Born in Baltimore and raised in the Chicago suburbs, I am the product of an Italian-American family, too many movies, and countless books (comic and otherwise). In my Midwestern suburban adolescence, I was brought up to root for perennial underdogs--the Bears, Cubs, and Illini. Ever the loyal fan, I left for the University of Illinois in the fall of 1985. I graduated in 1989 and worked for two years in the corporate sector, but I was just biding my time until I could do what I really wanted to do: get my Ph.D. in English and teach at the college level.
So, in the summer of 1991, I left Chicago and headed to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. I spent the next six years there as I completed my Ph.D. Along the way I cultivated my interests in comic books, contemporary literature, and movies. Somehow, I found the time to work as a film critic for the Bloomington Herald-Times.
I came to Palomar in the fall of 1997 and received tenure in 2001. My courses vary by semester, but they are always interesting (or at least that's my hope).
In terms of my teaching and research interests, my main focus has been on creative writing and comics/graphic novels. All things comics on this site can be found here, and information on what I've written--my book and various articles--can be found here.
In the summer of 2010, I set out alone on my bicycle from Ocean Beach, California and two months later wound up at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My new project, which I'm currently writing, is a book-length work of creative nonfiction about that ride and other events in my life. I kept a blog while on my journey, which you can find here.
I have two wonderful sons who keep me busy, especially that they're now both teenagers.