Noel Murray (contributor) bought his first copy of Rolling Stone magazine when he was 14, mainly because it featured a Stephen King short story. He read the issue cover to cover, and was delighted to find out that people could make a career out of writing about junk culture. While other teens spent their afternoons honing jump shots or rebuilding computers, Noel was in his room writing his own record and movie guides, in the style of the critics he'd started obsessively reading. He went to the University Of Georgia, and since graduating in 1992, he's freelanced for newspapers and magazines across the U.S., and has taught classes on criticism, film, and comic books. Noel lives in a lovely house in a lovely neighborhood with his lovely wife and their two lovely children. He still immerses himself in pop arcana, but he hasn't read Stephen King in years.