People have been going on for years about how Alec Guinness hated Star Wars. 

He didn’t, not really. What he hated was that so many filmgoers who loved his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi seemed to know him only for that role and were unfamiliar with the long, lengthy career he had enjoyed prior to the 1977 classic.

While Guinness noted in several interviews that he did not really understand the film when it was in production (in a letter to a friend after getting the role, he described the s...

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As a lifelong fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs (I began reading my father's copies of the Ballantine and Ace ERB editions as a third grader in the early 1970s), I have spent much of that life feeling mixed emotions whenever I encounter new adventures of Burroughs' heroes written by authors other than the master himself. Certainly these return voyages into the ERB realm have been uneven at best. On the one hand we have seen the heights of Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Swords Against the Moon Men a...

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Not long ago I was fortunate enough to receive a free advance copy of a new book that has just been released, and which I feel is worth your attention.

12 New Testament Passages That Changed the World by Joseph Bentz may well be the best book of its kind since Joseph Campbell’s The Power Of Myth. While writing from a deliberately Christian point of view, Bentz - like Campbell - delves into the deeper meaning behind these stories so many of us learned in Sunday school, and ably demonstrates...

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Dear Kraft Foods:

I was ALREADY angry with you. I have been ever since you made the bone-headed decision a few years back to discontinue sales of your classic Chicken Noodle Dinner - a move which I still consider to be a personal insult to me and my family. 

That delicious dinner in the little brown box had been an important staple of mealtime in the Small Household for as far back as I could remember. More than merely an easy-to-make side dish that went with almost everything, it was an im...

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Seventy-five years ago today America got its first taste of the true power of electronic media, courtesy of what is still considered by many to be the single most famous radio broadcast in the history of the medium. 

The date was Oct. 30, 1938. Fans of the pulp hero Doc Savage were thrilling to his latest adventure in the novel Fortress of Solitude. My father was just a month old. And by the end of the night millions of Americans would be tricked into believing that it was the end of the wor...

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Ray Harryhausen: 1920-2013

Every little boy has his heroes. It’s a fact of life. And it is equally true that every little boy grows up dreaming of getting the opportunity to actually meet some of those heroes, and to tell them just how much of an impact they have had upon his life. 

Back in 1925, a boy named Ray went to the theatre and saw a silent film entitled The Lost World, an adaptation of the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel about Professor George Edward Challenger and his expedit...

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I was goofing around on Photoshop last night and put together this tribute to one of my favorite artists. Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) was a Czech-born Art Nouveau painter best known for his many illustrations, advertisements and post card designs; although being best known for his commercial art this was always a source of frustration for Mucha, who once declared that art existed only to communicate a spiritual message. Personally I've always thought that he succeeded in conveying such a messa...
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Lancelot had his Holy Grail; Indiana Jones, his Lost Ark. And, for many years,  I had The Record.

Not just any record, you understand. The object of my quest was an album entitled Somethin’ Else, recorded by The Kingston Trio and released by Decca Records in November of 1965. 

I’ve been a fan of the Kingston Trio since I was a small boy. Between the two of us, my father and I had managed to collect every album that the Kingston Trio ever recorded… except this one. So I spent close to ...

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(Thanks to my old friend Julian Frye for sharing this photo; please note no copyright infringement is intended.)


Since this Saturday (September 1) is the 135th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Rice Burroughs, I thought I'd share this poem I wrote a number of years ago in honor of my favorite storyteller. It's not great but it came from the heart:

IN MEMORIAM: ERB

A Poem By John Allen Small

With simple words on paper

He drew a map that led me

On a pathway to adventure:

From Africa and Hell's ...

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(NOTE: The following tale was originally published as a newspaper column, and later appeared in my 2011 collection "Something In The Air" [available on Amazon.com]. It is being shared here in honor of Lego's 80th Anniversary.)

A buddy of mine stopped by the house a few years back and seemed rather surprised to find me sprawled out on the living room floor playing with my son’s Lego blocks.

Perhaps he might not have been quite as mystified had my three-year-old son been there, playing and ...

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There was a graphic floating around on Facebook the day after the horrific theatre shooting in Aurora, Colo., that read as follows: "84,999,989 firearm owners killed no one yesterday." 

To be fair, the observation was true enough. But my response is one firearm owner DID kill 12 and wounded 57 others that terrible day, and that was one too many as far as I'm concerned...

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Of all the responses to the Aurora incident I've encountered on the Internet these past few days,...

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...On a twin bill with The Marx Brothers in "A Night On Mongo"
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Somebody – it may have been one of my high school English teachers, but I can’t remember at the moment – once told me that a person can’t learn anything valuable from reading science fiction, or from watching it on television or at the movies.

Who says? 

If, indeed, my old college professor Dr. Bill Finger was correct in observing that there are lessons to be learned at every stop we may make along the way in this life, then it stands to reason that popular fiction in general – a...

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Recently – and with as little fanfare as possible, thank you very much – I observed the 49th anniversary of my arrival in this world. I say “observed” rather than “celebrate” because... well, because I’ve reached a point in my life in which the latter term seems ever so slightly less appropriate. At least it does to me. At the moment. If I make it another 10 to 20 years I suspect I’ll go back to celebrating because, let’s face it, making it that far is something a little mor...

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(The Town Cinema theatre, Kankakee, Illinois, June 1977)

As difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, it was 35 years ago this week that a trip to one of the local movie houses where I lived had an unexpectedly profound impact upon my imagination – and, indeed, upon my life.

The movie in question had actually opened in other cities a couple of weeks earlier; between that time and the day it finally arrived at the old Town Cinema theatre in Kankakee. Illinois, I had seen a number of news rep...

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Was going through a box of old papers last night and came across this piece I drew way back in 1988 and had forgotten about. Decided to scan it and share with my friends here. It's admittedly odd, but I hope you like it.

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I'm sorry. I have no real explanation for this one, either...
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Those Archie-related Photoshop pics of mine that I've posted here over the past week made me remember that there are a few earlier pieces in the same vein that I did some years back but to the best of my memory have never shared. Here's one of my favorites. Hope you enjoy it.
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Here's yet a third cover for an imagined comics crossover idea i came with with the other day. Have to be honest with you, though: even I don't know what I was thinking of when this one popped into my head...
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“It is said that wise men are not affected by women.”

“Then there ain’t no wise men in this ‘appy world!”

– Exchange between two of the villain's henchmen in the Doc Savage novel Meteor Menace, originally published march 1934 (Quoted from memory so don't be too rough on me...)

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Every February 15th, the ancient Romans used to take part in a fertility ritual known as the Lupercalia, so named in honor of some obscure rustic diety known as Lupercus.

Much later - som...

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Was going through some old computer discs the other night looking for some old notes for a fiction piece I've been working on when i came across this old picture of my son William I put together in Photoshop a number of years ago. Gee, he was a cute kid at that age...
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I have often been accused of not being in step with the rest of the world when it comes to my preferences, beliefs and outlooks on life. Personally I’ve never much cared about such things, and typically when the accusation has been thrown my way my response is that I’m fine and it’s the rest of the world that is out of synch. 

This test was created to determine if I’m really that far off into my own little world, or if there are more of us out there than the masses would care to beli...

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