PopCult

Today’s first pick in The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide is featured on Radio Free Charleston today, with tracks from it opening the first and second hours of the show.

HEXED
by The Big Bad
Horror Hound Records
Vinyl-only release
$30 Available only from The Big Bad website, or at live shows

What we have here is a great, long-awaited album by West Virginia’s The Big Bad. It’s local, it’s on vinyl, and it’s music that has not been released before.

It’s a perfect gift for anybody who wants to support local artists, or anybody who loves horror-infected Rockabilly, or anybody who just enjoys great, independent music.

And, I can’t really be objective about it because I’ve been friends with these guys for a long time. The Big Bad were on the RFC video show many, many times, and on this album, my wife an I are among the guest musicians.

Mel was invited to a recording session to be part of a local all-star choir for one song, and while there I was drafted to contribute backing vocals and handclaps (along with Mel) on the title track. We had great fun hanging out at Crow’s Nest Studio, and it was wild making my singing debut on a record with no warning.

I was not expecting that, but it was fun, and I don’t think I hexed the recording session or anything.

However, that song is the title track, “Hexed,” and the recording session happened in 2019, with the record just now coming out, so I can’t promise that my participation didn’t curse things.

Seriously, though, the band has been through many line-up and life changes in the COVID horrors that followed the recording session, and for now, this is a vinyl-only release. CDs and downloads will happen after additional mastering sessions take place, but right now you can get the primal, vinyl mix of this killer album directly from the band.

And you should. There are loads of killer tracks on the album, and there’s even a mystery bonus track on side two…which is not to be confused the mystery bonus tracks on RFC. 

If you tune into the episode of Radio Free Charleston that debuts November 10, you can hear “Hexed” open the show, and “The Storm,” with the choir, open the second hour. The third hour features an artist who will be the basis of our next entry in The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide.

Radio Free Charleston is ALL-NEW as we welcome back Jon Raider, our guest programmer, for a Buddy Holly in our third hour Tuesday on The AIR!  To listen to The AIR, you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.  

You can hear Radio Free Charleston Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with boatloads of replays throughout the week.

This week we bring you two new hours of our famous recipe mix of local, independent and cult music, and we welcome back Jon Raider for the Westside at Midnight Buddy Holly Mixtape! Jon is an old friend who many folks may know as the drummer for Strawfyssh back in the day, and also as the creator and curator of The Scene group at Facebook.

When Jon’s schedule opens up, we hope to welcome him to The AIR to host his own show, but for now he’s going to pop up every few weeks by programming our third hour.

That third hour is the inspiration for one of our entries in The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide today, but it’s not the only one.

We open the show AND our second hour with tracks from Hexed, the long-awaited new album, currently available only on vinyl, by The Big Bad. I’ll tell you about it in a bit when it gets its own Gift Guide post in this blog later today.

Our first two hours also feature brand-new music from Massing featuring Buni Muni, Electric Pets, Long Dark Moon, Johnny Marr, Temp Wishes, Protomartyr, Pallas, Stick Men and more.

We have a little bit of everything, and you can hear my voice evaporate as the show progresses, which is one reason that our third hour is a mixtape.

Right now the plan is to turn over hour three of RFC to Jon every three or four weeks.  When the timing works out, Jon will likely be spinning off to host his own show on The AIR.

Check out this playlist, with links to most of the artist’s page for the first two hours of the show…

RFC V5 292

hour one
The Big Bad “Hexed”
Massing featuring Buni Muni “Go Away”
Electric Pets “Glam”
Payback’s A Bitch “Get Up, Go”
Long Dark Moon “System”
Johnny Marr “In and Out of Love”
Temp Wishes “Mist In The Morning”
Frenchy and the Punk “Lunar Frenzy”
Jim Lange “Ride The Bus”
I. Jeziak and The Surfers “Deja Vu”
The Rutles “Evolution Number 10”
Protomartyr “The Knife Dream”
Canoe Speed “Breech Babies”
Bongwater “Folk Song”

hour two
The Big Bad “The Storm”
Pallas “Inside Outside”
Stick Men “Swimming In Tea”
Custard Flux “The Floating Chamber”
Moron Police “Pachinko

hour three

Westside At Midnight Buddy Holly Mixtape

“Rock Me My Baby”
“Bo Diddley”
“Rave On”
“Little Baby”
“Mona”
“Holly Hop”
“Early In The Morning”
“Modern Don Juan”
“Midnight Shift”
“Baby, Won’t You Come Out Tonight”
“Girl On My Mind”
“Rock Around With Ollie Vee”
“I’m Gonna Put My Foot Down”
“Love’s Made A Fool Out Of You”
“Smokey Joe’s Cafe”
“Now We’re One”
“You’re The One”
“Slippin’ And Slidin’ (Fast Version)”
“Untitled Instrumental”
“Brown Eyed Handsome Man”
“Well All Right”
“Ready Teddy”
“Rock-A-Bye-Rock”
“Good Rockin’ Tonight”
“Peggy Sue”
“I’m Changing All Those Changes”
“Blue Suede Shoes”
“Look At Me”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, Sunday at 8 PM and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. We bring you a marathon all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

After RFC, stick around for encores of last week’s episodes of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.

At 3 PM get ready for two classic episodes of The Swing Shift, featuring the best Swing Music from the last century!

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Thursday at 9 AM,  Friday at 10 AM and 8 PM and Saturday afternoon, only on The AIR . You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursdays and Sundays.

Our third and final pick in today’s all-book-day of The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide is the perfect gift for fans of underground comics, Edgar Rice Burroughs, or legendary artist, William Stout.

William Stout’s Comics Volume 1
by William Stout (Author, Artist)
Flesk Publications
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1640411036
$59 Signed Hardcover from the publisher
$42.03 Paperback from Amazon

I have been a huge fan of William Stout since I first discovered his work in underground comics over fifty years ago, when I was too young to legally buy underground comics.

Stout, who I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few times at Wonderfest USA, has had a remarkable slate of careers as not only a comic book artist, but also an illustrator of movie posters and album covers, a designer and art director for movies and theme parks and as an acclaimed muralist specializing in dinosaur paintings for museums. As his bio says, Stout is “a visionary artist whose work spans comics, film, paleontology, and themed entertainment. He earned a full scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute at seventeen, launching a career that has spanned nearly sixty years.”

Stout’s career in art began professionally in 1968. In 1971, he assisted Russ Manning on the Tarzan of the Apes Sunday and daily newspaper comic strips. Stout also joined Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder on Little Annie Fanny for Playboy in 1972. By the 1970s, he was gaining international recognition for his rock album covers and magazine work.

In 1977, Stout created his first movie poster, Wizards, and ultimately worked on the advertising for over 120 films. His first one man show, The Prehistoric World of William Stout, also took place in 1977. Stout has worked on over thirty feature films, including both Conan films, First Blood, The Hitcher, and Invaders from Mars. Return of the Living Dead made Stout the youngest production designer in film history.

Beginning in 1987, Stout worked for Walt Disney Imagineering for a year and a half as a conceptualist, designer, and producer for EuroDisneyland, Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Walt Disney World. After leaving Disney, Stout continued themed entertainment design work, contributing ideas and designs to many Disney and non-Disney projects. In 1989, he was hired by Lucasfilm/Industrial Light and Magic as conceptualist and chief designer for their first foray into themed entertainment centers. In late 1995, Steven Spielberg chose Stout as senior concept designer for GameWorks, a Sega/ Universal/DreamWorks SKG joint project. For two years, Stout and his team oversaw the concepts, design, and execution of the first three GameWorks facilities in Seattle, Tempe, and Ontario.

A lifelong fascination with prehistoric life led Stout to publish The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era, now celebrated as a seminal work in paleoart, as well as children’s classics like The Little Blue Brontosaurus. His paleontological paintings have been featured in record-breaking exhibitions at the Smithsonian, the British Museum, and the Royal Ontario Museum. Stout’s expeditions to Antarctica and Patagonia informed his latest work, Lost Continent: Modern and Prehistoric Life in Antarctica, blending scientific observation with artistry. In 2007, Stout painted twelve large murals depicting the prehistoric life of San Diego for the San Diego Natural History Museum.

And he’s a hell of a nice guy, too.

I actually helped crowdfund this book because I’ve been such a fan for so long. Now it’s widely available, and would be a great gift for any art lover, comic lover or just someone with great taste.

Let’s hit that publisher’s blurb…

The definitive first volume exploring the formative years and early comics career of legendary artist William Stout, told in his own words and artwork.

William Stout’s Comics, Volume 1 is the first installment in a three-volume celebration of the legendary artist’s comics career, focusing on his formative years and early professional work. Featuring more than 75 complete comic pages, over 370 comic-style illustrations and personal works, and rare historical photographs, this volume is a visual treat for his fans and comics historians alike.

Written and narrated by Stout himself, the book traces his journey from childhood obsessions and early superhero creations to his time at the Chouinard Art Institute, where influential mentors helped shape his artistic voice. It explores his pivotal time as an assistant to Russ Manning on Tarzan of the Apes, the impact of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ stories, and Stout’s wide-ranging early output, from car and motorcycle comics to his unexpected entry as a sports cartoonist.

Also included are never-before-seen early drawings and superhero creations, new portrait drawings of his artistic heroes, and side-by-side comparisons of his earliest and recent works that reveal his remarkable evolution. This volume further documents his first professional assignments, from working as a Disneyland portrait artist and contributing to fanzines to creating comics for CYCLE-toons, rounding out this richly illustrated book.

Carefully crafted over ten years in close collaboration with William Stout, Volume 1 brings to life a cherished chapter in comics history and sets the stage for the volumes to come.

I’ve already got my paperback copy, and I’ll probably ask him to sign it for me at Wonderfest next year. Any fan of his work, or great artwork in general would love this book.

You can order the signed Hardcover from the publisher or the Paperback from Amazon.

The second pick today in our all-book-day of The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide is a third collection of the art of Ron Lesser, this time focusing on his Western art. it’s a fantastic gift for fans of Westerns, fine art, commercial art and spectacular illustration.

The Art of Ron Lesser Volume 3: Wild, Wild Westerns
by Robert Deis (Author), Bill Cunningham (Editor), Tim Hewitt (Editor)
Ron Lesser (Illustrator)
introduction by James Reasoner
Subtropic Productions
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8199028783
$45.00 (discounted at Amazon)

This third volume of The Art of Ron Lesser departs from the femme fatales of the first two books in the series (Deadly Dames and Sexy Sirens and Dangerous Dames and Cover Dolls) and dives into the wealth of material Lesser produced for Western-themed paperback novels, movies, television and fine art.

The temptation is there to call Lesser’s art “eye candy,” but to be honest, it seems way more savory than that. This is meaty, action-filled exciting adventure art. The art alone is enough to merit long study and stir the imagination. On top of that, the stories behind the art, dealing with the demands of producing commercial art and seeing it re-used for different purposes…that stuff is really fascinating.

The level of craft on display is astounding. At a time when the world of “fine art” frowned on realism, commerical artists of the time kept alive the grand traditions of classic representative art, and they did it on a deadline and had to be proflic to earn a living. It’s great to see these artists finally getting their due.

Let’s go to the publisher’s blurb…

THE WEST WAS WILD!
And no one could visualize its raw, untamed fury and pioneer spirit like artist RON LESSER. From 1959 to today, Ron has painted hundreds of book covers, movie posters, advertisements and gallery artwork depicting the drama, the people, and the colorful vistas of the Old West.

In this 3rd volume of our The Art of Ron Lesser series we examine his portfolio of work in the Western genre illustrating some of the classics from writers like Luke Short, Louis L’Amour, John Benteen, J.T. Edson, and many more. This volume is a unique look into the life and work of an artist who had a powerful impact on our pulp culture, and framed how we look at that period of American history.

The Art of Ron Lesser Vol. 3: Wild, Wild, Westerns is a companion to Vol 1: Deadly Dames and Sexy Sirens and Vol. 2: Dangerous Dames and Cover Dolls. All three showcase and provide insight into the 65+ year career of the artist and his groundbreaking work within the art, publishing, advertising, and entertainment industries.

This 3rd volume feature 150 pages of full color artwork and commentary by one of the masters of the western genre. It is a unique art book of a unique artist.

I can’t really say it any better than that. This book belongs in the collection of any lover of realistic art, and any fan of the Western genre. Order The Art of Ron Lesser Volume 3: Wild, Wild Westerns directly from the publisher or any bookseller by using the ISBN Code, or find it, discounted, at Amazon.

The first pick in this second week of The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide ties into today’s episode of Prognosis on The AIR. Today and 3 PM, you can hear a special episode from 2023 devoted to Rick Wakeman’s Journey To The Center Of The Earth and Return To The Center Of The Earth. At 5 PM another episode of Prognosis will be devoted to Rick Wakeman performing live.

And that should be a good hint that our pick today is the perfect gift for fans or Rick Wakeman, Progressive Rock and hilarious storytelling. It’s a new autobiography from Rick Wakeman.

The Wizard of Prog
The Truth And Something Like The Truth
by Rick Wakeman
Ebury Spotlight
ISBN: 9781529983869
$26.72 from Blackwells (UK)

First of all, even though this book is available in Audiobook and Kindle from Amazon now, it won’t be in print in the US until next May, and that will just be in paperback. However, you can order it in hardcover form now from Blackwell’s (no relation to Mark) in the UK now, and it’s both reasonably priced and has free shipping to the States.

Aside from being a beloved virtuoso keyboard player who made his name working with David Bowie, YES, and Strawbs as well as having successful solo career, Rick Wakeman is one of the funniest men on the planet.

This is, after all, the man who turned the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction speech for the band, YES, into a long, drawn-out meandering boner joke.

Let me quote from the publisher’s blurb:

‘From the beginning to not quite the end… just yet’.

From piano-playing child prodigy, through to classically trained keyboardist and onto his rise with Yes and as a solo artist, Rick Wakeman’s life so far has been one of very dramatic spirals, spectacular comebacks and legendary rock ‘n’ roll excess.

The first of his epic concept albums, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, was released in 1973 to indifferent reviews, but was a worldwide hit, to the vast surprise of his record company. The following year, Journey to the Centre of the Earth was another phenomenon. He took it around the world, with huge orchestras and choirs, which he funded, spending every penny he’d earned. After headlining Crystal Palace Park, he suffered a heart attack aged just 25. Languishing in hospital, he wrote his next album, The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Ignoring doctors’ orders to retire, he went straight out on tour. However, the high cost of his lavishly staged concerts, combined with his second divorce, eventually caught up with him, leaving him impoverished, homeless and occasionally even sleeping rough by 1980. He lived to tell the tale and many more like it.

While Rick takes his music and creativity very seriously, he views his life as material for a sitcom. This unmissable memoir is the story of a musical genius with a taste for adventure, a delightful sense of the absurd and a winning gift for comedy. It’s the book Rick has always wanted to write and the sole unsurprising thing about it is that it’s a hell of a read.

As mentioned above, if you have a fan of Wakeman and Prog Rock on your holiday shopping list, you can’t go wrong by getting them this book from the UK, months before it’s published over here.

This week’s art is a moderately-sized acrylic piece on illustration board.  It’s inspired by my memories of the view from The Amtrak Cardinal near Washington DC on our way to New York last month.

This is from memory, but I did use parts of a couple of photos of the bridge for reference. Everything else is strictly my memory, filtered somewhat through the last few years of me trying to emulate the work of Edward Hopper.

If you want to see this image larger click HERE.

Meanwhile, over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR,  we bring you a recent episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM we bring you a special episode of Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis. What makes it special is that, even though it’s an encore, it ties into today’s first pick in The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page. Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM. You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, and Saturday at 10 AM.

Tonight at 8 PM, tune in for The Comedy Vault. That’s followed by two-hour blocks of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast at 9 PM and 11 PM, and then an overnight assortment of our Haversham Recording Institute programs at 1 AM.

The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide will continue later this morning.

Since we have moved PopCult to an undisclosed location, away from the Charleston Gazette-Mail, I have been trying to go back and clean up broken links, missing graphics, and videos that have been yanked from YouTube. Tonight we bring you another one of those videos, originally posted here in August, 2014.

The thing is, I restored this previously four-and-a-half years ago, but that video has once again disappeared. So we’re hoping that the third time’s the charm, and this time it’ll stick around for a while I’ve gone back and plugged this video into that spot too, but since I’d gone to the trouble, I figured I’d give it an encore, because it’s that good).

Also, this version is six minutes longer, so…YAY!

Enjoy The Jam, Live At Bingley Hall, Birmingham, England from 1982. Go back 44 years, when The Jam were a hot young English band that sprung out of the punk/new wave movement and spearheaded a short-lived Mod revival.  Paul Weller’s pre-Style Council band was one of those great musical entities that never quite managed to cross the Atlantic and find commercial success in the US. That doesn’t take away from the excellence of their R&B inflected, sharp British Pop-punk. 

Also, remember to keep checking PopCult for all our regular features and the continuation of The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide.

Sometimes, as we go in numerical order through all the video editions of Radio Free Charleston,  we come across a show that is just perfectly timed…and it’s perfectly coincidental. This time through, the only shows we’re skipping are our three “lost” episodes, and we blew past those over two years ago. It’s amazing how often, just going through the shows in order, the perfect show will just pop up for this feature.

And sometimes…we’re just off by “this much.”

This is one of those off weeks, as we take you back to October, 2015, for that year’s Halloween show, one full week after Halloween. By now, people are getting decorations and candy at 75% off and the spooky stuff is coming down as the Christmas stuff starts to go up.  Or at least some folks are putting Santa hats on their 12-foot skeletons. So consider this a last gasp of Halloween, until the next Halloween seaston begins…in about seven or eight months.

“Count Rudolf” is your host for Blood Red Shirt which is chock-full-o good Halloween-y stuff. We had music from Hurl Brickbat, The Renfields with Ari Lehman and HARRAH, plus we a plugged Kanawha Player’s production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and showed footage from the prior weekend’s Zombie Walk. We even had a batch of “weird stuff” that revisited the Pentagram Flowerbox cartoon from our first Halloween special.

‘Twas the season…at least it was last week.

Our final pick for the first week of The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide is an online retailer who provides an invaluable service to action figure collectors, especially those working in the 1/6 scale that was used for the original run of GI Joe, Marx’s Best of the West and Captain Action.  I’ve been a happy and loyal customer of Cotswold Collectibles for 35 years, and I’ve been a friend and customer of their current owner, Greg Brown, for more than 30.

We’ve featured Cotswold Collectibles in the Gift Guide in previous years, and they are still the number-one source of all things 1/6 scale in the action figure hobby.  They also have some great offerings in other scales, too.

In the interest of full disclosure: As mentioned above, I’m friends with Greg Brown, who now owns the company. I mean, who wouldn’t be?  Greg’s a great guy and I buy tons of their GI Joe-compatible figures, toys and equipment from him every year.  Mel and I made a visit to Greg’s Hershey Toy and Action Figure Show as part of our anniversary trip back in August. You can see the video HERE.

Cotswold Collectibles carries a great assortment of vintage GI Joe and Action Man items, ranging from the 1960s to the revival toys in the 1990s and beyond, and they also make their own Elite Brigade items that bring back the glory days of The Adventure Team and also veer into the military side of things.

This is pretty much the coolest action figure shopping site on the planet. It’s a clearing house for all things 1/6 scale, but they’ve also branched out into other popular scales of figures, and they have a wide range of items available to fit any budget. This is where you go for replacement body or uniform parts, or newly-created pieces that you can kitbash into something creative and unique.

You’ll find diorama pieces, uniforms, complete dressed figures, vehicles, and anything that you might need to help you get down to the serious business of playing with your toys.

Made in the USA, by Bee Active Toys

They also have an impressive selection of cool items made right here in the USA by a collection of customizers and 3D-printing geniuses. They’ve really beefed up the offerings in this area over the past year.

Cotswold also sells Greg Autore’s inflatable Ghost Tank, which is a great toy with a real cool history behind it.

Recently they added a slew of Lanard’s “Corps” figures in 1/18 and 1/6 scale, and they’ll be offering even more in the future. The “Primal Clash” line, with soliders vs. dinosaurs, is particularly cool-lookinng. You’ll also find a huge assortment of figures that are compatible with the 1/12 scale GI Joe: Classified Line.

Cotswold also sells Adventure Command sets, showing their support for the revived Super Joe line that’s been very popular with PopCult readers.

If you want to find high-quality photos of their most recent offerings, check out their website and their Facebook Page.

Over the years Cotswold Collectibles has also reached out to import terrific new 1/6 scale items from Spain, Brazil and France and they also offer a great selection of products from Dragon Models, Sideshow Toys, Hot Toys, Threezero and many other top 1/6 high-end companies.

If you have a collector of the original 12-inch GI Joe action figure, or a dioramist or action figure fan of any scale on your holiday shopping list, you need to shop at Cotswold Collectibles.

The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide will continue Monday morning.

The first pick today in The 2026 PopCult Gift Guide is a thick collection of hilarious creator-owned comic book work by Evan Dorkin, who’s known primarily for Milk and Cheese (Gone Bad), The Bill and Ted comics and The Eltingville Club. This is the perfect gift for the comic book fan with a sense of humor on your holiday shopping list.  Please note that not all comic book fans have a sense of humor, so make sure that they do before you get this for them, or bad things might result. Here’s my review from last May…

Nerd Inferno: The Essential Evan Dorkin
by Evan Dorkin
Dark Horse Books
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1506753058
$34.99

I have been a fan of cartoonist/writer, Evan Dorkin, for nearly forty years, which is amazing, considering that he doesn’t have the decency to be older than I am. Even more amazing…and something I consider a huge failing on my part, is that I have only mentioned him three times before this in the twenty-plus years of PopCult.

I mean, he checks off all the boxes: He’s a terrific cartoonist with a cult following; He brilliantly lampoons nerd culture; He’s written for Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and Crayon Shin-Chan: On top of all that, when Adult Swim produced a pilot for a series based on his Eltingville Club stories, he got The Aquabats to do the opening and closting themes.

Now, I get the chance to make up for lost time by telling you about this fairly comprehensive collection of his solo works. Nerd Inferno: The Essential Evan Dorkin collects just about every bit of creator-owned work that he’s produced over the last four decades.

It’s almost 650 pages of biting satire, brilliant cartooning, snark, adventure, more snark, hilarity and a touch more snark.

In this thick collection you get nearly every issue of Milk and Cheese (Gone Bad), Dork and The Eltingville Club, along with several stray comic strips done for other magazines over the years.

These mature-readers comics mine the rich pop culture landfill for gut-busting takes on everything from Ska to Punk to Comic Book Stores, Sitcoms, Action Movies and anything else that has happened in the last sixty years or so.

In addition to the adventures of Milk and Cheese, we also get to read about the extremely nerdy adventures of The Eltingville Club, and sitcom antics of The Murder Family plus the arcane wisdom of The Invisible College of Secret Knowledge. Plus there are hundreds of one-page gag strips and other gems.

This is all done with top-flight cartooning and a skill for riffing on pop culture that rivals the best of the MST3K crew.

This book is filled with hilarious takes on things like the surprising fates of Goofy Grape and The Cruchberry Beast, and side references to how Del Shannon almost became a Traveling Wilbury. This is a book that will evoke howls of recognition with its rich tapestry of all things nerdy, along with some very dark humor, biting satire and pure silliness.

Let me quote the publisher’s blurb:

Collecting the Milk and Cheese, Eltingville Club, and Dork by Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz award-winning comics creator Evan Dorkin. Collected for the first time in an affordable omnibus edition.

The entire Eltingville Club saga. Every Milk and Cheese comic. All the fun strips, gag panels and stories from Dork.

The entire shebang is now available in one big-ass Omnibus edition, a staggering display of satire, silliness, and stupidity featuring all the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz award-winning humor comics by semi-esteemed and somewhat-beloved cartoonist Evan Dorkin. It’s going to sell out and you will cry if you don’t get a copy, so get to it, kids (This message was approved by Evan’s therapist).

Nerd Inferno is an epic collection of Dorkin’s best solo works, and it belongs in every home, even those where the people inside won’t read it. It’s really thick and heavy and has many uses beyond simply containing hysterical comic strips.

I also need to mention the contributions of Sarah Dyer, Dorkin’s wife, colorist and sometime collaborator, and also a great cartoonist in her own right. Hopefully we get an omnibus of her work soon.

You can find Nerd Inferno: The Essential Evan Dorkin at particularly hip comic book stores and booksellers, or you can have any bookseller order it, using the ISBN code…or take the lazy way out and get it from Amazon, who finally have offered it at a nice discount. It is a wonderful gift IF the comic book fan on your gift list is capable of laughing at themself.