Just about time again, Halloween and Días de Los Muertos. In my novel Smoking Mirror Blues , I suggested that these holidays from both side...

Wow! That sure looks like voodoo from the Yoruban homeland of Nigeria, doesn’t it? Well, actually, you should probably look again. The “v...

La Llorona has done better than El Cucuy. She pops up connected to pop music, films, literature, and my wife’s blog . For the ghost of a w...

I was worried about El Cucuy (and I don’t mean the morning disk jockey ). Here we are in the Third Millennium, with the Internet and all ki...

I never thought much about gnomes, the little men in pointed hats that are used to decorate tacky gardens and who star in TV commercials. I...

It was the cover of Victor LaValle’s Big Machine that caught my eye. Automatic pistols, cats, ghostly black people, and an array of objects...

Our bookstores are dying. Not just the big box chains, the independents are also in trouble. Bookstores have always been a risky business. ...

Mexican comic books are a lost world. They tend to be consumed and not collected. Often they are found with pages ripped out, on the bathroo...

One of the great tragedies of our age is that our superheroes are owned by TimeWarner and, now, Disney. Representatives of DC and Marvel so...

In her last blog , my wife quotes the notes I jotted on our 2008 roadtrip. She also shows some of the drawings I did in my sketchbook. This...