This Excuse Comes From Earth-K!

I'd like to apologize for the lack of posts, recently; there's been some interdimensional interference which has made it difficult to make the transition from Earth K to here. I'd like to go into more detail about the difficulties, but am afraid that the particulars are too complicated for those not well-versed in dimensional travel. The best metaphor I can come up with is that the interference is very much like if I had gotten a promotion at work which sucks up all of my free time, while simultaneously moving into a new place which is currently without Internet access due to the actions of a previous tenant.

For the record, Bubblegum Tate thinks that my metaphor is horribly flawed; he prefers to compare the interference to quitting a job due to an unhealthy work environmen and taking classes in order to start up your own P.I. business, right before finding out that you and your wife will soon be parents.

Potato, potahto.

Moon, Mon

I'm not sure which one of thes December solicitation covers has me more excited: the return of Mon-El to the pages of Legion



Or the return of Moonstone to the pages of Thunderbolts



Oh, who am I kidding: love Lar as I do, Thunderbolts just isn't the same without the Machiavellian Dr. Sofen.

Welcome back, Karla; here's hoping you're here to stay this time.

I Be ILLin'

You know, it's really a good time to be a comic geek.

And I'm not just talking about the wide range of comics to choose from, or the high quality of writing, or even the plethora of comic related movies, TV shows, and the like, although all of those are cool. But the thing that makes me the happiest to be a comic geek at this point in time is the proliferation of comic books at public libraries.

Growing up I was always a big reader of all formats, but one of the happiest days in my young life was the day when I first memorized that magical Dewey Decimal number: 741.5 , the number for all things comic related. Granted, the pickings in the 741.5 range at the Miami* Public Library were pretty slim, comprised mostly of comic strip collections. And while these collections did introduce me to the denizens of Dogpatch and the freaky world of Charles Addams, it was the small number of volumes devoted to comic books that really grabbed my interest. The actual comic book collections was limited to some "so-and-so through the ages" style collections devoted to showing selected highlights from the 30s through the 70s of the Dark Knight, the Man of Steel, and The Big Red Cheese. Oh, and Marvel's The Superhero Women, which featured such noteworthy characters as The Cat and Shanna the She-Devil.

Now, while these minimal number of collections were nice, and did introduce me to many of the mainstays of the DC universe, it was the comic related reference books which I found myself endlessly fascinated by. Filled with references to characters I'd never heard of before (Hydro-Man? The Black Terror? Captain Triumph?), these historical records of the evolution of the comic industry were a goldmine to my comic-hungry young mind. Even better, some of them actually included reprints of full stories from the Golden Age, such as the origins of Crimebuster

the Golden Age Daredevil

and the aforementioned Hydroman


These glimpses into the past merely whetted my appetite for more, and I would spend many years grousing about the difficulty of reading every comic I wanted to read without it costing me a small fortune.

But now times, they have changed.

In the past several years there has been an explosion in the number of public libraries which regularly purchase TPBs for their collections; my own local library has a standing order for all things related to Supes, Bats, Spidey, and the Muties, plus a few other odds and ends for good measure. But even with a great source for comics at the local library level, there's an even better source.

The wonders of Inter-Library Loan.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, ILL is a process by which you can ask your local library to contact other libraries throughout the country in order to borrow something your library doesn't own. It is thanks to ILL that I was able to read the entirety of Cerebus, Bone, Castle Waiting, SpyBoy, Love Fights to name just a few. True, not everything is available through ILL, and there are many things which I'll purchase even if available through ILL just to help support the titles, but for someone who wants to read anything and everything and yet has a fairly limited budget, the power of the library is an effective tool. Plus, the more comic books get circulated, the more money libraries will be willing to spend on purchasing new collections, which, in my opinionation, can't be anything but good for the industry.

So, do yourself a favor: the next time you're curious about a title, but aren't quite ready to part with the cash, take a trip down to the local library and see what's what -- you might be surprised.

*OK, not FL, and therefore pronounced My-am-uh not My-am-ee

Random Comic Book Panel Theater: Why I Love Hawk and Dove Pt.2

Dove's real super-power: super-sarcasm!