As I mentioned on the main page, I’m a retired journalist living in Pensacola, Florida. That’s right on the westernmost tip of the Florida Panhandle.
Currently I’m 68 years old and enjoying my retirement. All my life I’ve been a creative person, and I’m enjoying having the extra time to work on my projects. My main thing these days is designing and producing card games, although I also design the occasional novelty item and backyard game (when I get around to it, I’ll put up a page about Bushelball).
I was a Navy brat. My father was a Naval Aviator who, before I came along, was stationed all over the world. Not long after I arrived, my father received his final station, here in Pensacola, so even though I’m not a native, I consider myself a lifelong Floridian (yes, a Florida man).
Comic books were a big part of my formative youth, although I was mostly fascinated by newspaper comic strips, and dedicated myself to building a career as a syndicated cartoonist. Year after year I would conceive of new comics and create a sample packet for submission to the syndicates. Unfortunately I was not successful.
(The closest I got to a syndication deal was when the managing editor of a syndicate called me, interested in my latest submission, called “Toyz.” It featured a group of toys that came to life when humans were not around, and predated by YEARS both “Jim Henson’s Secret Life of Toys” and “Toy Story.” I had several discussions with the managing editor, but ultimately they decided to pass on the strip.)
While I was never syndicated, my boss at the Pensacola News Journal, where I worked for more than 30 years, liked one of my strips, “Dad’s-Eye View,” and ran it in the local paper for about two and a half years. I also had a weekly one-panel comic in the News Journal, “Mr. Klass,” about a school teacher based on my father, who became a high school teacher after his retirement from the Navy.
In 1982 I created my first game, “Ghoulash,” an attempt to create a role-playing game that could be played by two people, with each person acting as the game master for the other. I self-published a crudely printed version that didn’t sell very well but at least earned a nice review from the now-defunct Adventure Gaming magazine.
I put “Ghoulash” on the shelf for a number of years and devoted my creative efforts to other projects, such as a children’s magazine, “Tooned Up,” that I designed, self-published and distributed here in Pensacola. I’m still proud of the issues that I produced.
In 2001 I revived and refined “Ghoulash,” distributing it in downloadable PDF form on my new website, Ghoulash.com. The website asked for demographic information before downloading (the game was free), and before long we had registered players from all over the world. Eventually the game was translated into six different languages.
“Ghoulash” underwent several refinements and redesigns over the years, eventually becoming the Games of Ghoulash, essentially two versions of the game; one a pen-and-paper game and the other a card game. Both are available on my Etsy store.
I retired from the newspaper business in 2016 and worked for a couple of years in the marketing department of the local community college.
It’s important to note that most of my creative projects, particularly the games, were produced with the invaluable help of my son Joe, who provided play testing and evaluation, design tips, rule advice, enviable wit, stinging trash talk, and everlasting inspiration. Joe passed away in July of 2024.
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