Although I’ve been called a pop-culturist by the media in their review of my work, in my alter ego I think of myself as a dedicated, fourteen-year veteran of the West Coast publishing industry, specializing in the development and editing of popular culture, biography, American history, and film and TV tie-in titles. I’ve edited (with the help of many fine comics folks, including Back Issue editor Michael Eury) Visible Ink Press’s best-selling Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic-Book Icons and Hollywood Heroes (2004—one of SCOOP's Top 10 picks for books about comics in 2005) and its follow-up title The Supervillain Book: The Evil Side of Comics and Hollywood (2006), both available at better bookstores and online at www.amazon.com. The production of those books allowed me to become entrenched in the comics community—moderating panels for the Comics Arts Conference at the San Diego Comic Con, connecting with fans at signings nationwide, and debating the finer points of hero worship and villainy with friends and family.

I began my serious study of the hero archetype during my tenure at Warner Bros. Studios, where I production-managed and edited books based on best-selling Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, and Cartoon Network properties, including Scooby-Doo, Dexter’s Lab, the Looney Tunes, Animaniacs, Mars Attacks!, Babylon 5, Friends, and ER. I’ve authored and/or edited several dozen pop-culture trade titles, including Imagine: The Spirit of Twentieth-Century American Heroes (New World Library, 1999) and Space Jammin’: Bugs and Michael Hit the Big Screen (Rutledge Hill Press, 1997). I am currently editing a two-volume encyclopedia on American counterculture movements, scheduled for publication in Spring 2008.