I CANNOT LOOK AWAY

agentmlovestacos:

THIS AMUSES ME

(Source: redsuspenders)

(my little homage to this)

“Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray is about as odd a soda as you’ll see in the United States. Celery flavored soda? Well, as weird as this flavor may sound, we Americans are milquetoast when it comes to bizarre sodas. Foreigners—in addition to eating weird foods like prawn cocktail potato “crisps” and monkey hearts—love chugging fizzy beverages that taste like everything from garlic to eel and even cannabis.”

For what it’s worth, Mrs SodaBlog loves Manzanita Sol. Personally, I’d rather drink apple juice. I’ve already made my position clear on Cel-Ray…but Cannabis Tea? Swiss people: hook a brother up.

This Fall, the good people at NBM Publishing have decided to band together my original graphic novels, BROWNSVILLE (with Jake Allen) and THE BIG KAHN (with Nicolas Cinquegrani), and offer them for a combined low price of $25 under the name “Jewish in America” (the name wasn’t exactly my choice…). While you’re waiting for my next original graphic novel, AMERICAN CAESAR, here’s a great deal to discover (or rediscover) two books into which I really poured my heart and soul — BROWNSVILLE is a book about my passion and fascination for true crime/mob history, and KAHN is a book about my personal crisis of faith and questions about family and religion. If you haven’t read the books yet, or if you were waiting for a chance to own them or gift them to a friend (or enemy) at a reduced price…well, here it is.

Slightly edited from the solicitation:
JEWISH IN AMERICA: A SET OF GRAPHIC NOVELS BY NEIL KLEID
ART BY JAKE ALLEN AND NICOLAS CINQUEGRANI
Rising star and award-winning comics writer Neil Kleid explores two aspects of being Jewish in America in this banded set of his two highly praised graphic novels: Brownsville and The Big Kahn.
Specially priced!
6x9, 390pp., banded set of two B&W trade pbs., $24.99, ISBN 9781561637003 

ABOUT THE BOOKS:

BROWNSVILLE
In the 1930’s, life in Brooklyn was murder. Follow the intertwined lives of Jewish gangsters Allie Tanennbaum, Abe Reles and scores of hoods organized by Louis Lepke Buchalter into the deadliest hit operation in Mafia history, “Murder, Inc.”, as they escape the mean streets and lonely tenements of East New York., make themselves into the most dangerous men in America, only to eventually send their best friends and closest allies up the river.

THE BIG KAHN
Rabbi David Kahn has lived a forty-year lie: he is not, nor has he ever been, Jewish. When at his funeral, the rabbi s grifter brother reveals the truth, it forces the Kahn family to struggle with grief and betrayal as their congregation examines their every move and question their very faith. A sequential drama about loss, lies, belief and renewal, this dramatic graphic explores a family secret so well-hidden, even the family didn’t know about it until it was too late.
Also available for digital download on Comixology.

Thanks for having a look and supporting my work.

- Neil

So, yeah—here’s a perk of my job. This year I’m one of ten Topps employees featured in the 2012 Allen & GInter’s commemorative set along with folks like Justin Verlander, Kate Upton, Michael Buffer, Meadowlark Lemon and more. There are 10 autographed Kleid cards and 10 relic cards scattered through the set—the relic cards include cut-up pieces of my first book, NINETY CANDLES, and are not autographed. Allen & Ginter’s ‘12 streets in July, so check your hobby shop and eBay for a chance to get your very own Neil Kleid baseball card!

toppsbunt:

So we updated Topps BUNT for you, and me, since I wouldn’t stop complaining until we added custom leaderboards and some other features. Welcome, version 1.02.

Leave behind 1.01 like I left Jackson for the big city, and never go back.

We’ve got great stuff for you - seriously, I’m not…

(Source: bunt.topps.com)

So, I’m a big MAD MEN fan. Like, kids could be crying and I don’t care because it’s 10pm on Sunday night kind of fan. I watch it religiously, and though I’m fascinated by the relationships and cultural divides, I honestly dig the moments that center around work inside the halls of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Even more so when said client Don Draper and team are pitching happens to be a purveyor of fine soft drinks like the good people at Pepsico who make Mountain Dew, one of my five favorite food groups. I truly dig on the Dew, and was thrilled to find that there’s a cocktail involving Dew and vodka—an “emergency,” really, according to SCDP’s Peggy Olson, as a cocktail requires three ingredients—”invented” by now-canned…ah, redundant artist, Joey Baird:

Mountain Dew, of course, hasn’t been the only soft drink pitched by SCDP—in season three, outed art director Sal Romano directed a commercial for Patio Cola that took it’s cues from Ann Margret’s title song in the film Bye Bye Birdie. Despite my ignorance, it turns out that Pepsi did create a drink named Patio in 1963— a sugar free cola targeted to diabetics until Pepsi found a better target: women, hoping they’d buy the drink in order to stay trim.

Patio was created in response to Diet Rite, one of the first diet drinks, in flavors of orange, grape and root beer. in 1964, Pepsi rebranded the cola with a more company-conscious name—Diet Pepsi—and discontinued all non-cola flavors by the ’70s.

“The manager confronted Abaire and asked him to pay for the $1 soda. Abaire apparently refused. He then reportedly cursed at the manager and refused to leave when asked to do so, according to the Naples News, which reviewed the arrest report.

Abaire, who is unemployed, has a history of minor petty theft convictions. That history led law enforcement officers to ratchet the case up from a misdemeanor to a felony.

And in tough-on-crime Florida, this category of felonies carries a prison sentence of up to five years along with a $5,000 fine. The suspect faces additional charges of trespassing and disorderly intoxication.”

— from The L.A. Times

AND WE’RE BACK.

Having neglected this tumblog for far too long due to life’s little obstacles, I’m determined to begin posting about all things soft drink once again. I’ll have a proper post up here today or tomorrow, but in the meantime check out this video that appeared on Chowhound about John Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, which the article calls “the ultimate soda-lover’s destination. About 500 pops line the shelves, sourced lovingly by John from around the world…his mission to keep small soda-makers afloat and help them find their consumers.”  Well, John, after checking out the site and seeing you have original glass-bottled Faygo Rock N’ Rye, you’ve found a consumer in me.

Great little science experiment here to dazzle and delight your friends and neighbors, teaching you how to toss a can of soda in the air, tap it several times and open it without losing carbonation or your shirt.

Although, it’s interesting to note that it doesn’t work on diet sodas—my primary drinks of choice—because “…some scientists speculate that diet sodas contain more carbon dioxide gas while others believe that there is a unique interaction that goes on between the artificial sweetener, the preservatives, and the carbonated water. No one fully understands the reason. So, if you choose to shake up a can of diet soda… well, you’re on your own.”

ON YOUR OWN INDEED.

There’s a video and everything.

I know I haven’t been posting much, but we’re gonna change all that in 2012. SodaBlog Rides Again! In the meantime, enjoy your holidays!

The first page of DINERTOWN, a Zuda submission that URSA MINORS artist Fernando Pinto and I were toying with before the site went down.

Here’s a later page. Yep—REAL STEEL done the right way.