One of the greatest and most addicting things about working on the internet or running a blog is how immediately you can get tons of feedback. Programs like Google Analytics and WordPress Stats track all sorts of little things having to do with your site: From how many hits it’s getting and who’s linking your site to where in the world your visitors are coming from and which posts the interweb public seems most interested in. Once you start poring over the numbers and stats, it can easily become a massive fascination—even for folks like myself who aren’t really math-inclined. Continue Reading “Silly Search Engine Terms Jamboree!”→
Working atWizardgives me access to way more comics than I should be reading each week. Though I guess it is my job, so I really should be reading tons of comics, shouldn’t I?! Either way, I cannot really say no to a huge stack of books each week—especially the kind you can read for free. When it comes to actually purchasing books, I am much more discerning, but when I can flip through a stack of books and read whatever I want, I’ll pretty much give anything and everything a shot.
Most weeks, I read somewhere between 15 to 30 new comics. With Wizard‘s online reviews on hiatus, and me not really able to write full reviews of each book anyway due to time considerations, I thought I’d start a little section here that’ll essentially be “Two line comic book reviews.” Basically, I’ll just weigh in quickly on each issue I read, as often as I can. These reviews are by no means super detailed and are very much quantity over in-depth quality, so here’s your first hors d’oeuvres platter of quickie comic reviews from EnemyOfPeanuts.com. (The following are in random order, because I can’t be bothered by the alphabet today.) Continue Reading “The quickest hits, aka “Two Line Comic Book Reviews!””→
The above is a quote that adorns the packaging of the brew from the Flying Dog Brewery—one of my favorites in the States—and a statement I hope is true in my case.
Like many people who value their own opinions enough to plaster them all over the internet, I fancy myself a bit of a connoisseur—be it comics, movies, literature or TV, I generally like to think I have a discerning taste and approach my passion for my hobbies that way. This approach includes my passion for beers. Continue Reading “Enemy of peanuts; lover of beer.”→
Apparently, peanuts are just as vital to man as bread and water...whatta world!
I recently spied this aisle display at a Duane Reade pharmacy on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Yet another warning for any and all enemies of peanuts, it seems the death-nut is now equally as important as bread and water. With aisle arrangements putting my personal kryptonite on par with two essential edibles, it seems only too clear that my nemesis has gained more ground than even I’d like to admit. Time to get this webcomic going and start taking a modicum of revenge against the peanut-beast! Stay tuned, brothers in arms against the legume menace! Stay tuned!
While living in a peanut-filled world, it’s necessary for the legume-intolerant to travel through life with their guard constantly up. After 24 long years on this planet—a world infested with enemy food stuffs around every corner—it’s a lesson I should never forget to heed as I preach it on the interwebs. Sadly, I was duped into dropping my guard this weekend by a little restaurant called Golden China. With their advertised aversion to MSG and a promise their food is cooked in nothing but 100 percent pure vegetable oil, I felt safer than I normally do when venturing into the domain of Asian entrees—it seemed they understood the benefit of proper food preparation. My sesame chicken was flawless, arranged nicely in its take-out container so I could plainly see it hadn’t been infected with legumes. And I grew even more comforted.
Even more vulnerable.
And so, Golden China got the last laugh.
After comforting me with their careful cooking promises and a well-displayed dinner, I felt no qualms about partaking in some eggroll (free with the coupon they supplied me in their take-out menu). Inspection of the eggroll led me to believe it was filled with nothing but cabbage. Alas, it was filled with more deadly fare! After two quick bites, I knew something was amiss. Be it a hidden peanut in the roll or a tainted instrument used in its preparation, the appetizer packed a wallop that landed me in the emergency room.
An iPhone picture made comical warning by my girlfriend Jessi as antihistamines led me to hospital bed dozing.
The moral of this story: Stay vigilant. Or, never trust an eggroll—who knows what it hides inside under its friendly fried exterior?!
While sorting through a bunch of papers—searching for receipts and other tax nonsense after my recent move to New Jersey—I came across a Valentine I received from my lovely girlfriend Jessi.
I’d say this is easily the best greeting card I have ever received, because the premise is so ludicrous, but then I looked closer and remembered the stunning (and possibly prognosticatory) addition made by Jessi back in February (almost a month before this blog’s historic launch).
Note the third enemy: Peanuts!
Further verification that my sworn enmity against legumes predates this blog, as well as verification I have a really swell girl!
Maybe my favorite cover ever (seriously!), this piece by Gabriele Dell’Otto kicked off issue #4 (of 6) from Keith Giffen’s masterful Marvel cosmic extravaganza Annihilation. A truly epic “David vs. Goliath” image (in this case Drax vs. Thanos), it also actually teases the issue’s events, a rarity in modern comics. Feast your peepers on this puppy…
Recently, I signed up for Google’s Adsense service and the results of what ads are popping up on my site have been as hilarious as I expected. You see, Adsense scopes out your site’s content and frequently used words to decide which ads to place (when I don’t mess with any of the settings). Now, my site is Enemy of Peanuts (preaching death to the legume menace through blogging, natch!) but Adsense just sees “peanut” a bunch and makes a majority of my ads about the devil-nut and where you can buy it (and oddly enough, about Rachel Ray’s weight loss—could she be an agent of the enemy?!).
So, while I expected this might happen, the irony of this glaring contradiction on the site hopefully brings a chuckle to each and every one of you loyal readers and any interweb passersby that end up at EoP!
(To Google’s defense—I do so love them!—Adsense does pop up some stuff about Charles Schulz’s Peanuts and allergy awareness, so good on them!)
As a guy who reads a butt-ton of comics, it’s pretty hard not to come up with an idea or two for some of my own panel-by-panel storytelling—Enemy Of Peanuts: The Webcomic is one such idea. EoP came to me as the name for a strip I could do based on a few ideas that had been kicked around by some close friends and myself back in college (former roommate Matt Misch and good buddy Frank Johnson stand out as people I recall discussing the idea with, though there are assuredly many more). Essentially, the story would be based loosely on me but more so on my allergy (peanuts! legumes!), and the original idea was almost entirely me fighting Mr. Peanut…constantly. The idea has evolved quite a bit since then (including the creation of the Enemy of Peanuts, who—though fictional—is twittering away already), as it had a comic appeal I couldn’t quite pass up, and I’ve now started laying down some of the over-arching plot outlines, fight scenes and such. It should be a lot of fun, so stay tuned.
As far as the art goes, I’m well aware that I am not an artist (I’d say “amateur cartoonist” at best), but years of doodling comics and characters in notepad margins shouldn’t go to waste! So, here, I am going to be tackling art duties on the strip…for now. In a perfect world, some amazing unknown artistic talent (Holy Shit! It could be you!) will stumble across my “strips” (read: storyboards) and offer his skills to make this hobby into a real cinematic adventure. Or, with luck, practice will make perfect and I’ll get kinda good. Who knows?!
That said, I’d love to get some feedback on the photoshop aid I’m using for the time being. The promo images above are all the same save a photoshop effect making them look, hopefully, better. I’d be insanely appreciative of anyone who’ll leave some comments about which effects you like better and which image-style has or would have you most excited to read the EoP’s adventures every week (or whatever the posting schedule ends up being for the strip).
That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by and checking the early stages of Enemy Of Peanuts: The Webcomic out, and please, leave a little feedback
Why is Easter so great? As this post’s title may have given away, it isn’t the bunnies but the edible decorations that made my Easter this year!
After coloring a dozen eggs with my lovely girlfriend Jessi on Saturday, I got a chance to utilize my mad deli skills making a little egg salad for some—as I’ve dubbed them—Easter Egg Salad Sammiches!
The delicious final product alongside suggested bread.
(For the record, I did work in a deli one summer back in college, and at a sandwich joint for about a year and a half after that where we made all the chicken, tuna and seafood salad in house.)
I’m a big fan of mayo-based mushes used to make sandwiches, so egg salad is always high on my list of lunch options. That said, I’ve tasted my fair share and can safely say that the concoction I free-styled in the kitchen today may have been the best egg salad I’ve ever had. Tooting my own horn? A bit. But seriously, this egg salad was darn good—so good, I’ve decided to share the recipe here…
You’ll need:
-Roughly 12 hard boiled eggs
-4 heaping spoonfuls of Miracle Whip Lite
-A small squirt of creamy horseradish
-3 large spoonfuls of lemon juice
-A few generous dashes of salt and pepper (maybe a tsp and a half for recipe sticklers)
-Twice that dash-age of paprika (maybe a tbsp, when all is said and done)
-A generous portion of cilantro (1/2 cup, methinks)
-Some diced onions, red peppers and green peppers—about a 1/2 to 2/3 cup—leftover from nachos the nite before (Note: diced veggies don’t NEED to be from nacho nite, but I’d recommend it…at least for the nachos)
Now, to prepare, chop those eggs up and put them in a large-ish bowl with the diced veggies and cilantro. Dash about 1/4 of your paprika on top of them.
In another, smaller bowl, mix the Miracle Whip lemon juice, salt, pepper and paprika together.
Combine the contents of the two bowls!
Mix until the egg bowl’s contents are generously coated in the Mayo bowl’s contents.
Then, serve on some delicious, toasted (in a toaster) marble rye and enjoy!
If you use this rad recipe, make sure props are given to Jim Gibbons and those who partake in your egg-cellent meal are sent to www.EnemyOfPeanuts.com straightaway!
