Podcastery

This week, I posted Episode 668 of my Virtual Memories Show, featuring our year-end tradition, now celebrating its thirteenth anniversary: The Guest List! I reached out to 2025’s pod-guests and asked them about the favorite book(s) they read in the past year, as well as the books or authors they’re hoping to read in 2026! Twenty-six guests responded with wonderful, idiosyncratic, and illuminating book recommendations: Jonathan Ames, Kayla E., Dan Goldman, Dean Haspiel, Jennifer Hayden, Rian Hughes, Paul Karasik, Glenn Kurtz, David Leopold, Seth Lorinczi, Sacha Mardou, Kate Maruyama, Whitney Matheson, Josh Neufeld, Lance Richardson, Ari Richter, ML Rio, Dmitry Samarov, Jonathan Sandler, Damion Searls, David Shields, Peter Stothard, Tom Tomorrow, Peter Trachtenberg, Cecile Wajsbrot, and Mia Wolff (and I chimed in, told some stories, and made some 2026 aspirations, too)! This great episode of The Virtual Memories Show offers up a huge list of books that you’re going to want to read in the new year, so give it a listen!

And, if you’re interested, here’s every book (non-comics) that I’ve finished since 1989.

Last week I posted Episode 667, closing out 2025’s conversations with graphic memoirist and comics journalist Jonathan Sandler! We talked about his childhood secret origin in comics, the comics course in 2017 that brought him back to the form, the process of turning his grandfather’s WWII memoir into a comic, THE ENGLISH GI (with art by Brian Bicknell), and how he really became a comics aficionado after publishing his first graphic novel. We got into how he started the Graphic Memoir blog and began reviewing comics, interviewing cartoonists, visiting exhibitions, and spreading the comics gospel, and why this very podcast has provided him with a ton of inspiration. We also discussed what he’s learned from and about interviewing, why he’s started drawing his own comics, what the late Tom Spurgeon meant to me and everyone else he met, why the most difficult thing about making comics is choosing what to put in the panels, and more. Give it a listen! And go read THE ENGLISH GI and subscribe to Graphic Memoir

Recent episodes: Morten Høi Jensen • Prue Shaw • Glenn Kurtz • Jennifer Hayden • Rian Hughes • Josh Neufeld • Dean Haspiel & Whitney Matheson

Pink and Blue Just Like A Child

Happy Christmas to all who celebrate the holiday. I was hoping to have a little Christmastime for the Jews this year, but Amy hasn’t been feeling well and canceled her visit home, so no Chinese food and trip to the movies for me.

I hope it’s a good, drama-free holiday for you. (I’ll try to get in some NBA games and do some writing.‌)

Remember, friend: that missing jigsaw-puzzle piece is probably just on the floor, figuratively speaking.

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This email setup runs $29/month, podcast-hosting is $25/month, and the remote recording setup is $20/month, so if you want to help out with these expenses or otherwise Contribute To The Cause, you can support the Virtual Memories Show with a one-time contribution of any size via Stripe, or a recurring one via Patreon.

Instaxery

Birdy was on the landing while I was downstairs, so I carefully grabbed the Instax camera to take this one. Maybe the print of it will be the super-high-tier reward for my Kickstarter next year.

Artistry

Started sketching again a little, need to get back to it more, then scan stuff for here. You should go to the Flickr album of most of the art I’ve made & find something you like.

Postcardery

Let me know if you want to be on my postcard-a-day list. (Financial supporters of the podcast get a hand-drawn or painted postcard as a thank-you.)

Until Next Time

Thanks for reading this far. I’ll be back on Sunday with links, books, & workout-/meditation-craziness, and on Wednesday with a year-end monologue episode; we’ll see about art and a new Instax.

Well, the two men took to fighting / And when they pulled them from the floor / Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone,