side-note: That fall 2003 issue of RJ also contains an article on John Kerry's Jewish roots. That article was written by Jennifer Anne Perez, wife of my fellow IDW Publishing writer Andrew Steven Harris. I first met Andrew at WonderCon in February, when I'd just finished writing the miniseries Speed Racer: Chronicles of the Racer for IDW. In the "civilian" world, there are 6 degrees of separation. It increasingly becomes clear to me that in the comics world, there are like only 2 or 3 degrees. Everyone seems to know everyone, and it freaks the hell out of me.) When I have more time, I'll talk more about the process of interviewing the various comics creators I talk about in the book.

But, as that lovable rapscallion Snoop Dogg would say, "later for dat." I just got back from my first stop on my book tour, in Ft. Myers, Florida. After being in NYC for so long, Ft. Myers really made me feel like a vampire. The city is all sunshine and palm trees and dragonflies and blue skies and wide open spaces. Like, can't they fill up the wide open spaces with some -- I don't know -- buildings or something? It seemed kinda unnatural to me, like they weren't utilizing the space correctly. But again, maybe I've just been in New York too long.

Anyway, I get there and Naomi, who coordinated my lecture gig, gives me this sorta "welcome wagon" bag stuffed with postcards for my event and a Jewish newspaper with ads for the event. Which is really nice of her. But that's not all! The bag is also chock full of the following: a package of pretzels, a package of pretzel sticks, two things of peanut butter crackers, a packet of M&Ms, two peanut butter chocolate bars, three bite-size Twix bars, two bite-size Hershey's chocolate bars, a low-fat oatmeal raisin bar, three Milky Way Midnight minis, a regular Milky Way mini, three Three Musketeer minis, and a Snicker mini. Then we go to have dinner at this place called Mimi's, where the food is amazing. And after I have dinner, the waiter hears that it's my first time at Mimi's, so he gives me a container filled with FOUR BIG-ASS MUFFINS EACH THE SIZE OF A HUMAN HEAD!! Now, unless my name is Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, or Wally West (or if you're a non-geek, Michael Phelps), there's no way for me to burn through all these calories. So I took all this stuff back with me to New York. And I'm not faulting anyone in Ft. Myers for giving me all this food. On the contrary, I actually really appreciated it. Even if I can't eat any of this stuff, it's a really sweet (pun intended) gesture. What's my point? My point is this:

Shame on you, New York, for not showering newbies with free food like they do in other cities!! For shame!! This is why people leave NYC and go to the suburbs! For the big-ass muffins!

From Krakow to Krypton is out now from JPS, a few days earlier than it's official publication date, September 10. Ask for it at your favorite bookstore.

Welcome to my blog, where you'll find all sorts of arcane nonsense related to my new book From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books. I'll be posting creator interviews that never made it into the book, various behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the process of writing the book, and whatever else pops into my geektastic little noggin. Enjoy!