Showing Tag: " tv & film" (Show all posts)

STEPPING INTO THE SUPER FRAY

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, June 13, 2013, In : Opinion 


(Christopher Reeve... now THAT'S Superman!)


For much of this week I have been watching and participating in an going debate on Variety's website regarding the validity of Chief Film Critic Scott Foundas' review of the new Superman movie Man Of Steel. For those of you who haven't read it Scott didn't give Man Of Steel the most glowing of reviews, stating that its "humorless tone and relentless noisy aesthetics drag down this heavily hyped, brilliantly marketed tentpole attraction."


You could t...


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NOSTALGIC CHILLS AND THRILLS

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, October 26, 2012, In : Pop Culture 
(Above is my attempt via Photoshop to recreate one of the TV  Guide ads that ran for WGN-TV's "Creature Features" movie program back in the 1970s.)


 

It was the Autumn of 1970. There is no earthly reason why I should remember it so clearly today, seeing as how I was all of 8 years old at the time and I sometimes seem to have trouble these days recalling things that happened just a few minutes ago. But for me that era burns bright in my memory like some eternal sunny summer day, a warm shelter o...


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I'D LIKE TO LIVE IN MAYBERRY, TOO...

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, July 12, 2012, In : Pop Culture 

One of our current county commissioners here where I live has a favorite expression that he voices whenever the discussion turns to the differences between the way things are done now and the way they were done in days gone by:  “We’re not in Mayberry anymore.”


I understand what the gentleman means when he says this, but each time I hear it I find myself fighting back the urge to respond: “We never were living in Mayberry! Mayberry doesn't exist. It’s an entry in the Atlas of Make-...


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NOW HERE'S A WILD IDEA...

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, October 6, 2011, In : Unbridled Silliness 

Having recently shared a few of my silly ideas for fantasy book covers, movie posters, etc., thought I'd continue in that vein by offering this fake TV show ad I made a few years back. A friend of mine had raised the question of what it might have been like if the characters from MASH had been part of a starship crew instead of an Army hospital. I ran with the idea and had some fun, creating not only this ad but even a fake episode guide for this "fantasy series." I've still got the episode g...
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More Dream Covers: View-Master Packaging

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, September 14, 2011, In : Pictures 


This was another experiment in creating my own covers from a few years back: in this case not a book or magazine or comic book cover, but the package art for a fictional Talking View-Master set from the 1970s. (Remember those?) Again, a silly little thing I did on Photoshop but I've still got a soft spot for this sort of thing.

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About Me


John Allen Small John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996). Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.) John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something. In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems. He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.

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