Howard Chaykin and Steve Leialoha

In the ever-expanding supernova of subsidiary content in the Star Wars universe (action figures, Lego sets, video games, novels, TV movies, cartoons, and theme park rides), comic books hold a special place. One reason is because the first of Marvel's six-issue comic adaptation of the original film hit stands just a month after the movie was released.

Marvel made a good bet on Star Wars. The 107-issue series continued for nearly 10 years. Despite pauses to adapt the stories of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, most issues contained original stories -- the first body of derivative Star Wars story material ever released.

Two key contributors to the early days of this run, penciller Howard Chaykin and inker Steve Leialoha, appear tonight at the Cartoon Art Museum for the event Celebrating 35 Years of Star Wars Comic Books to mark the 35th anniversary of the first issue's release.

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Men, please dress like this more often. Actually, please dress like this all the time. Thank you.

I could go on about what great clothing people wore to the Art Deco Society of California's Art Deco Preservation Ball on Saturday night, or what an appropriate venue the glitzy and historic Bimbo's 365 Club is for any vintage-themed event, or how people should be throwing money at the Deco society so it can continue its noble efforts to preserve the architectural and artistic masterpieces of that dazzling era. I could, and yes, people looked spectacular and showed off a variety of fascinating period dance moves to the era's tunes, many sung by Frederick Hodges, a true '20's style light tenor. But more interesting than the event itself for someone who wasn't there might be that it highlights what we've lost as a culture in terms of the way we "party" -- what we talk about when we talk about clubbing. More >>

The sugary face of evil: Blinky Winky

Any overeducated, Prius-driving, lefty cultural elitist worth her|his|its daily $10 coffee drink knows that America spent eight catastrophic years in the grip of a wicked puppet named W. The privileged faux-Texan flaunted his village idiocy, not caring whether people knew his strings were really pulled by Dick Cheney, the real-life Mr. Burns. We're here to tell you, fellow San Franciscans, that another wicked puppet is racing toward the White House, and he comes from our own ranks. His name is Blinky Winky. This puppet -- sorry, marionette -- stands about 2 feet high and looks like something from a Stephen King nightmare, his icy stare a disturbing, multicolored mixture of menace and uncaring. He holds a presidential fundraiser tonight (Monday) at El Rio.

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Can you envision a "live magazine?" How about an event that combines the best parts of your favorite magazine, like great writing, unusual and illuminating topics, and beautiful, challenging images, with the spontaneity, ephemerality, and added sensory elements such as live music? Pop-Up Magazine is that event, and in its short existence (it has produced six issues in three years) it has become one of the city's most exciting cultural happenings. Tickets to the production sell out in minutes, and presenting at the event has become something like appearing on Saturday Night Live for intellectuals, a high-profile career touchstone earned on stage. Photography and recording is prohibited, so we give you what we can with images from a party associated with the event.More >>

Photos by Erin Browner

The cast of Killing My Lobster Chops Down the Family Tree.

San Francisco sketch comedy group Killing My Lobster turns 15 this year, and to celebrate, it launches a frontal assault on the idea of family. Killing My Lobster Chops Down the Family Tree opens tonight (Thursday, April 26) at The Jewish Theatre. Director Rana Weber's cultural jabs focus on dissecting families in a progressive society. "There's gay families and straight families, and families with no limbs," she says. The troupe has taken multiple punches at San Francisco's quirks and flaws, and many (OK, some) locals are OK laughing at themselves. The troupe's video "The Coffee Wars" turned the microbrewing trend into a History Channel-esque episode on war between loyalists of different coffeehouses. Another Killing My Lobster viral video presents spending a free day in the city as a Twilight Zone episode -- "Why Is Everybody Here?"

The Exhibitionist sat down with Killing My Lobster's creative director, Andy Alabran, to hear about the hilarity of the troupe's latest show, its plans to buy its own home, and hosting a very merry Quinceanera.

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Who knew? A periodical called Sexoogy from the 1930s.

Are you afraid that people are judging your paltry, boring home library? You know those barren shelves need more of everything: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, magazines, and periodicals. But where can you find replenishments, volumes that might be rare and maybe even a little racy? Saturday marks the first Library Spring Smut Sale at the Center for Sex & Culture.

If you think the offerings consists of cast-offs, the likes of which you spot haphazardly displayed on someone's front steps or outside a BART station entrance, you're mistaken. The center's library boasts an impressive collection of mostly donated materials, and it seeks to maintain items shunned by traditional booksellers, libraries, and museums. Saturday you have the chance to look through items it chooses to sell.

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Hanne Blank

Be careful what you assume, and be careful what you consider "normal." So sings the perpetual chorus here in über-diverse San Francisco. As it should be. But there's a big assumption a lot of us probably have overlooked. It involves the heterosexual. It's not that "Some people aren't hetero," but rather, "Hetero hasn't been considered the norm -- or even a thing at all -- for very long." Author, historian, and lecturer Hanne Blank breaks it down in her book Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality. Blank shows how equating hetero with normal affects our laws, cultural institutions, scientific study, artistic expression, and ideas of love and romance. Underlying it all are assumptions about others -- and ourselves -- that most of us have never thought to even acknowledge.

She appears Tuesday (April 24) at Good Vibrations on Valencia. We spoke with her recently about her book.

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When it launched in 1952, there had been nothing like MAD -- a comics magazine dedicated to humor and satire aimed at a broad range of targets. In particular, MAD exposed the cultural fakery behind familiar and beloved images that originated on television, in the movies, and in sports and politics. Led by creators Harvey Kurtzman and William Gaines, MAD's cartoonists peeled back these images to expose calculated manipulation of the American populace by newly powerful postwar corporations. A retrospective exhibit on MAD opens this weekend at the Cartoon Art Museum.

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Bob Doran / Flickr

Whiskeydrunk Cycles (shown here at Maker Faire) will inhabit Earth Day San Francisco on Sunday.

Earth Day is Sunday, and over the years it has been criticized as ferment for anti-human pessimism or, worse, an opportunity for companies to "greenwash" their brands -- which is to say, pay lip service to environmental concerns while doing nothing. Such complaints whither in the face of the many facts showing that much awareness-raising remains to be done. For example, Americans still toss out rather than recycle 2.5 million plastic bottles -- every hour. In 1970, when the United Nations sanctioned Earth Day, it was the first international admission of a serious problem. Activists who had focused on isolated causes -- oil spills, deforestation, raw sewage, animal extinction -- suddenly found a single voice, and the largest secular holiday in the world. San Francisco was first to the party and, while 1 billion people from Tuvalu to Kiev have since joined, we might still do it best. Find out for yourself at Earth Day San Francisco.

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This installation by someone (or someones) called Machine Project debuted at Carnegie Mellon University. Tonight it's in San Francisco.

Mushrooms are the new plastics. At least according to San Francisco artist Philip Ross, a man who has spent years coaxing reishi mushrooms into the shapes of blocks and other architectural forms in the hope that they could be the next environmentally friendly construction material. Ross is one of a new breed of artists who are equal parts rigorous scientist and creation junkie. He is also the instigator of the local Critter science salons at which attendees learn about topics including plant cloning and edible insects, and one of the artists in the group show "Intimate Science," which opens Friday (April 20) at Southern Exposure. These creators share an interest in making science and technology accessible to those who don't normally spend their waking hours in a laboratory.

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