Welcome to Still on the Shelf!

Visitors -

Craig Reade does not, in fact, actually exist. He is an artificial construct that began its existence as a computer glitch by an old Vic 20 running Oregon Trail.

A strange twist of fate allowed him to live on past the days of home computer infantcy, and he continues to plague the internet to this day.

Craig is the author of the weekly online comic column - Still on the Shelf, which strives to bring titles to the attention to the general comic reading public books whose sales do not reflect their quality. He is also the current writer of the weekly newsletter for X-World Comics, an online comic book shop.

StillontheShelf.com began as an archive for these columns, and has since grown to include several other regular features, including Brandon Schatz's column Toasted!, the web comics Work in Progress (by Ronée Garcia Bourgeois and Blake Petit), Chic Comix (by Jaci Slotnik), and Lost Toast (by Brandon), and a In Absentia, a weekly serial fiction by Andrea Speed.

Though he is, in fact, noncorporeal, Craig would still like to thank all of the people who have made his column and website a success, and also his lovely and brilliant girlfriend Sheryl for the outstanding SOTS logo, and for putting up with a boyfriend who has no body. She is a very patient and accepting woman indeed. She is also available for hire, if you are looking for an outstanding designer or photographer!

Brandon Schatz. Noble Prize winner. Peace bringer to war-torn nations. Professional BSer. His initials even say so.

But hey, such is the life of a writer. Or at least someone who wants to be one.

Brandon is the creator of such travesties as the Toasted!Zine column for comiXtreme and SOTS, Lost Toast, the web comic he creates exclusively for SOTS, and a bunch of stuff you haven't really heard of, including the oft worked on, yet never completed mega-project called "Gifted", which he plans to have published in one form or another, before he dies.

He also likes Jell-O, extendable paddles, and invisible German pandas.

Yes, now it all makes sense.

Blake M. Petit was born in 1977 and, frankly, it’s been up and down ever since. He somehow managed to get his first book, the comedy-adventure-superhero novel Other People’s Heroes, published in 2002. He is still attempting to make actual money on that, so please buy a copy.

The previous year he first met Ronée Garcia Bourgeois through their mutual involvement with the Thibodaux Playhouse Theatre group. Ronée actually recognized his brilliance and wound up getting his first stage play, The 3-D Radio Show, produced in January of 2004, taking the director’s chores herself, with Blake and Ronée both appearing on-stage as well, proving that neither one of them knows when to take a break. In addition to being his agent, Ronée is also Blake’s collaborator on Still On the Shelf’s “Work in Progress.”

Blake currently fills up the rest of his time as managing editor of the St. Charles Herald-Guide newspaper, where his “Think About It” humor pieces won the “Best Regular Column” award from the Louisiana Press Association in 2002, and works as columns editor at Comixtreme.com where he posts the popular “Everything But Imaginary” column every Wednesday and approximately eight zillion reviews every weekend. He and Ronée are working to publish his next two novels, and he is serializing the sequel to OPH, 14 Days of Asphalt, weekly at his website, EvertimeRealms.com. At some point in the future, Blake hopes to eventually make enough money writing novels, plays and comic books to stop working for the newspaper, finally allowing him to achieve his lifelong goal of taking a nap.

Andrea Speed is an eccentric fringe dweller of the large Seattle artsy fartsy scene, although they'd never admit to having seen her before. Even more odd than you'd think, she's an aspiring writer who takes pride in the fact that she may be one of a handful of home health care workers nailing a degree in private investigations. Along with her reviews and interviews for Comixtreme, she does occasional reviews for comedian/journalist/B-movie historian Joe Bob Briggs' web site - www.joebobbriggs.com - as one of his "board of book reviewers", and would like to promote two friends' websites - www.mythmakers.blogspot.com and www.celticbug.com - that she has some affiliations with. She already knows she writes too damn much - there's no need to mention the obvious.

Not much is known of Eric’s origins. Originally discovered in a field mumbling about ‘advanced mathematics’. For him, this meant addition and subtraction. He was immediately enrolled in math classes. But this isn’t a story about math; no, this is a story about Eric.

After being re-introduced to society, Eric began a career as a scientist. There he studied advanced theories and made interesting discoveries in the fields of nonpecuniary job characteristics, organizational politics, and biological inheritance of social traits. But this isn’t a story about science; this is a story about Eric.

Rumors have it that in order to continue making advancements in the realms of science he moved to a dark and dangerous land. A land field with strange dilapidated creatures. Where apparently no laws governed the movements of these strange beasts. But this isn’t a story about strange creatures; this is a story about Eric.

His last known sighting was fooling gullible locals into believing he could actually write two columns for well-known websites. Little did these sites know what danger they were in. The last thing Eric has been heard saying is, “Foolish mortals! Mwah hahahaha haha! Hey! Is that thing on?!” But this isn’t a story about foolish mortals, this is a story…oh wait; this is a story about Eric.

For those brave enough, check out the horror that is known as “Beyond Fact and Fiction.” And for the really brave, check out “Off the Cuff”.

Only the brave need come.