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Egg Salad Sandwich Review 4/14/22: Eataly Technically speaking this is not an egg salad sandwich. It is a tuna sandwich, but it’s made the traditional Italian way with a layer of sliced hardboiled eggs over the tuna mixture.  I did not think this would become my lunchtime go-to but it’s easy to get (Eataly has a good grab-and-go station) and, let’s face it, Eataly has very good food throughout. It’s yummy. Mario Battali may be a pig but I’ve never had a bad meal at one of his restaurants.  This sandwich features all natural ingredients and is made on Eataly’s own “rustic” bread, which is addictive. Depending on the time of the sandwich’s assemblage, the bread might be a little dried out, but that gives it a little more “tooth” and it loses none of the flavor.  For the purposes of this review, i decided to actually investigate the ingredients of the sandwich. According to the packaging, the bread is made from “flour, eggs, yeast, sugar, salt, butter” and the rest of the sandwich includes Callipo tuna, egg, mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon juice, shallot, capers, parsley, oregano and garlic”. As you can see, the main binding ingredient seems to be a healthy layer of mayonnaise. I’m not sure if Eataly makes their own mayo or uses some kind of Italian import, but it’s very good. The capers, parsley, etc are used in great moderation with the tuna flavor predominating. Callipo Tuna is an Italian brand of canned tune and according to google it’s canned (or jarred) in Calabria, so you may detect a trace of Mediterranean sunshine there.  I would prefer with this a layer of lettuce but that is not how Italians make sandwiches traditionally.  While not strictly within the outlines of this survey, Eataly’s tuna sandwich provides enough egg content for it to slip over the line - plus it’s just a darned good sandwich.  Pros: tastes very good, fancy imported ingredients.  Cons: A bit pricey at just under $10; although essentially made from scratch, it is not a diet food due to the generous portion of mayonnaise. 

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Egg Sandwich Reviews

I’m on a quest for a good egg sandwich in New York City. 

I like egg salad. I like bacon egg and cheese. The classic BEC is one of the building blocks of society here in the city and I’m going to find the good ones.  Today: Paris Baguette - 4/13/22

What makes a good egg salad sandwich for me is the addition of bread and butter pickles, the way grandma used to make. I’m unlikely to find that anywhere outside of my own kitchen but in the meantime, here’s the Paris Baguette version. Despite its name Paris Baguette is a Korean chain, with several outposts here in NYC. Remarkably it survived the exodus of foreign-owned businesses in the first year of the pandemic, maybe because it serves a tasty variety of hot and cold coffee and matcha drinks, and all kinds of fusion treats, including magnificent looking pieces of layer cake. 

Paris Baguette is always a good stop when you are out and about in the city and need to refuel. They have all the regular coffee and tea drinks - no bubble tea here - and beautiful looking baked goods. My go to is actually the red bean rice donut - a kind of deep fried mochi the size of a baseball, filled with red bean paste and dipped in brown sugar. It is not healthy but it is tasty. It is also incredibly chewy because it’s made of rice flour. A lot of tastes and textures,  ANYWAY, that brings us to today. Paris Baguette offers a slate of premade sandwiches of the normal sort - turkey and swiss, roast beef, and egg salad. Today I tried their egg salad sandwich for the first time. 

As you can see from the photos this is PACKED. You are getting your helping of protein here. There isn’t a lot of mayo or butter on this so it’s a bit dry, especially when combined with the thick Texas Toast style white bread.  The saving grace here is that the layer of egg is cradled by two layers of cucumber.  This gives the sandwich an overall crisp, fresh  presentation that is quite pleasant...and filling, but it’s also a bit bland.  Overall this sandwich was good but I won’t go out of my way for it - which I had to do on this day. 

Pros: Fresh vegetable content, lots of egg.  Cons: Hard to get mouth around because the egg is piled so high; not a lot of seasoning. 

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Although they were never a couple, Mark Hamill recently reminisced on his initial crush on his co-star and close friend Carrie Fisher. He commented that he was glad he was unaware of her affair at the time with the married Harrison Ford, because  it would have caused jealousy.

“Carrie and I were attracted to one another, but I knew from previous jobs that it would have been a bad idea [to get involved with someone on set]. But Carrie and I found pretexts. I remember one time – I’m sure alcohol was involved – we were talking about kissing techniques. I said: ‘Well, I think I’m a fairly good kisser. I like to let the women come to me rather than be aggressive.’ And she said: ‘What do you mean?’ Well, next thing you know we’re making out like teenagers!”

Hamill also remarked on their subsequent decades long friendship and that he considered her a true sister: “Whenever I was on set, I would go straight to her trailer with my dog and hang out with her and her dog.”

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NEW BLACK PANTHER AD THIS IS NOT A DRILL

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The Color Of Comics The Story of Milestone Media airs on AMC Dec 4th 10 pm pst

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Jack Kirby

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So About That Whole Thing

LONG COMIC BOOK RANT INCOMING:

Okay some things need to be said:

1. If you’re going to write a smug thunk-piece about the “failure” of “diversity” in comics, maybe don’t use the cover image of a book that’s had 4 collections on the NYT graphic books bestseller list, won a Hugo and cleaned up at Angouleme. Just because you HOPE it’s on the chopping block, oh Riders of the Brohirrim, doesn’t mean it is.

2. I will tell you exactly why Ms Marvel works: it didn’t set out to be Ms Marvel. We were originally going to pitch it as a 10 issue limited series. I had a 3 issue exit strategy because I assumed we were going to get canned. There was no “diversity initiative” anywhere–getting that thing made at all was a struggle. It was a given that any character without AT LEAST a 20-year history would tank. Everybody, myself included, assumed this series was going to work out the same way.

3. That freed us–by “us” I mean the whole creative team–to tell exactly the story we wanted to tell. We had nothing to lose, nothing to overcome but low expectations. That gave us room to break a lot of rules.

STUFF THAT IS DIFFICULT TO REPLICATE AND IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAN:

1. Unexpected audiences. We are at a point in history when the role of religion is at a tremendous inflection point. What I didn’t realize was that the anxieties felt by young Muslims are also felt by young Mormons, evangelicals, orthodox Jews, and others. A h-u-g-e reason Ms Marvel has struck the chord it has is because it deals with the role of traditionalist faith in the context of social justice, and there was–apparently–an untapped audience of people from a wide variety of faith backgrounds who were eager for a story like this. Nobody could have predicted or planned for that. That’s being in the right place at the right time with the right story burning a hole in your pocket. Plenty of other stuff I’ve written and liked has fallen with a huge thud. That’s the norm. Exceptions are great when they happen, but hard to plan.

2. The paradox of low expectations. The bar was set pretty low for Ms Marvel, but because of Ms Marvel’s success, that bar got set much higher for similar books that came later.

STUFF THAT IS ENTIRELY AVOIDABLE:

1. This is a personal opinion, but IMO launching a legacy character by killing off or humiliating the original character sets the legacy character up for failure. Who wants a legacy if the legacy is shitty?

2. Diversity as a form of performative guilt doesn’t work. Let’s scrap the word diversity entirely and replace it with authenticity and realism. This is not a new world. This is *the world.*

3. Never try to be the next whoever. Be the first and only you. People smell BS a mile away.

4. The direct market and the book market have diverged. Never the twain shall meet. We need to accept this and move on, and market accordingly.

5. Not for nothing, but there is a direct correlation between the quote unquote “diverse” Big 2 properties that have done well (Luke Cage, Black Panther, Ms Marvel, Batgirl) and properties that have A STRONG SENSE OF PLACE. It’s not “diversity” that draws those elusive untapped audiences, it’s *particularity.* This is a vital distinction nobody seems to make. This goes back to authenticity and realism.

AND FINALLY

On a practical level, this is not really a story about “diversity” at all. It’s a story about the rise of YA comics. If you look at it that way, the things that sell and don’t sell (AND THE MARKETS THEY SELL IN VS THE MARKETS THEY DON’T SELL IN) start to make a different kind of sense.

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This once unthinkable headline is so understated it’s painful. 

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Wind truly is the enemy of Trump. 

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It’s been an emotional week. I wanted to share this encounter I had with a very hateful man on the Pittsburgh bus because it reminds me that there are brave people in this world. Let’s all do everything we can to stand up for each other.

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Glick explained that the overarching theory here is that benevolent sexism evolved culturally as a way to maintain the gender hierarchy while also allowing men to enjoy close companionship with women, consensual sex, and so on. In other words: If you adopt the stance that part of your role is to protect your wife or girlfriend and to be made better by her goodness, then you get those aforementioned perks, without losing your place in the gender hierarchy. “You’re the knight in shining armor, you’re Prince Charming — rather than, ‘You’re the oppressor,’” said Glick.  Women, meanwhile, often benefit from benevolent sexism in the crude, unfortunate sense that it’s simply better than the alternative. Laurie Rudman, a social psychologist at Rutgers who studies sexism, made this point in an email. “We live in a patriarchy,” she wrote. “The best women can hope for is benevolent sexism (being cherished and adored by men who love you). It’s a small pedestal that you can fall off easily, but it’s better than being harassed, raped, and demonized.”

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/10/why-doesnt-spending-time-with-women-make-men-less-sexist.html

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New York Comic Con 2016: The Defenders by Kendall Whitehouse Via Flickr: The cast of Marvel's The Defenders: Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter, Mike Colter, and Finn Jones. 

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What's the hardest part about being an artist for a living? What makes it all worth it for you?

A lot has changed since art has become my full-time job. I used to only draw when I felt like it, now I have to draw even if I feel uninspired, or unmotivated. I had to learn to turn that switch off, and treat it like a job, and not as a hobby.

I also had to kiss my social life goodbye! As a freelance artist you are always working. I try to separate my art and life as much as possible, but I’m still surrounded by it. I still work all day, and I almost always take my sketchbook to bed to knock out a few more ideas before sleep. Days of the week don’t hold any meaning; whenever I go out on a Friday I wonder why there are so many people around. “Oh yeah, it’s Friday night. This is what normal people do.” As much as it is liberating, it’s also a bit alienating.

I also try to plan my jobs a year ahead. As a freelance artist you never know where your next job is going to come from, and you don’t want to be stuck for a period with no work, so I’m constantly lining up two or three jobs ahead, just so when I finish one I’m sure I’ll have something new to jump into. This too is bit is stressful.

There are a lot of amazing artists out there, and remembering this keeps me on my toes. I’ll never be the best, but I hustle and I always strive to improve myself. Things that help me stay on track are having a daily routine, getting up early, writing out a list every morning of the day’s goals, and always trying to find ways to be excited about what I’m working on. Lucky for me I am easily excitable, I love breakfast, and I love making lists.

What makes it worth it though, is I love drawing. I LOVE IT. I love making comics. I love starting a new page and buying new paper, ink and brushes. I love telling stories! I love the people I work with, I love the people I meet. I love thinking about the syntax and language of comics. I love esoteric discussions about the comic book industry. I love the opportunities I’ve had in life because of comics.

The second I stop loving it I will find something else to do. Comics are hard work. Comics are relentless. Comics will break your heart. Comics are monetarily unsatisfying. Comics don’t offer much in terms of fortune and glory, but comics will give you complete freedom to tell the stories you want to tell, in ways unlike any other medium. Comics will pick you up after it knocks you down. Comics will dust you off and tell you it loves you. And you will look into it’s eyes and know it’s true, that you love comics back.

I am totally comic’s bitch forever, but if the day ever comes that I stop loving comics, that will mean they have become unrewarding. Why draw comics if you don’t love them unconditionally? You’ll just become bitter. Ultimately that is why I draw comics: they are rewarding, and satisfying on a personal and emotional level. I still self-publish books because of this. If I wanted to make money I would have stuck with story-boarding and commercial art, but that’s not why I’m here. And by “here” i mean on Earth. 

Phew!

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ATTN: to supplement the cost of a move I am currently selling drawings, accepting commissions, skype portraits, etc. email mail@connorwillumsen.com for all inquiries - thanks c

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Sometimes when you’re just toolin’ around the internet and find a picture of Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane brandishing a giant gat and you think, “This is what they made the Tumblr for.” 

via Tim Lucas

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hey, congrats for the angouleme nod, but, also, since it's a list of 30 that's somehow all men, fuck that noise, right?

of course. i was obviously quite honored to wake up to the news yesterday.  its a list of my heroes and i’m among the youngest on the list. but the lack of female presence certainly does not reflect the reality i live or work in.

i did not rush to withdraw my name at first because i have no idea who runs angouleme, i do not know who put this list together, and i have no idea what the agenda is. was it oversight?  was it a mistake?  i have so little desire to jump into an internet dust up just because somebody else is.  there’s way too much of that going on in the world. also to instantly slam down on someone(s?)  who, if i may be ‘cup half full’ for a second, was at least trying to celebrate this art form of which i have dedicated my life seemed rather rude of me.

i also thought being the youngest on the list with the least chance of winning, my self removal would be a VERY shallow gesture. if i remove myself does that mean they WILL put in a female creator?  would that creator want the ‘honor’ at this point? i couldn’t think of one female creator who would want it at this point.

then i thought; if everyone bails, i become president of angouleme by default, take the stage, read MY list of thirty female creators who i would pick in a heartbeat, and give it to them like Lindsey lohan breaking up the prom queen crown at the end of mean girls.

but as i drifted off to sleep last night i thought of my daughters.  my smart, strong willed daughters who will STILL have to fight for their equal rights and how they will STILL have to fend off some men treating them as objects before they can see them as individuals and how insane it seems to me.  

so, with that i join my fellow creators in removing my name from the angouleme grand prix list. i hope the people in charge who, again, i do not know rectify whatever happened that created this mess. i truly thank them for the honor and will gladly accept it once the honor is restored to its full power of inclusion to all creators all over the world.