Personal Essays / Op-Eds
“Give Me a Sign,” Medium, September 19th, 2019
“I’m a Meme Now (and So Are You)” Medium, August 15th, 2019
“Dear Gun Rights Advocates: Congratulations!” Medium, August 7th, 2019
“The Magic of Wednesday Night Beers,” Medium, July 24th, 2019
“I Do Drugs,” Medium, July 17th, 2019
“How Science Fiction Made Me Liberal,” Medium, July 1st, 2019
“Here’s How the Government Will Sell Us the Iran War,” Medium, June 14th, 2019
“What Would Your Teenaged Self Think of You?” Medium, June 3rd, 2019
“Seeing Red: The Peculiar Evolution of Onscreen Violence and Death,” Fangoria, Vol. 2, #4 (40th anniversary issue), June 2019. (print only)
“Just When You Think You’re Past Heartbreak,” Medium, May 22nd, 2019
“Power? No Thanks, I’m Good,” New York Times, May 21st, 2019
“Life is What Happens In Between,” Medium, May 15th, 2019
“When Did We Stop Aspiring to Eternity?” Medium, April 19th, 2019
“Why We Spend Our Brief Lives Alone, Indoors, and Typing,” Medium, April 15th, 2019
“Why They Will Hate Us in the Future,” Medium, January 24 2019
“American Solstice,” self-published, January 2019
“Persistence of Vision,” Johns Hopkins Magazine, Spring 2018
“Go Ahead, Millennials, Destroy Us,” New York Times, March 2, 2018
“Just for Tonight, Pretend You Don’t Know Me, OK?” [just another reminder: I do not get to write these titles] Modern Love column, New York Times, February 9, 2018
“Earthlings Unite: Let’s Go to Mars,” New York Times, December 16, 2017
“I Used to Be a Cartoonist. Here’s What You Should Know About Satirizing Political Assassinations” [far and away the worst title one of my essays has ever been published under] The Week, June 21, 2017
“Bad Fascist,” The Week, October 23, 2017
“The Wisdom of Don Rickles,” New York Times, April 7, 2017
“I Love America; It’s Americans I Hate,” The Week, January 9, 2017
“Letter to My Fellow White People,” The Week, April 22, 2016
“Speak, Memory,” AARP Magazine, Feb/March 2016
“Why I’m Weirdly Cheered by the 2016 Primaries,” The Week, January 21, 2016
“The Realm of Mystery,” [I refuse to print their title] New York Times Magazine, September 2016
“The Repugnance of Moral Scolds,” The Week, August 31, 2015
“The Summer That Never Was,” New York Times, August 29, 2015
“My Own Private Baltimore,” New York Times, July 4, 2015
“The Man and Me,“ The Week, January 14, 2015
“When Art Is Dangerous,” New York Times Sunday Review, January 11, 2015
“On Smushing,” New York Times, November 15, 2014
“Is Monogamy Insane?” Men’s Journal, November 2014
“A Rock Opera Interrupted,” Baltimore Sun, September 19, 2014
“Death of Our Clown,” al Jazeera, August 17, 2014
“A Man and His Cat,” New York Times Sunday Review, August 1, 2014
“Controlling the Narrative,” New York Times, June 9, 2014
“There Is No Catastrophe So Ghastly That America Will Reform its Gun Laws,” The Week, May 29, 2014
“The Feast of Pain,” New York Times, April 27, 2014
“Oh! What a Lovely War That Wasn’t,” Al Jazeera, March 5, 2014
“Our Greatest Political Novelist?” newyorker.com, December 12, 2013
“The Black Friday Blues” [I don’t write these titles myself, by the way], Al Jazeera, November 28, 2013
“Slaves of the Internet, Unite!” New York Times, October 27, 2013
“What is the Difference Between Spree Killers and Terrorists?” Al Jazeera, September 11, 2013
“I Know What You Think of Me,” New York Times, June 15, 2013
“Are We Not Men?” Men’s Journal, June 2013
“Up in the Air” (99¢ download, available on this site)
“The Power of ‘I Don’t Know,’” New York Times “Draft” blog, April 29, 2013
“In Defense of Rural,” Modern Farmer Magazine, April 12, 2013
“You Are Going to Die,” New York Times “Anxiety” blog, January 20, 2013
“The Quiet Ones,” New York Times Sunday Review, November 17, 2012
“9/11: War on Fear,” Huffington Post, September 11, 2012
“Freedom to Fear: Is the Gun Industry Selling a Fantasy?” Huffngton Post, August 2, 2012
The Busy Trap” New York Times “Anxiety” blog, July 1, 2012
“Uncle Ray’s Dystopia” New York Times, June 8, 2012
“Like the Video? I Wrote the Book” New York Times Sunday Review, May 19, 2012
“Cycle of Fear” New York Times, “Anxiety” blog, May 7, 2012
“Recipe for Heartbreak” New York Times Sunday Review, March 31, 2012
“In Praise of Not Knowing,” New York Times, June 18, 2011
“Getting Offline” nerve.com, May 13, 2011
“Welcome” nerve.com, July 1st 2010
“Seeing Is Believing” nerve.com, May 28th, 2010
“The Referendum” New York Times, “Happy Days” blog, September 17, 2009
“Views of a Day” New York Times, September 11, 2009
“Averted Vision” New York Times “Happy Days” blog, August 2, 2009
“Isn’t It Outrageous?” New York Times “Happy Days” blog, July 14, 2009
“Reprieve” New York Times “Happy Days” blog, June 2, 2009
“Time and the Bottle” New York Times “Proof” blog, March 31, 2009
“I [Heart] Pluto” New York Times, August 23, 2006
“Autumn in New York: Post-9/11 Manhattan Shines in a Different Light” Baltimore City Paper, September 11, 2002.
On Books
“Our Greatest Political Novelist?” The New Yorker‘s “Page-Turner” blog, December 12, 2013.
“The Greatest American Novel You’ve Never Heard Of,” The New Yorker‘s “Page-Turner” blog, October 21, 2013
“The Decline and Fall of the Book Cover,” The New Yorker‘s “Page-Turner” blog, July 16, 2013
“David Foster Wallace: 1962-2008” Baltimore City Paper, 2008 Big Books Issue
“When Books Could Change Your Life” Baltimore City Paper, 2008 Big Books Issue
“The Frightener: William Sloane’s Two Novels Cut Right Through Genre and Burrow Into a Dark, Uncanny Unknown,” Baltimore City Paper, 2007 Big Books Issue
“Unspeakable: Exploring the Work of Splatterspunk Author Ed Lee” Baltimore City Paper, 2006 Big Books Issue
On Film
“But Who Is the Dreamer? Twin Peaks: The Return,” Politics/Letters #12, May 28, 2018
“The End of Everything: Take Shelter, Meek’s Cutoff, and The Horse of Turin,” Jump Cut, issue 55, Fall 2013.
“The Goblin’s Dilemma: A Simple Plan and Spider-Man”(with Boyd White) Jump Cut,
“A.I.” Film Quarterly, December 2002
“O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (with Rob Content and Boyd White) Film Quarterly, Fall 2001
“The Straight Story”(with Rob Content) Film Quarterly, Fall 2000
“Introducing Sociology: Eyes Wide Shut” Film Quarterly, Spring 2000
On Comics
“Wages of Love: Chester Brown’s True Romance Comix” (excerpt) The Comics Journal #302, February 2013
“Irredeemable: Dave Sim’s Cerebus” (excerpt) The Comics Journal #301, June 2011
“What Is to Be Done?” thecomicsjournal.com, April 8, 2011
“Pym & Francie: The Golden Bear Days,” thecomicsjournal.com
“Brighter in Hindsight: Black Humor, by Charles R Johnson,” thecomicsjournal.com
“Bill Mauldin and Willie and Joe,” The Comics Journal #296,February 2009
“The Black Dossier,” thecomicsjournal.com
“Lost Girls,” Baltimore City Paper, 2007 Comics Issue
“Lulu Eightball” thecomicsjournal.com
“Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man” thecomicsjournal.com
“The Trouble With Girls: Playboy Cartoons Sell, Don’t Shock” Baltimore City Paper, 2006 Comics Issue
“You Could Give a Shit About Comics” Baltimore City Paper, 2007 Comics Issue
“Throwing the Book at Cartoonists” from The Education of a Comics Artist, Allworth Press, 2005
“That’s Not Funny: Rage, Laughter, and Political Cartoons After 9/11” The Comics Journal #250, February 2003
“Deeper Meanings: Another Look at B. Kliban” The Comics Journal Special Edition, Summer 2002