All those PSAs and parental lecture were right — peer pressure can make a person do the darndest thing. I can hear my mom’s voice now: “If Mike Sterling bought some original comics art, would you buy some, too?” Well, yeah, mom. Mike is the coolest cat in the funnybook blogging scene, and that would […]

About five years back I caught some fortunate breaks which increased what the beancounters would call my “discretionary income.” Being a sober and pragmatic middle-aged man, I used that windfall to chase down various childhood artifacts of deep personal significance. This was not some wild spree, however. Taking a page from my renewed record collecting, […]

Figure Two: And this pattern is always the same? Figure One: With few variations. They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find…and it’s themselves. And all we need do is sit back…and watch. Figure Two: Then I take it this place…this Maple Street…is not unique. Figure One: [Shaking his head.] By no means. Their […]

“We tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn’t always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away.” – Albert Camus, The Plague (1947) Some virulent flu-like disease has been my go-to Horseman of Speculated […]

(being an excerpt from my forthcoming bestselling novel and big budget movie adaptation) When it came to my research, I didn’t take any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I’d worked my way down the entire recommended reading list. Danielle Steel, V.C. Andrews, John Jakes, Robert Ludlum, Herman Wouk, James Clavell. Michner. Krantz. Forsyth. L’Amour. […]

The Mighty Mike Sterling recently fielded a reader question about the Legion of Super-Heroes’ decline from a fan favorite franchise to its current state of sad irrelevance. Mike did a great job breaking down the Legion’s tragic cycle of reboots and diminishing returns, which has been on my mind since I revisited those funnybooks recently. […]

“On the evening of April 16, 1917, Comrade Kermit stepped onto the platform and addressed the awaiting crowd. ‘Down with global capitalism! We are defenders of the Rainbow Connection, comrades! The lovers, the dreamers, and myself know that we have finally found it! We have nothing to lose but our slightly visible strings!’ He then […]