A Monthly Column

It feels like it's been forever and a day since I wrote on my blog. The funny thing is, I've been updating the magazine's website as much as possible with my own opinions on the various things I'm interested in that it doesn't really factor into my thinking to write on my own blog anymore.

For those who don't already know, I was asked to write reviews on movies for Harrisburg Magazine on their website and have been doing so since the summer. It's mostly a fun little gig that I use as my own personal pulpit for anything that interests me a lot. There's definitely more than a handful of reviews on the site now and I've branched out from movies into my other love, comic books. I posted a lot of reviews (which feel like I haven't even scratched the surface) for the DC New 52, the one comic even that grabbed my attention so much that some people feel like I'm it's own personal champion in central PA. And, no, I'm not trying to say all of it is the best thing that ever came down the pike making sliced bread jealous, but the fact that it is trying to stir up the pot and open new doors to opportunities is more than enough to warrant me talking about it.

Close to a month ago, after getting back to work from a nice, much needed vacation in October, my boss put a few pages she ripped from a magazine on my desk asking me to see her. So I did. She told me she'd like to start putting a "pop culture" column in the magazine and hoped I'd want to pick it up and run with it. Not really knowing what to do about it at first, I kicked the idea around and now I have a column that, hopefully, will be in the magazine every month from now on. The column is called Zeitgeist, the spirit of the time or age and the first one will run in the December 2011 issue of 717 Magazine. Pick up a copy and check it out!

I'm actually pretty excited about having a column because it's focusing on things that interest me and might be interesting to others. It's also fun to think that wearing my passions on my sleeve has actually helped to start me in this direction. But, the thing that I'm enjoying a lot is I get to combine talking about pop culture while putting my other talents to good use. In this case, I want to put a side bar in each month for the upcoming releases for that month that might be noteworthy. This month's noteworthies included Sherlock Holmes and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Over the last few nights I set out to work on them and here's the final products that I came up with. While they'll only be a small portion of the overall piece, I liked both of these pieces enough to want to share them in a bigger version than what will run in the issue. So without further ado, here's Sherlock and Lisbeth...