Plugging the Poll


Uncle Sam chastising a man for literally throwing away his vote / 'Your vote counts just as much as much as any other American's! One to a customer! That's how democracy works'

I know that 2025 is an “off year” in terms of national races — U.S. Representative, Senator, President — but there are still general elections next Tuesday. Not just that newsy mayoral one and the couple of gubernatorial contests, either.

Double Billy


Mere weeks after rewatching 1941’s The Adventures of Captain Marvel as part
of the personal film festival I’d assembled for my 50th birthday, which I’ve neglected to dig into here for literal ages now, I was surprised and delighted to see its Billy Batson pop up on a 1974 episode of Shazam!

Frank Coghlan Jr. in golf cart talking to Les Tremayne as Mentor and Michael Gray as Billy Batson on zoo grounds in 1974 Shazam! episode

The CBS show was a staple of Saturday mornings during my childhood, as I noted in April of this year (and long before that). I’m hoping to write about the Republic serial at greater length the near future, but I first checked it out in high school — on a set of VHS tapes from West Coast Video — having read praise for it in Comics Buyer’s Guide; on both viewings, it lived up to its reputation as one of the finest of its kind. Even if Frank Coghlan Jr.’s Billy and Tom Tyler’s Captain Marvel don’t perfectly mirror their comic-book inspiration any more than do their Filmation counterparts — the serial gives us sparks and smoke in place of magic lightning, although it does have the ancient wizard himself rather than six Immortal Elders — we get some genuinely thrilling superheroics for the era.

55 Favorites: #19


I AM SHELBY LYNNE handwritten over photo of the artist for album cover

The record that won its namesake 2001’s Grammy for Best New Artist, I Am Shelby Lynne wasn’t actually her first album but her sixth.