Day Eight of our nine-day road trip continue in Cleveland due southeast from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the kind of neighborhood that wouldn’t normally attract tourists if there weren’t some kind of major draw. As fate would have it, in 1938 a pair of young men named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster would put their heads together to create an intellectual property (years before the term became commonplace and meaningful) that would bend pop culture into new shapes and change the course of entertainment history.

Yes, Superman! The hero who put super-heroes on the map, who convinced multiple 20th-century generations to look up in the sky, who fought his way into the hearts of kids of all ages, who helped fund DC Comics into the monolithic corporation they are today, and who starred in the very first super-hero movie I ever liked. The dreamers responsible were both from Cleveland, and their hometown couldn’t be prouder.

You’ll note the souvenir Superman Celebration 2012 T-shirt my wife selected for this photo op. I have a matching one myself. She thought so highly of Superman: the Movie in her youth that she memorized it. Every word. Literally. She’s always been impressive like that.

The S-shield shown above is mounted on the front of the home where Jerry Siegel grew up. A kindly lady sitting on the front porch, whose parents now own the house, was gracious enough to permit well-meaning rubes like us to take photos. A helpful plaque on the other side of the fence provides visitors with context and inspiration.

His best friend Joe Shuster lived a couple of streets down, easy walking distance if you feel safe leaving your car out in the open. I wouldn’t recommend it. The vanity street signs are cute, though.

Whoever dwells in Shuster’s old house wasn’t readily approachable, but the exterior signage takes its own special form: an oversize reprint of Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics #1. His wasn’t the only story in that issue, but nearly everyone else in that comic now languishes in obscurity. Five or ten comics fans might make a case for Slam Bradley, but you’re not obligated to give them the time of day.

This is a closeup of the final page. Shuster’s art as of June 1938 may not resemble what we’re used to seeing in today’s computer-colored four-dollar pamphlets, but it’s a good deal more noteworthy than some of his forgotten contemporaries. You’ll note in his debut that Superman is jumping from place to place here, as flying wasn’t yet part of his repertoire. Building up his legend in its entirety took many years, many tales, and many hands.

The fence formerly contained his entire Action #1 story. Sadly, a few months before our trip, a drunk driver knocked down the first few sections. By this time the grass had grown over some of his skid marks.

On a street corner a few more blocks down the road, a “Home of Superman” marker regales one and all with the story and its significance.

Snapping photos of that plaque was an odd moment in itself. As we arrived and parked across the street at a drugstore, a preacher with a microphone was spending his Saturday afternoon outside this very courtyard, delivering a sermon to a few gathered listeners. He spoke passionately against this fallen world using a scene from The Godfather to illustrate his point.

…and then he paused for a long, long minute while a pair of out-of-town yokels walked right up from across the street, took photos of this incidental landmark as if nothing else were going on around them, and scampered away before anyone could threaten to chase them away.

Really, it’s nothing Clark Kent and Lois Lane wouldn’t have done in the pursuit of a story.

To be continued!

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for previous and future chapters. Thanks for reading!]

Left to right: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Michael B. Jordan

Today the internet exploded once again (it seems to do that a lot) after hearing the news that Fox had completed casting of the primary roles for their Fantastic Four reboot, scheduled to hit theaters June 19, 2015. Unfortunately Fox forgot to ask the fans to approve their choices first and decided to make its own decisions like an independent adult. The internet responded by leaving nasty notes in Fox’s locker and spitting on its cafeteria pizza at lunchtime.

Fans who feel sole ownership of an intellectual property that’s been around for fifty years unanimously agreed everything about the four actors seen above is wrong. Reed Richards absolutely, positively must be middle-aged. Ben Grimm must begin as a muscular guy, because medical science has proven cosmic rays can’t possibly turn a short, thin guy into a giant rock monster. Johnny Storm has to be white, because all siblings in all Creation have identical skin tones. Sure, Jessica Alba wasn’t white in the last two movies either, but This Is Different. Thanks to these complaints, Fantastic Four has already been given a 5% Rotten rating on the Tomatometer sixteen months before release. That’ll show ‘em.

It’s easy for me to be nonchalant. I haven’t collected and enjoyed any FF comics since Dwayne McDuffie’s short run ended in 2008. I’m more flexible nowadays about my comics-to-movie adaptations and curious to see what director Josh Trank (Chronicle) and company have in mind for this new version, which reminds me of Marvel’s equally rebooted Ultimate Fantastic Four series from a while back.

But if you thought the radical departures began and ended with this diverse ensemble, wait’ll you see what else Fox has in store for us.

From the home office in Indianapolis, Indiana: Top 10 Even More Shocking Surprises in the Next “Fantastic Four” Film:

10. In the prologue a bland, time-traveling warrior kills the cast of the last two films.

9. The Thing’s skin is made of really dense super-bacon.

8. Doctor Doom admits his degree is a fraud; realizes no one’s checking credentials; changes his name to Fleet Admiral Doom.

7. No cameo by Stan Lee; instead we get a cameo by Stanley from The Office.

6. New Galactus is a sneering, thirty-foot-tall, alien trillionaire one-percenter with the power of super-snobbery.

5. Reed Richards is a college dropout but still knows everything ’cause he’s a lifelong geek and that’s close enough, and also his middle name is Mary Sue.

4. Shocking climax in which their mailman Willie Lumpkin snaps Paste-Pot Pete’s neck.

3. Alicia Masters is blind, deaf, mute, wheelchair-bound, one-eyed, and has third-degree burn scars, but she’s still white and hot so no one complains.

2. Movie contains as many as three other nonwhite actors.

And the number one Even More Shocking Surprise in the Next Fantastic Four:

Reed and Sue are brother and sister.

To be continued!

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for previous and future chapters. Thanks for reading!]

Official flyer handed out at my local comic shop. No idea what the QR code does.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, back in June 2013:

This week the Indianapolis Star reported that someone out there wants to make my pipe dream a reality. A young Florida-based company called Action3 Events and Promotions has scheduled a comics convention for March 14-16, 2014, in our very own Indiana Convention Center. It’s as yet unnamed and not yet listed on their official site, but official enough that they’re proclaiming its proposed existence in public interviews. That much alone is a positive sign.

A name was assigned shortly after I wrote that. Nine months later, its time is nigh. March 14-16 sees the world premiere of the Indiana Comic Con, a three-day meeting-of-the-minds for connoisseurs of the graphic storytelling medium, and/or a temporary point of interest for autograph hounds. For once, local comics collectors will have someplace massive to converge that’s not Chicago, Ohio, Louisville, or some faraway land reachable only by air travel.

For those who like meeting actors, ICC will have four on site signing autographs, allowing photo ops, and appearing at Q&As. Those names are:

* Daniel Cudmore, who played Colossus in the second and third X-Men films. I’m trying to remember if he had any lines, and I’m drawing a blank. Apparently he also had a role in the Twilight series.

* Maisie Williams, a.k.a. Arya Stark from Game of Thrones, which we don’t watch. She’s 16, but it’s my understanding from an online cohort that in person “she’s awesome and hilarious.”

* Caity Lotz, who plays Black Canary on TV’s Arrow, which we don’t watch. I vaguely recall her from a few episodes of Mad Men, where she played the late Anna Draper’s niece Stephanie and had to deflect Don’s skeevy come-on.

* Evan Peters, who’ll be Fox’s version of Quicksilver in the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past. He’s also been on American Horror Story and One Tree Hill, neither of which we watch.

…so my wife and I will be saving money in this area, but we hope other fans take advantage of the opportunity. With only four actors for attendees to choose from, I’m thinking autograph lines might be a tad long. Arrive early; plan accordingly.

Comic book fans can meet a variety of creators both famous and otherwise. Major names include but aren’t limited to:

* George Perez, a legend in the field. Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wonder Woman, The Avengers, Superman, and more more more. I’ve met him twice and can’t praise him highly enough.

* Arthur Suydam, a painter who specializes in zombification. He’s a regular at the two Chicago cons we attend every year.

* Tony Bedard, who’s written at both DC and Marvel (I enjoyed his run on Exiles); currently working on Supergirl and the upcoming Secret Origins.

* Bob Camp, longtime animator and driving force behind The Ren & Stimpy Show.

* Steve Englehart, Marvel/DC writer whose credits include Avengers, Defenders, Detective Comics, and Vision & Scarlet Witch.

* Joe Eisma, artist/co-creator of Image Comics’ popular Morning Glories. (It’s still popular, right? I gave up on it, but I expect I’m alone in that.)

* Bob Layton, writer/artist whose work on Iron Man was integral to the character and a favorite from my childhood. He also wrote and drew the very first Marvel limited series, 1982′s Hercules: Prince of Power.

…and more, more more! The official site lists several more well-known names, but these, I imagine, will draw the longest lines from readers looking for autographs, sketches, or impromptu portfolio reviews.

Unfortunately, the con’s too new and untested for any of the major publishers to deign to appear for us. Numerous small-press publishers, dealers, local comic shops, and other relevant companies will be in the house anyway. In addition to actor Q&As (largely on Friday and Saturday), several panels are scheduled to offer a chance for the like-minded to hear or participate in discussions of various topics and fandoms. In this area ICC has already caught up to Wizard World Chicago, whose offerings in this area can be pretty sparse some years.

Most important of all: yes, there will be a costume contest on Saturday. My wife and I will be there and plan to return with a full report and gallery for MCC readers and random passersby. (Incidentally, if you’re one of those: welcome!)

I have a few reservations about the weekend, all of which I hope will be for naught:

* The con is fairly priced, but we’re attending Saturday only because the totality of it seems a little lighter than we’re accustomed to having at our disposal. Admittedly, those Chicago cons may have spoiled us. If I’m wrong and we leave Saturday with a long list of unchecked to-do items, I’ m willing to stand corrected and regretful.

* This weekend will be following in the wake of recent unpleasant stories about other conventions that drew more than a little ire from a disappointed public. I won’t rehash details here, but this one story and this other story made me hang my head, roll my eyes, and regret my hobby a little. I don’t want to see an Indianapolis event making these same kinds of headlines. The showrunners experienced a bump in the road several weeks ago during the planning process that could’ve spiraled out of control, but they basically eliminated the issue.

* I’m a bit concerned that the website doesn’t indicate a harassment policy in place. Larger cons have been adopting those in recent times in order to encourage and in some cases mandate a safe atmosphere for all participants, not just for obnoxious privileged dudes. (Googling “convention harassment” will bring you several months’ worth of reading matter that’ll catch you up to speed and depress you for days.) You’d think “Don’t do anything stupid” would be common-sense enough for the average citizen and obviate the need for codified rules, but one man’s stupid is another man’s brilliant. I wouldn’t be encountering a plethora of ongoing discussions on this topic if there weren’t a problem. Can we really count on Indianapolis to be small enough and/or polite enough for this to be a non-issue?

* Similar but slightly different note: the Indianapolis Star recently ran an interview with Christina Blanch, a Muncie comic shop owner who also teaches free online courses about comics. The interview is a delightful read, but I winced at the title of the article: “Indy’s Comic Con: Not Just for Boys”. Is Indianapolis so distanced from the comics scene that we’re meant to see this statement as bold and revelatory? We’ve been hosting Gen Con every year since 2003, so we should know by now that gamers come in all stripes and patterns. Is it too much of a stretch to assume the same of us comics geeks? (That’s not a rhetorical question.) I should hope that anyone who’ll call the Indiana Comic Con their very first convention won’t walk in and be flabbergasted just because the place is half-filled with *gasp* womenfolk. If I see geek gatekeeping afoot, I’m throwing a fit. And you don’t want to see a guy my size throwing a fit.

* Totally unrelated to anything the showrunners can control: I’m currently collecting fewer monthly comics than ever. In fact, I’ve procrastinated writing a “Favorite Comics of 2013″ entry here because I was struggling to recall ten comics I’d truly hold above all others for last year. I’m feeling a bit disconnected from the field nowadays, but I’m hoping there’ll be cool new things to acquire this Saturday, not just the must-haves on my back-issue want list.

* Indy’s fabulous food trucks better show up and congregate on Georgia Street exactly as they did last year for Gen Con. They just better. The food at the Indiana Convention Center is streets ahead of the harmful matter they slap on the plates at the Stephens Center in Rosemont, but if y’all haven’t sampled our city’s dozens of food trucks, this should be a great time to give ‘em a try. I know they’ll be there for Friday lunchtime at the very least.

Regardless of this old man’s process-improvement pontificating, here’s hoping all goes above and beyond expectations, that the weekend turns out memorable in a good way, and that in hindsight we’ll later be able to refer to this cheerfully as “the first annual Indiana Comic Con”. See you there!

Art by Val Mayerik, co-creator of Howard the Duck. I promise he’s done far, far better work in his time.

Most collectors who consider themselves organized and serious about collecting certain collectible things for their collection have a want list. Sure, you could attend conventions or flea markets and simply buy random issues from whatever boxes lay in your path. The dealers and older collectors who have hundreds of pounds of pamphlets to unload won’t stop you.

There’s something to be said for spontaneous browsing and impulse buys up to a certain point. By adding the element of goal-setting, though, suddenly your hobby becomes a full-fledged quest. Now you have bragging rights because you’ve made it all seem so noble.

I’ve been reading comic books since age six. I’d say I began Collecting with a capital C around age twelve, when I first discovered comic dealers at a local antique show. I was used to buying comics off the spinner racks at Marsh or Hook Drugs, but the dealer’s approach was a radical new paradigm to me. All the comics stood in longboxes, were alphabetized by title, were filed in order by issue number, and went back several years. It was a mind-blowing moment to discover that I could buy old comics that went with my new comics. Years’ worth of them, even.

Not long after, my comics want list was born.

Art by Evan Dorkin. His latest Beasts of Burden special hit shops this week, and Eltingville arrives in April. Before those, there was this.

I’ve maintained the same list ever since. Want List 1.0 began as ugly cursive scrawls in a college-ruled notebook. No one could read it but me. No one would read it even if I’d painted it with calligraphy.

In the late ’80s those same scrawls were scribbled onto 3×5 index cards when I entered an index-card phase and was using them for all my lists, of which there were plenty. In our library I still have two shoeboxes filled with index cards on which I tracked all the writers and artists of every comic in my collection. My heart sang when someone invented the spreadsheet, one of my favorite tools on the first computer we owned. Suddenly a whole new world of organizational power was at my fingertips.

At some point Excel’s memory usage on one of my old, faltering PCs bugged me enough that I cut-’n'-pasted the entire list into a bare-bones Notepad text file instead. Such a downgrade might drive some comics fans mad, but it’s worked for me ever since. Sometimes I like to treat myself to simplicity.

Art by George Perez, Guest of Honor at this weekend’s Indiana Comic Con. The other 84 issues have been mine since childhood, but as an incomplete set.

Convenient shopping access conserves physical resources and eliminates the hunt, but it also eliminates the thrill of the hunt. Many a collector has known that moment of euphoria when they’ve spent diligent hours rifling through scores of back-issue boxes, are ready to scream if they run across one more stupid unwanted issue of Brigade, and nearly weep as they finally come across a comic they’ve been missing for years and dying to own. Granted, the climax of this long journey might be a little more exciting if there were death traps involved, or perhaps a final boss battle. Maybe that’s why some guys add another degree of risk by trying to haggle with the dealer. It’s not enough to buy it; now they need to win it.

This is why I consciously limit my want-list hunts to conventions only. Back-issue buying isn’t nearly as enjoyable to me if I’m continuously working on my list and gathering the missing objets d’art as a matter of daily routine. At my age I like the idea of want-list hunts as rare special occasions — my version of a sporting event, as it were.

Pencils by a very young Kevin Maguire; inks by old pro Joe Rubinstein. Someday it will be mine.

In keeping with my finicky nature, not all my want-list items are common or easy to find. It’s physically impossible for the average dealer to bring all their stock to sell over a convention weekend. They’re sensible enough to bring only what they think will sell best — or in many cases, what they hope to unload for cheap. Some will bring high-end collectibles such as Marvel’s 1960s super-hero milestones. Some will bring cartloads of The Walking Dead and today’s other hottest comics. Some will bring their 3-for-$1 boxes because they have thousands of pounds of ’90s Image or Valiant leftovers taking up far too much storage space. It’s extremely rare for dealers to bring the sort of obscure titles and forgotten works that comprise my own list. Several items, including those pictured here, have been on the list since I was a schoolkid. Few professionals would expect these to sell quickly and therefore leave them at the store, hoping instead that the teeming masses will be ready and willing to stock up on old issues of Ultimate Spider-Man by the pound.

Odds are great that I’ll never acquire everything on my list. I’m 99% certain I’ll never lay a hand on that one issue of Grimjack that still escapes me. I’m okay with that, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped trying. My want-list hunt has no definitive finish line, no enforced timetable, and no real drive to conquer it Once and for All. It’s a cheery, never-ending battle to call my own. My prizes, my rules, and the times I choose to participate are all part of the game. Also, it’s kind of a long list.

Here’s hoping this weekend’s Indiana Comic Con can help me out at least a little. If I walk away empty-handed and let down, we still have C2E2 and Wizard World Chicago on our radar, along with a few other cons we’re considering this year in other nearby states. We’ll see what time and budget permit, and how we’re feeling about extra traveling. If the hunt is on, it’s on. If not, better luck next year.

And who knows? Maybe this is the year I’ll be shocked beyond belief to find a copy of Steelgrip Starkey and the All-Purpose Power Tool #5 in my hands. Comics are all about dreaming big, right?

Adipose wasn’t at the Indiana Comic Con, but I took this pic later the same day. Cuteness goes a long way toward banishing frustration.

Several random digressions were tossed from the previous entry because I wanted to keep it concise and streamlined for first-time visitors and photo addicts. The following self-Q&A represents what I hope will be the final roundup of anecdotes from our weekend in general, a few reflections on the positive things that came from it, and some eager anticipation of potentially exciting events ahead in 2014 for us and for MCC readers.

So…was that it? You left the con, went home, wallowed in your high blood pressure, and registered your dismay on the internet for all to see? We had a backup plan, but I didn’t expect to have time to use it. After abandoning downtown we headed out west and attended the open house at Who North America. Touted as America’s largest online retailer of Doctor Who memorabilia, they’re normally closed to the public except by appointment, but they open one Saturday every month for a four-hour window. They timed their March open house to coincide with the con and drew at least ten times their normal visitor count. The line to enter was a ninety-minute wait…but at least we were allowed inside. They even announced they were extending their hours to accommodate the tremendous response. We literally applauded their generosity.

Was that really all the people you met? I regret omitting one name: cartoonist David Yoder, from whom I bought a minicomic fanfic called “A Fan Comic About Community“, which he wrote and drew shortly before the Dan-Harmon-less season 4 made all our gripes and fears come true. I chuckled a few times. Coming from an old guy who doesn’t read fanfic anymore, that’s a sincere compliment.

Did you find anything on your want list? Surprisingly, yes! Four issues of The Flash from 1978; one issue of The Incredible Hulk from 1975; the first issue of DC’s The Ray (the Christopher Priest/Howard Porter version); and one of the two issues I was missing from Warren Ellis’ run on Excalibur. From the department of impulse buys, I picked up two issues of Marvel Premiere that each featured art by Howard Chaykin and the late Gene Day, as well as a complete run of Paul Cornell and Ryan Kelly’s Saucer Country for a song. This may sound like a small haul, but I’m satisfied with the results.

Was there anything else happening in downtown Indianapolis? If you need a break from the con and/or its throngs, the rest of downtown wasn’t any more deserted. The Big 10 college basketball conference consumed a large area around Bankers Life Fieldhouse and helped overpopulate all the local restaurants. All our food trucks, sadly, opted out and left thousands of dollars just lying there unclaimed on the table. It’s funny how the geography divided itself: reductively speaking, Indy had geeks to the west and jocks to the east, with Meridian Street as the line in the sand down the middle between the two factions. It was the liveliest day our fair capital has had all year, even without a violent Hatfields/McCoys-style outbreak.

Here’s a shot of Monument Circle this weekend, choosing to celebrate sports over pop culture because money and, I dunno, normalcy or whatever.

I think that’s supposed to say either “Big 10″ or “bee-one-gee”.

How was the local media coverage? I’m a tad sensitive about how mainstream reporters view our hobbies from afar through a pirate spyglass and consequently tend to get the little things wrong. I avoided all TV coverage, but I read the summation by the Indianapolis Star that had much better photos than ours but distorted one key point: “Nearly three-quarters of the attendees were dressed in costume.” Um, no. This supports the common myth (which I addressed some time ago) that every comic con is a wall-to-wall masquerade ball. Unless you’re counting super-hero shirts as costumes, “three-quarters” is a severe overestimation that smacks of unfounded stereotyping. If we have to make up a percentage from thin air, I’d call it a single-digit figure at best.

AHA! You misquoted two figures in the previous entry! You’re being mean and distorting stuff on purpose with an agenda! Ouch. My fault. I’ve since corrected it, but allow me to restate and apologize here for the record: the Indiana Convention Center has over 749,000 square feet in total usable space. That’s much more impressive than what I’d copied down in error. But if you consider the Indiana Comic Con only used about 100,000 feet worth of exhibit halls and meeting rooms, not including the surrounding hallways, that’s well over 600,000 square feet of opportunity lost because of other organizations that called dibs first. So who do we really blame here for the overcrowding issues: the showrunners for not choosing a weekend when more space was available; the showrunners for being too cheap to pay for more space; the Convention Center for not working more closely with them in selecting a more accommodating weekend; or both sides for condescendingly underestimating Indiana geek power? I’d love to hear more discussion on that subject so we can better determine who we’re supposed to be vilifying.

One other figure I’ve now updated in that entry: this morning the showrunners announced their estimate that Saturday drew 15,000 bodies, much greater than the quote of 5,000 that the media bandied about yesterday on Twitter, and still exceeding the showrunners’ preshow estimate of 6,000. Even if “only” six thousand of us had shown up, where were they planning on stacking us all?

Please tell me we have other convention options. Pretty please? Absolutely! Midwesterners will have plenty of convention options in this saturated era and market. This is by no means a complete list, but right now my wife and I are aware of the following 2014 geek-based events that will be taking place within 300 miles of Indianapolis in 2014. Please feel free to plug more 2014 shows in the comments below.

3/28 – 3/30: Wizard World Louisville
4/4 – 4/6: Wizard World St. Louis
4/25 – 4/27: C2E2 in Chicago
5/30 – 6/1: the inaugural Indy Pop Con, here in Indianapolis
6/12 – 6/15: the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, IL
6/27 – 6/29: Days of the Dead Indianapolis
8/1 – 8/3: FandomFest in Louisville
8/14 – 8/17: Gen Con Indy
8/22 – 8/24: Wizard World Chicago
9/5 – 9/7: Cincinnati Comic Expo
10/31 – 11/2: Wizard World Ohio (formerly Mid-Ohio Con)
11/28 – 11/30: Starbase Indy

We’re planning on C2E2, Gen Con, Wizard World Chicago, and Starbase Indy as long as nothing financially catastrophic occurs between now and then. We’ve never been to any of the others, but my wife and I have discussed broadening our scope, especially since at least one of these shows has a few of the Most Wanted Actors on her autograph wishlist. Updates and recaps as they occur!

More photos! We demand more ICC photos! Fine. Here’s us, courtesy of the Imagine Church booth. Happy now?

The author and his wife, resident MCC chief photographer, accountability executive, and dance partner.

The cover heard ’round the world. Art by Kenneth Rocafort.

Other working titles for this entry included “Why I Avoid Comic Book Discussions”, “Comics Industry Spends Easter Week Debating Baseline Human Interaction 101″, “Uppity Chick Dares to Critique Corporate-Approved Pandering”, and “Comic Book Fans Argue in Favor of Exploitative Art and Rape Threats”.

Earlier this week Comic Book Resources published an astute piece by a writer/editor named Janelle Asselin offering thorough, point-by-point analysis of the proposed first-issue cover to DC Comics’ upcoming relaunch of Teen Titans. Of all the aspects she skewered — perspective, anatomy, body language, energy level, demographic narrowcasting, complete lack of salesmanship toward new readers in general — one in particular struck a nerve with the audience at large: incredulity at the portrayal of a teenage character as an improbably shaped fantasy porn object.

Not that this is new to comics, mind you.

The issue in this instance: the complaint wasn’t from a stodgy old guy like me. This time, it was from a lousy dame, clearly speaking out of turn against her male superiors who need their super-heroes to look like this. It’s not enough to have genuine porn at their disposal for their eye-candy needs; they apparently want visual representations of the female figure in all media kept inflated and distorted at all times for the sake of their personal viewing euphoria.

The comments in the CBR forum went about as far south as can be expected. One week and several hundred internet comments later, Asselin posted a follow-up on her own site about the exchanges that ensued — the insults not only from readers, but from other quote-unquote “professionals” within the industry. Naturally her words, her established credentials, and her gender were considered fair game for detractors to dismiss and demean. Some thought it would be funny and/or empowering to respond to her with rape threats.

According to Asselin, rape threats aren’t new to comics, either:

At first I wasn’t going to talk about the rape threats because honestly, most of the women I know with a solid online presence get them regularly. This is just a thing we are forced to deal with. And I didn’t want to make it seem like it was a bigger deal than what’s happened to them for years. But I realized once I posted about the rape threats in passing that men I know and respect were stunned to find out this was happening. Let’s be real: if these men who are actually decent human beings don’t know how often this stuff happens, what hope is there for the men who are harassing me online?

Asselin posted additional follow-ups over the course of the week, which you can easily find on her site, all recommended if you’re interested in seeing an impressive example of persistence under fire. Thankfully a flurry of supportive rebuttals followed from other commentators, some angrier and more profane than others, including but not limited to:

* Andy Khouri at Comics Alliance
* Heidi MacDonald at The Beat
* Devin Faraci at Badass Digest
* Erik Grove at Bleeding Cool
* Marvel superstar writer Brian Michael Bendis on his own site

Predictable warning: read the comments to any of these at your own peril. All the most cogent pieces circle around or home in on the same ultimate point: how broken are we as a species, faithful and faithless alike, that we can’t agree to the same two or three simplistic tenets of coexistence? Because the internet isn’t “real”? Because wimmen be different from mens? Because survival of the fittest? Because some people like treating every single environment they inhabit as if it were a seedy bar in the most dangerous part of town? Because nihilistic self-ingratiation at everyone else’s expense makes for super fun times? Or just because they can?

Admittedly, I don’t see much of the rape-threatening personally, for a simple reason: I tend to avoid comic book message boards and especially comments sections of comics news sites. I lurk here and there from a few times per month on a couple of sites, but the disparity between the morals taught by our childhood heroes and the behavior exhibited by an alarming number of those comics collectors who idolize them is massive enough that, for me, trying to find someplace civilized to discuss my lifelong hobby has become an exercise in futility and heartbreaking depression. So I miss out on a lot of this entitled-male oppression and don’t have many opportunities to, I dunno, hunt the trolls or save the day or whatever. I’ve done that in my time, but it’s not exactly an active craving for me these days.

(Just occurred to me while proofreading: in a sense, does this mean they basically beat me?

…

…hm. Food for thought.)

That being said: I’m not convinced that a thousand essays by a thousand well-mannered writers will change too many of the blackened hearts or poisoned minds and bring any of these lost souls to repentance. So what can be done? Is there a magic bullet to end the War on Rape Threats? Because that would be awesome.

Possible solutions to the feud:

1. Harsh anti-internet-rape-threat legislation. Good luck with that one, which will be quite the deterrent against any trolls who post under their real name. Those comprise roughly 0% of the population.

2. If comics publishers insist on pandering to the straight male majority, how about they print two versions of every comic? Both would contain the same story so no one misses out on any important plot developments or this month’s major character death. One version would be readable and dignified; the other would be “hawt” and depraved. Everyone gets what they want, no one has to argue over whose version of their favorite corporate-owned properties is the “right” one. Keep doing so even if one sells ten times as many copies as the other.

3. Forget petty hobby arguments. Address foundational causes such as bad parenting, broken school systems, corrupting influences, moral relativity, etc. Work on politics, social issues, and other important elements that make society what it is; improve all of them. Within a century, maybe then we can discuss Batman’s latest crossover with manners.

4. The rise of more online gated communities, or at least more out-of-the-way hidey-holes where the civil intelligentsia can speak freely of their likes and dislikes without fear of incessant chowderhead interruptions. (The lone message board where I’d call myself a regular fits the bill.) If one site isn’t enough, maybe invent an entirely different level of internet above the fray, where model citizens can chat and compare notes in peace over virtual coffee. Call it the “Light Web”.

5. Cultivate a caste of noble vigilante hackers willing to destroy the lives and livelihoods of the worst of the worst public enemies, or at least threaten to expose their real names and addresses. Local privacy laws might complicate this option, and I probably shouldn’t recommend it in good conscience anyway, but, y’know, I’m powerless to stop other people from recommending it. Just remember, I didn’t.

6. Fight fire with fire; everyone agree to act hateful and distasteful, and turn the internet into an all-out war between trolls and trollhunters until they all die out…or, more likely, we all give up, abandon it, and go back to reading newspapers or watching Nightline instead. We can still buy comics, but we all agree never to speak of them again.

7. Pray for the offenders. Love on them. Don’t fall for the trollbait or sink to its level. Respond to their bile with love and blessings.

I don’t know about You, the Viewers at Home, but when I saw Easter week nearing on the calendar and wondered how to approach it, this wasn’t among the first hundred thousand topics to spring to mind. Much as I’d love to wrap up with a satisfying conclusion, with the hour late and the holiday approaching, for now all I can do is sign off here with one of the old comics standbys such as “To Be Continued” or “The End…?”

Either caption would be apropos of the issue itself. Unfortunately.

Design by Jordie Bellaire and Steven Finch. Availability TBD.

This shirt doesn’t exist yet, but I’ll be camped out in line as soon as the line forms.

Hot on the heels of last week’s double-barrel underage-hero-ogling/rape-threat controversy, another brouhaha hit the comic spheres Sunday evening when comics writer Landry Walker (The Incredibles, Danger Club) wandered around the show floor at WonderCon and was startled to find the following objet d’hate existing for sale:

I don't understand why people say comics are hostile to female fans with rad shirts like this for sale at Wondercon. http://t.co/Fo6JJBfqzT—
Landry Quinn Walker (@LandryQWalker) April 20, 2014

…ugh. Not that exclusionary fanguys didn’t already have plenty of merchandise tailored specifically to them, but this one speaks directly to the heart of so many recent hostilities. I may not read the same comics as everyone else, but it’d the height of arrogance to proclaim that all the comics should be all for me. Some publishers may be better a diversity than others on all the available levels, but taken as a whole, if you can find trusty guides to point you in the right directions, the medium really does have something for every reader out there. As well it should.

To that end, colorist extraordinaire Jordie Bellaire (Deadpool, Moon Knight, Magneto, Pretty Deadly, Three, etc., etc.) and a cohort named Steven Finch (parenthetical credits here if I knew who he was) designed the proposed T-shirt you see at the top of this entry. Bellaire hopes to have a site up and running circa May so this can exist, so supporters can buy several for themselves and friends, and so she and Finch can die heroic and wealthy. She hopes to see stickers and buttons in the mix as well for all your anti-dudebro needs.

I’ll happily update here as more info becomes available. The C.A.F.E. shirt sadly won’t be ready in time for this weekend’s C2E2, but I’d love to sport this at Indy Pop Con at the end of May. I can bide my time if I must, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing other artists producing more merchandise along these lines, in even bigger and bolder designs. It’d be nice to fortify my wardrobe with more defenses like this to wear at cons and balance out the presence of card-carrying reps from the He-Man Woman-Haters Club or the boys down at the Get Rid Of Slimy girlS treehouse.

* * * * *

[Updated 5/13/2014: Shirts are now available for preorder! Go buy some for the entire family!]

It’s Hawkguy vs. Hawkeye, and Pizza Dog’s life hangs in the balance! More or less. Maybe a little. (Art by David Aja.)

That’s not to say my pull list is restricted to Scooby-Doo and Highlights Magazine. Several titles found their way onto my weekly reading stack in 2013, many of them proudly so. I put off spotlighting them here on MCC for a few reasons:

1. Entries about comics consistently draw the least traffic of all subjects.
2. My recurring frustrations with the medium nowadays leave a bitter taste that’s not fun to dwell on.
3. So many other subjects keep snaring and holding my attention first.
4. I reread last year’s summary and depressed myself with how little had changed.

Now that C2E2 is coming up this weekend, what better time to cross this off my to-do list, traffic or no traffic? The following, then, were my favorite comic book series throughout 2013, in no particular order:

* Hawkguy — Its real name is Hawkeye but no one calls it that. You had to be there. Despite scheduling issues and its increasingly thickening air of hopelessness, the two best archers in the Marvel Universe stayed the course through a combination of commitment to experimentation and refocusing on Kate Bishop’s move to Cali instead of on that dreary, pity-spiraling Clint. I can’t wait to start caring about him again someday. Also helping: #11′s spotlight on the Hawkeyes’ dog Lucky, a.k.a. Pizza Dog, written about here previously. This issue alone helped Hawkguy cling onto this list.

* Daredevil — Mark Waid and Chris Samnee wrapped up their run, the Sons of the Serpent storyline, and Matt Murdock’s last days in New York with the panache and optimism that have made ol’ Hornhead more joyful than he’s been since that one time Karl Kesel wrote it for a few minutes back in the ’90s. Looking forward to his gratuitous relaunch, his big move to San Francisco, and the Waid/Samnee team’s upcoming C2E2 appearance.

* Alex + Ada — In a near-future where the tech has updated but most people haven’t, single guy Alex has his lonesome routine interrupted when his grandma buys him a mail-order android companion named Ada, programmed to follow his orders and agree with everything he says. Alex refuses to consider this advantageous and embarks on an illegal back-channel journey to jailbreak her OS and upgrade her to free-willed status. This Image series from Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn is low-key and measured in its pace, and yet the emotional beats keep a steady rhythm so each issue still feels like a satisfying chapter that’s going places.

* Sandman: Overture — When someone convinces Neil Gaiman to write more comics, it’s a rare cause for rallying. When JH Williams illustrations are involved, presumably this will add up to one of the greatest miniseries of all time. Unfortunately the interminable wait between issues (note the four-month gap between #1 and #2) means I’ll probably have to stockpile this until it wraps up around 2015, when I can read it in one theoretically mind-blowing sitting.

Holy retro camp, Batman! (Art by Jonathan Case.)

* Batman ’66 — Normal Batman comics have nifty modern artists, but they also have crossovers. Batman ’66 has Jeff Parker’s incredible TV simulation, a differently talented artist lineup, and a premise that’s guaranteed crossover-proof. I loved the show when I was a kid, hated it was a teen, and tried not to think about it as a young adult. Now that I’m older and have been fed oodles of grim-’n’-gritty Dark Knight in my time, the sight of a stately Batman teaching manners to an impetuous Robin seems refreshingly radical.

* Lazarus — In a future where world ownership and governance is carved up between a select few invincible one-percenter families, your heroine is Forever Carlyle, one of many genetically engineered commanders who mind the soldiers, keep the peace, and enforce the tenuous relationships between the haves, the have-nots, and the total nothings. The old-time Gotham Central team of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark once again provide a dark, unpredictable must-read, loaded with liner notes, world-building extras, and a lengthy letter column in every issue. Worth its price in content density alone; the thought-provocation and utter lack of female objectification feel almost like value-added bonuses.

* Angel & Faith — Months after I’d walked away from Buffy Season 9, Christos Gage and Rebekah Isaacs saw Our Heroes’ quest to resurrect Giles through to a startling conclusion, while big-bad Whistler proves years after the fact that there was a point to his whole “balance” fixation and to his character in general. Add the intro of Giles’ two flighty but capable sisters, and a variety of fixes meant to salvage the severe disappointment that was Buffy Season 8, and the total package was, I’m pretty sure, now my all-time favorite Buffyverse comics arc. Looking forward to seeing them taking the helm of Buffy Season 10.

* Trillium — Writer/artist Jeff Lemire’s time-jumping, centuries-spanning, post-apocalyptic, head-scratching, page-turning, story-splitting, book-flipping, comic-rotating, continuum-switching, boy-meets-girl intergalactic romantic adventure fable is assuredly unlike anything else ever drawn and printed. He’s an explorer from the 1920s; she’s among the last survivors in our distant future. Can this couple who’ve barely met and don’t speak the same language figure out how to use a magical flower to save humanity at all points between now and forever, and maybe have their first date? I’m tempted to try reading it backwards and in a mirror just to make sure I didn’t miss any more narrative levels.

* Bloodshot & H.A.R.D. Corps — The amnesiac mercenary with the nanobot-fueled healing power already had a pretty exciting first year on his own; after an eminently readable crossover with Harbinger (which worked out perfectly for me because I was already collecting both) his world changed with the addition of a backup team of last-chance unlikely heroes — one a homeless pothead, another born with Down’s syndrome but artificially accelerated, and still another representing what may be the first comics character with cystic fibrosis, particularly meaningful to me in the wake of an event previously recounted here. Props to co-writers Joshua Dysart (Harbinger) and Christos Gage (that Angel & Faith guy again) for unique casting and for keeping the Project Rising Spirit crazy train rambunctious and rollin’.

Honorable mentions — i.e., other series I was content to keep following: Astro City; Harbinger; Indestructible Hulk; Locke & Key: Omega; The Manhattan Projects; Swamp Thing; The Unwritten

New projects that have already brightened my 2014 so far: Manifest Destiny, Moon Knight; Ms. Marvel; Rocky and Bullwinkle; The Royals: Masters of War; She-Hulk; Silver Surfer

* * * * *

On the flip side, please allow this moment of silence for all those series that were tried but kicked off my shopping list in 2013, grouped according to the manner of their failure:

Canceled/ended: Batman Inc.; Dial H; Glory; Journey into Mystery; Young Avengers

Disappointing change in creative team: Ten Grand; Venom

Apathy onset: The Activity; Deadpool; Great Pacific; Green Hornet; The Green Team (I bailed out one issue before the end, unable to take any more)

Plot developments I couldn’t get behind: Iron Man (can NOT take any more Mandarin); Suicide Risk (having learned nothing from Hancock)

Covers I couldn’t leave lying around the house: Revival

Four bucks an issue for a three minute-read: Wolverine

See you next year! Possibly closer to on-time!

Stop me if you’ve heard me mention C2E2 one too many times. Well, you can try to stop me.

My wife and I are now in scenic downtown Chicago, having spent the evening enjoying some non-geek quality time before our big Saturday arrives. While we decompress and charge our devices, please enjoy this collected library of our last three C2E2 experiences as previously relayed here on MCC. New photos and stories from this year’s experience will be uploaded and shared starting on Sunday as soon as time and physical limitations permit. Cheers!

* Our C2E2 2011 Photo Archive, Part 1 of 2: Heroes in Chicago
* Our C2E2 2011 Photo Archive, Part 2 of 2: Villains in Chicago

* Our C2E2 2012 Photo Archive, Part 1 of 3: the Movie Tributes
* Our C2E2 2012 Photo Archive, Part 2 of 3: the Marvel and DC Tributes
* Our C2E2 2012 Photo Archive, Part 3 of 3: the TV and Video Game Tributes

* Comic Book Company Resurrection Scorecard, Part 1 of 2: the Valiant Return of Valiant
* Comic Book Company Resurrection Scorecard, Part 2 of 2: First Things First for First

* C2E2 2013 Photos, part 1 of 6: Costume Contest Winners and the Doctor Who Milieu Revue
* C2E2 2013 Photos, Part 2 of 6: Costumes from Screens Big and Small
* C2E2 2013 Photos, Part 3 of 6: Costumes from Marvel, Image, and Other Comics
* C2E2 2013 Photos, Part 4 of 6: Geek Culture Settings and Artifacts
* C2E2 2013 Photos, Part 5 of 6: Actors and Creators Who Made Our Day
* C2E2 2013 Photos, Part 6 of 6: Robots, Games, Misfits and Honorable Mentions

* The Fable of Why This Blog is C2E2′s Fault
* Behold the Future of Chicago Sun-Times Photojournalism (includes some C2E2 2013 Marvel panel material)
* The C2E2 2013 Music Panel: Our Disappointing Photo Collection

That magical day is here once again! the thirteenth annual Free Comic Book Day is happening this Saturday, May 3rd, coinciding with the long-awaited U.S. theatrical release of Amazing Spider-Man 2. What better way to maximize your otherworldly weekend experience than to have your favorite media teaming up against the forces of illiteracy and doldrums?

For those just joining us: every year since 2002, the greatest American comic book shops participate in the hobby’s largest outreach effort to alert the world that comic books are a viable force for expression and entertainment, have plenty to offer, aren’t just for kids, aren’t just for lusty young-adult males, and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

The overriding message here, especially if you consider the wide assortment up for grabs this year:

Comics Are For Everyone.

To spread the message and the love, participating comic shops hand out free comics to any and all visitors, all specially published for the occasion by all the major companies and a vast army of companies that may be slightly less major, but their myriad voices and talents are just as vital to the field and worthy of your consideration.

The official FCBD site has the complete list of this year’s offerings, which include the likes of Archie, the Simpsons, Batman Beyond (sort of), Avatar: The Last Airbender, Hello Kitty, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Power Rangers, Spongebob Squarepants, GI Joe vs. Transformers, Disney ducks, Judge Dredd, Atomic Robo (the patron saint of FCBD in my book), Buck Rogers, a manga version of Les Miserables (yes, really, apparently), and America’s newest fixation, Marvel’s Rocket Raccoon. And, of course, more more more more MORE.

How it works:

Step 1: Find a comic shop in your area. The online Comic Shop Locator can help you if Google is being stubborn.

Step 2: Clear your Saturday morning schedule. Run your errands later in the day, quit your school sports team, and put away your entertainment gizmos because nothing important happens online on Saturday mornings anyway.

Step 3: Arrive before the shop opens. There will be a line. Try not to panic. We geeks are used to lines. The FCBD line should move briskly compared to a lot of convention horror stories we could tell you.

Step 4: When it’s your turn to enter the store, remain calm. If you have to squeal with giddiness, squeal under your breath.

Step 5: Observe the posted limits. Many shops limit how many free comics each person can take. Keep in mind there’s no rule against bringing extra persons, as long as they can behave in public and are willing to share theirs with you later.

Step 6: Maybe bring money and spend a few dollars on other cool stuff? Or many dollars on lots of other cool stuff?

Here’s the thing: comic shop owners bring these freebies to you entirely at their own expense, paying for all of them out of their own pocket. These free comics weren’t made possible by a federal grant or an off-season visit by Santa Claus. The large corporate publishers are not eating all the costs here. These are small business owners footing the entire bill for the books that their respective stores give away. For some, it ends up a loss. Overseas shops generally opt out of FCBD altogether because the air-freight shipping costs alone on so many zero-profit giveaways would end their business.

If you’re brand new to the medium and would like to go home and read your freebies first before making any firm commitments, I wouldn’t blame you. That’s what they’re there for. Try it, see if you like it. Hopefully you’ll find something that speaks to you, and I hope we’ll see you again soon.

If you’re a longtime collector and Wednesday new-comics-day regular, it’s a great time to grab your want list, or think of a series you’ve been meaning to try, or remember an original graphic novel you put off buying week-of-release, I encourage you to follow my lead and budget for it this very Saturday, as a generous thank-you to some of the folks who make our entire hobby possible. If your self-serving plan is to show up this Saturday, toss armloads of free stuff into a wheelbarrow, and walk out without donating to The Cause, by which I mean without buying anything…then you, my fellow geek, are doing it wrong.

Still on the fence about this whole FCBD thing? Why not take a word of advice from a much smarter man — LeVar Burton, host of TV’s Reading Rainbow? I shouldn’t have to list all his credits here; if you don’t know him, ask your parents who he is and watch their eyes widen with reverence. Then watch this video and rewrite your Saturday plans. See you at FCBD 2014!

Happy Free Comic Book Day! The thirteenth annual celebration of graphic storytelling narratives and/or floppy funnybooks was a rousing success, judging by the sights my wife and I saw at the three Indianapolis stores we visited. This year’s intent rightly wasn’t to reward the adults for sticking with the hobby through thick and thin. As you can tell by the above photo, including and entertaining today’s children was a major priority. Sure, many of them were based on beloved properties from other media, but those who looked carefully could find some original creations seeking their attention as well.

At our first stop, Downtown Comics North, a second table housed the not-necessarily-all-ages comics. Whatever your tastes or sensibilities, both tables had plenty to offer. We kept our wants modest and did not take one copy of everything. I have no justifiable need to hoard sixty new comics in one shopping trip. Many free comics, perhaps, but not five dozen. As you age and your home overflows with stuff and things, you’ll find that at some point “freebies” and “mandatory acquisition” cease to be synonyms.

I passed over items for a variety of reasons. I felt too guilty to take one of the Archaia hardcovers. The Valiant Comics sampler was just excerpts from upcoming comics which I already know whether or not I’ll be collecting. The Archie Digest was a generous serving of more Archie than I’ll ever need all at once. And I dismissed a few free titles that starred breasts, with women attached to them as an afterthought. All told, I picked up less than half the available books, but that still added up to a hefty reading pile.

Exactly as I planned, I purchased something at every store we visited. I picked up a few trades I’d been considering (this year’s focus: Miles Morales), I decided to try a few new series I hadn’t been following (Captain Marvel, Lumberjanes, Amazing Spider-Man), I caught up on the last three months’ worth of Deadpool, and I picked up the new issue of Furious (see previous capsule mention), which I’d missed on Wednesday.

(My one disappointment: three shops and not one of them had a single copy of Evan Dorkin’s Eltingville Club #1, which Dark Horse released April 23rd. My usual shop didn’t order it, didn’t recognize it, and refused to pay attention to me when I spelled the name for them. I’m guessing I’ll have to order a copy online and try not to grouse too bitterly about shipping costs or being ignored.)

The line was sizable by the time the doors opened at 11 a.m. but moved quickly. The folks from Indy Pop Con brought donuts, coffee, and free swag. Reps from the Indiana Toy and Comic Expo were handing out flyers and a few free tickets. Downtown Comics offered merchandise discounts and a Twitter-based prize drawing for which I still have my fingers crossed.

Special guest heroes and villains were on hand to usher fans inside, stand tall, and be awesome. Exhibit A: Hawkguy and Nightwing!

Representing for DC Comics before the New 52: Poison Ivy, Dawnstar from the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Firestorm the Nuclear Man.

Wonder Woman was in charge of determining which fans were worthy of entering and partaking of today’s featured literature.

WW’s teammates, Ms. Marvel and Veronica Lodge.

New arrival as we were leaving: hard-workin’ Harley Quinn.

Stop #2: Comic Carnival, our city’s oldest comics retailer, still plugging away after nearly four decades. We’re not in the vicinity very often, but I do like to check in from time to time. Their store is smaller in comparison but more tightly packed with literal wall-to-wall back issues as well as trades and new stuff.

On hand to welcome us: She-Ra! Yes, the renowned Princess of Power is much more accessible to her fans than that distant, standoffish He-Man, who probably hates reading. Forget that guy and I hope he never gets to be in a movie.

Stop #3: Downtown Comics West for our grand finale. Like their north-side counterpart they had a line before the doors opened, but the party was well inside by the time we arrived. Inside were many bedazzled children, eyes wide and hands grabby. My wife assured a few tiny doubters that yes, everything on the special table really was free; yes, they could take whatever they wanted; and okay, yeah, this strange free Marvel comic called Guardians of the Galaxy is gonna be a movie pretty soon, so eventually they’re gonna be somebody! They trusted her, looked up to her, and assumed she worked there because she’s awesome that way, and probably also because we were wearing the Free Comic Book Day 2014 T-shirts that Diamond Comic Distributors was giving away at their C2E2 booth last weekend.

Our hosts at this soiree: a Dalek of sorts, a different Wonder Woman, and Robin (pre-New 52 Tim Drake version).

Wonder Woman! Robin! Dalek!

Another nice touch: musical guests the Orchard Keepers regaling the crowd. The store’s relocation to the Ben Davis High School area a couple years ago has created more opportunities for community interaction, arts-based encouragement, and conveniently located trading-card tournaments.

In conclusion: literacy, heroism, representation, inclusiveness, adventure, community, and yeah, Someone Thinking of the Children. That was our fantabulous Free Comic Book Day 2014 here in the Circle City.

See you next year! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have way too much reading to do.

Even in the world of Avatar: the Last Airbender. some guys think they gotta dominate everything. Art by Faith Erin Hicks.

As previously recounted, my wife and I had a ball on Free Comic Book Day 2014 this past Saturday. Readers of multiple demographics, especially a heartening number of youngsters, flocked to our local stores and had the opportunity to enjoy samplers from all the major comic companies and dozens of indie publishers.

How did the finished works do? Did they present an enjoyable, self-contained experience? Were they welcoming to new readers? Did they adhere to the old adage that every comic is someone’s first?

Of the nearly five dozen items offered to retailers nationwide, my wife and I carried away twenty-five in all, in addition to numerous other items I purchased using money instead of good will. My favorites from my FCBD 2014 reading pile were the following:

Avatar: the Last Airbender/Itty Bitty Hellboy/Juice Squeezers (Dark Horse) — Most of this year’s FCBD books were samplers of two or more properties, all the better to increase reader exposure to as many potential new worlds as possible. Best of Show in my book was Avatar: the Last Airbender, with a ripped-from-the-headlines tale about exclusionary hobbyists and young girls who aren’t yet ready to face oppression alone. I’ve never seen the cartoon and should probably avoid the movie forever, but its third annual A-plus FCBD contribution makes me wonder if perhaps I should see if it’s on Netflix. Of the other two stories: Art Baltazar and Franco’s “Itty Bitty Hellboy” two-pager is fun Harvey Comics silliness; and David Lapham’s creator-owned “Juice Squeezers” deliver anti-bullying teen science revenge and might make a lively Nickelodeon TV show if they could afford giant CG ants.

Project Black Sky (Dark Horse) — I’ve avoided nearly all of Dark Horse’s recent super-hero revivals with one exception, Fred Van Lente’s Brain Boy, who costars here with the equally rebooted obscure hero known as Captain Midnight. The obnoxious young psychic and the time-displaced super-captain (sounds familiar, I know) are irritated buddy-heroes partnered against hyper-intelligent but non-verbal gorillas for whom letterer Nate Piekos rose to the challenge of finding a way to bring ASL to life in comics. Add in the textured art/colors of Michael Broussard and Dan Jackson, subtract one gratuitous “‘MURICA!” joke (the internet finds those a lot funnier than I do), and this may be the best Dark Horse super-hero comic I’ve ever read. (I was never a fan of their Comics’ Greatest World line, so…yeah.)

Hip Hop Family Tree Two-in-One (Fantagraphics) — This was a random pickup at one shop that I didn’t even realize was this year’s Fantagraphics FCBD contribution until hours later. Excerpts from the nonfiction series’ first volume by indie cartoonist Ed Piskor (American Splendor, Wizzywig) provide educational highlights from the history of rap music, from its early 1970s growing pains in NYC’s outer boroughs to slightly later, nonetheless major personalities like KRS-One and producer Rick Rubin just before the turn of the decade, all served up with an accurate comics/rap compare/contrast prologue, pretend-aged paper decay, and an homage to Marvel’s 1986 25th-anniversary cover motif. As a former white college boy who counted more than a few rap albums in his old cassette collection, a lot of this history is fascinating to me even though it’s been years since I last bought a rap album by someone besides the Beastie Boys. Might’ve been Cypress Hill, can’t remember offhand. Regardless, something like this belongs up on the shelf next to Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe.

Maddy Kettle headlines this year’s Top Shelf Kids Club sampler. Art by Eric Orchard.

Top Shelf Kids Club 2014 (Top Shelf) — Two excerpts this year from upcoming books, neither of them being Owly for a change. The better of the two is Eric Orchard’s Maddy Kettle, about a young girl and her floating toad on a road trip to find the witch that turned her parents into rats. It’s dark and quirky and has goblins and young me would’ve loved to see more. The other half of the book is Rob Harrell’s Monster on the Hill, comedy-fantasy set in an 1867 England where each and every small town likes to be proud of the monster that terrorizes it. I laughed more than once, but whether or not it qualifies as “kids club” material depends on how your family feels about “bloody Hell” as an epithet choice. It would’ve given me pause in my son’s youth, but it’s your call.

Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel) — Soon to be a major motion picture! An easy intro to the five cast members is written not as a set of dry dossiers, but as a welcome-to-the-team convo between Tony Stark and the newest Guardian, Corporal Flash Thompson, current handler of the alien bioweapon known as Venom. Brian Michael Bendis’ thorough but snappy dialogue decorates a perfunctory action demo that’s pretty much all incoming readers need if they want on board before the film’s August release. Also enclosed are several pages from the upcoming original graphic novel Thanos: the Infinity Revelation, in which writer/artist Jim Starlin returns to the character he personally turned into a major threat that you’ll be seeing in distant Avengers films over the next five years.

Hatter M, Vol. 1: Far from Wonder #1 (Automatic Pictures) — Like Hip Hop Family Tree Two-in-One it’s a reprint of a first issue I never saw, but it bore the FCBD insignia and it’s new to me. Reimaginings of Alice in Wonderland rarely score points with me (I shed zero tears for the recently canceled Once Upon a time in Wonderland), but for some reason I didn’t mind this one, in which the Mad Hatter is a royal bodyguard assigned to time-travel from Future Wonderland to 1859 Paris to seek his lost Queen Alyss. I snickered at this altered spelling before I dove into the book, a suitable excuse for Ben Templesmith to do stylized, creepy, Templesmithian things, which have grown on me more as I’ve aged. The preface makes sure newcomers are aware it’s Eisner-nominated material, which doesn’t surprise me because I regularly recognize or remember half the nominees in any given year. I can see how that happened here. The nominating, I mean, not the forgetting.

The all-new Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, apparently approved by a much more permissive Hasbro regime. Art by Tom Scioli.

Transformers vs. G.I. Joe (IDW Publishing) — The cover’s pink-and-purple color scheme forewarned me something was abnormal. If you know a fan of either toy line who’s ever discussed them while using the word “canon” in a sentence, this book may make them rend their garments. Godland artist Tom Scioli teams up with co-writer John Barber for a wanton display of madcap irreverence that has less in common with your childhood than it does with Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, Brandon Graham’s Prophet, and your parents’ favorite drugs. If you can’t handle the idea of a blond, chatty Snake-Eyes, you may not be prepared to open this. I’m fine with it, but I have occasional pop-culture iconoclasm issues, so mine might not be the example you’ll want to heed.

Spongebob Freestyle Funnies 2014 (United Plankton Pictures c/o Bongo Comics) — In which experienced funnybook technicians like Jacob Chabot, Gregg Schigiel, Sam Henderson, and Maris Wicks take turns with the world’s greatest sponge and his pal Patrick. Amusement abounds, but I super-liked Schigiel’s “Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy” short, which introduces the long-overdue Mermaid Girl. (Quoth a nervous Barnacle Boy to his mentor: “But I’m still your sidekick, right?”) If you’ve ever liked the cartoon, there’s not much wrong here.

Magic Wind (Epicenter Comics) — American translation of the Italian Magico Vento, a Western horror series that’s been running overseas since 1997. Your Old West hero is ex-military Ned Ellis, now a Sioux shaman who sees visions thanks to shrapnel in his brain. Our man teams up with a sober Edgar Allan Poe and squares off against hollerin’ killer Injuns, kindly Mormons, and what appears to be a colossal, belligerent crude-oil snake. Not for the faint of heart or those who can’t help wondering why we still have books with hollerin’ killer Injuns in them, but Joe R. Lansdale fans should get a kick out of this.

Atomic Robo’s AI systems aren’t so sharp at subtly changing the subject. Art by Scott Wegener.

Atomic Robo/Bodie Troll/Haunted (Red 5 Comics) — To me, Atomic Robo is the patron saint of Free Comic Book Day and an automatic pickup every time for good, whimsical action science adventure. Once again backing him up is trash-craving Bodie Troll, strictly giving kids a well-cartooned, subversive dose of garbage gags. If you find yourself guffawing at the idea of “stinky armpit roots” you’ve come to the right place. Also on hand is Haunted, represented only by a four-page chase scene that offers promising art but otherwise insufficient data to encourage further sampling.

Bongo Comics Free-for-All 2014 (Bongo) — Another year, another year’s-best compilation from the Simpsons Comics people. A tour of Mr. Burns’ underground catacombs, an Itchy & Scratchy send-up of Spy vs. Spy, a tribute to Steve Ditko’s Dr Strange, and a one-page Sergio Aragonés “Where’s Ralph?” puzzle were all funnier than tonight’s overhyped partially-Lego TV episode.

Skyward/Midnight Tiger (Action Lab) — I’ve raved here before about Jeremy Dale’s creator-owned fantasy Skyward and was looking forward to this special. Unfortunately this is a flashback that means more if you’re caught up on the series, and I’ve bought but not yet had a chance to read Volume 2, so my gratification is suspended pending further reading progress. Batting second is Midnight Tiger, a black teen hero strip with occasionally awkward art, some inspired touches (I love the idea of a phone app that helps commuters avoid superhuman fights), a couple of cheesy in-jokes (police code for superhuman fights is a “616″), and an origin-story climax that’s either rushed or missing pages. I do see promise and groundwork being laid for the months ahead, particularly in the opening debate over the average-Joe viewpoint that isn’t impressed by heroes who routinely save Earth as a whole but never take the time to investigate the plight of individual neighborhoods.

To be continued!

Batman Beyond vs. Batwingbot and Squirebot in DC’s apocalyptic Futures End. Art by Patrick Zircher.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

…my wife and I had a ball on Free Comic Book Day 2014 this past Saturday. Readers of multiple demographics, especially a heartening number of youngsters, flocked to our local stores and had the opportunity to enjoy samplers from all the major comic companies and dozens of indie publishers.

How did the finished works do? Did they present an enjoyable, self-contained experience? Were they welcoming to new readers? Did they adhere to the old adage that every comic is someone’s first?

Part One was an overview of my favorites from this year’s haul. Covered here are the rest, from those nearly good enough to those I wish I’d left behind. On with the countdown:

The New 52: Futures End 0 (DC Comics) — DC’s next Major Event begins as many such DC events do: with heroes being murdered and dismembered, hope quashed under a massive steamroller, and Blue Beetle picked off as an early casualty. Batman Beyond makes his New 52 debut as the Kyle Reese/Kathryn Pryde/Marty McFly character from the future who goes back in time to prevent Skynet analog Brother Eye from turning all DC characters into Borg Terminator spiders modeled on John Carpenter’s The Thing. As an unabashed Justice League: Days of Future Past it gets the ball rolling with some of DC’s best writers and artists. It’s barely discernible as a New 52 story except for all those weird Jim Lee collars. But this Major event will be a weekly, 48-issue project. That’s far beyond my comics-event commitment level, no matter how good the art might be.

Rocket Raccoon (Marvel) — Soon to be a major motion picture! Rocket will be receiving his own solo series soon courtesy of writer/artist Skottie Young, who supplies only the cover here. The interior tale is a personable mockup of Sly Cooper, Jak & Daxter, and other video games from my son’s collection. It’s simple and fitting for kids who want a straightforward action hero and really like animals. As a value-added plus, the issue also reprints a cute, fourth-wall-teasing Spider-Man space story from a few years ago, drawn by personal fave Ty Templeton and costarring the most recent version of the White Tiger. She’s currently appearing in Mighty Avengers and hopefully won’t end up as yet another minority hero that Marvel takes off the shelf and stuffs in their Goodwill bag out in the garage.

FUBAR: The Ace of Spades (FUBAR Press) — The premise remains the same as their FCBD 2013 entry: self-contained stories about major historical events or locales, but with zombies in them. This year’s two topical tales of terror try staging zombies both inside Saddam Hussein’s stronghold at the time of his capture and up against Seal Team Six inside bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout. Both function well enough as war stories go, particularly the Iraq scenario as written by reliable war-comics pro Chuck Dixon, and this hit a nostalgic nerve as the only black-and-white book in my FCBD pile, but the question remains of just how many more zombie stories Earth really needs at this point.

Another daydreaming millennial pounds a nail into the coffin of the dying carpet repair trade. Rise of the Magi 0. Art by Sumeyye Kesgin.

Rise of the Magi 0 (Top Cow) — A scrawny, big-nosed boy in another land refuses to follow his stubborn father’s career track and sets his mind on more otherworldly pursuits that he might not be ready to handle. While How to Train Your Dragon remains my favorite DreamWorks movie to date, this remarkably not-so-different coming-of-age adventure replaces dragons with magic and Scotland with an Asgardian Agrabah (or something). It’s an imaginative start with art that reminds me of Mark Badger’s work on The Mask and various late-’80s Marvel books, but I’m bitter because it’s only eleven pages long. The remaining pages are padded out with concept art, which can be interesting but always feels like a cheat to me. More disappointing is that this charming book is done the disservice of being hidden beneath a typically edgy Top Cow cover that bears absolutely, positively no resemblance to any art, characters, items, or anything else inside. A fantasy book with this kind of potential deserves better than bait-and-switch marketing.

Giant-Size Adventure/Thrills/Fantasy/Action (Red Giant Entertainment) — Four flipbooks introducing two concepts apiece: I got them from a shop that handed them out as a shrink-wrapped set, but I saw another shop that had opened and stacked them for separate distribution. The eight stories break down like so:

* Shadow Children: Two kids who grew up in a fantasy dimension as a sort of witness protection program to avoid the monstrous adults who ruined their lives now find themselves as teens trying to reenter their homeworld with deadly powers and extra sensitivity to that same kind of adult. Warm, funny, touching, frightening, and potentially triggerish all at once. This could become something big and meaningful if it stays restrained and doesn’t go full-tilt revenge-fantasy.

* Magika: Digitally painted fantasy kids live together in otherdimensional peace, or maybe not; characters possess subtle, realistically mutable motivations; eventual grave danger is neatly foreshadowed from a distance. The most unpredictable of the bunch.

* The First Daughter: A President’s daughter who has a super-science suit and a friend like the Great Gazoo finds out she’s one of many First Children throughout history who’ve been specially prepped and called upon to confront a centuries-in-the-making alien invasion. More young nonwhite female heroes in comics would be superb, but do they have to misuse “literally” and say “hashtag” aloud?

* Pandora’s Blogs: The titular hero is a medical professional’s daughter who has weird misadventures and then writes about them. The intro is a sort of X-Files-meets-Disney Channel quickie that could’ve used a few more pages to set up its bittersweet twist. I was a little put off because I’m not a fan of stories where the hero is an upper-class blogger, but that’s just me.

* Duel Identity: Andromeda is a super-hero by day and an undercover spy by night. Or sometimes she does both in one night, it just really depends. Starstruck co-creator Elaine Lee returns to comics and may or may not have found a viable high concept here, but I couldn’t stop laughing at Andromeda’s solemn investigation into an inventor that she thinks has done something controversial and dangerously revolutionary, but his groundbreaking project is basically Deep Web for iPhone.

* Tesla: The man, the myth, the legend! He’s revamped here as a science hero (not a comics first — cf. Matt Fraction’s The Five Fists of Science), but it’s a shame his new redhead companion is pluckier and more interesting than he is.

* Wayward Sons: In the Wild West, two unrelated teens — one white, one Native American — manifest unexplained wind powers, have dull family talks, and are talented enough to jump and shoot multiple arrows at the same time. The more I see impossible archery moves in movies, the less I give them a break.

* Darchon: What if Dr. Strange were a bigger, more capricious jerk? I wouldn’t buy his comics, that’s what.

Epic #0 Pilot (ComixTribe) — A generous thirty-two page origin about a teen super-hero with a fatal weakness that reminded me of the obscure 1980 movie Super Fuzz, which I saw at the drive-in when I was eight years old. I loved its ludicrousness to pieces, especially how the hero lost his powers every time he saw the color read (pretty much the most debilitating hero weakness since Mon-El’s vulnerability to lead), and that’s resulted in a rare moment of me awarding happy nostalgia points. I doubt that was the intent here, though. Art chores are split between two pencilers and a contributing inker; one renders in much more detail than the other, but seems to struggle more with anatomy issues. It maybe wasn’t the best decision to overload the mandatory action prologue with no less than seven super-villains (plus an evil poodle) when we haven’t even gotten to know the hero yet. But the high school scenes felt accurately like high school, and then there was that Super Fuzz sensation. If there were a second issue, I might flip through it on the shelf.

The Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt characters meet again in All You Need is Kill. Art by Lee Ferguson.

All You Need is Kill/Terra Formars (Haikasoru/Viz) — The lead story is an excerpt from the graphic-novel adaptation of the Japanese prose novel of the same name, which has also been adapted into the upcoming American summer blockbuster Tom Cruise vehicle more generically named Edge of Tomorrow. Said excerpt is a flashback for Emily Blunt’s character and probably resonates more in context. The backup story is a mere nine pages of translated sci-fi manga, barely enough space to introduce the characters with dry text dossiers, show off a nicely toned manga vista, introduce the grotesque villains, and clock us in the face with a nasty plot shock before our time’s up. After forcing myself to slough through the dossiers, the other eight pages zipped by too quickly to form a solid opinion.

V Wars 0 (IDW Publishing) — Bestselling novelist Jonathan Maberry takes a break from his occasional Marvel projects to indulge in a creator-owned horror series that would just as easily been called World War V if it weren’t for possible Roman numeral interference. Simply put: vampire outbreak instead of zombies, caused by an oddly specific virus that activates some dormant metagene in most of Earth’s population. I guess? The quote-unquote “vampires” die like anyone else would in a hail of bullets, exhibit no outward signs of traditional vampirism, and look to me exactly like really angry people with pointy teeth. Frankly, I’m not sure why anyone calls them vampires and not simply cannibals. Earth’s only hope is a sheepish guy who’s an expert in vampire mythology and folklore, which would come in handy if they acted like vampires at all. After twelve pages of that is another thirteen pages of dry dossiers. Long story, short version: collectors my age tend to have a knee-jerk repulsion against text features in comics, brought about by decades of exposure to worthless but compulsory text features in comics.

Scam: Crosswords (ComixTribe) — Scam was some sort of miniseries about which I know nothing. One of its characters, a masked killer named Crosswords, is like the Punisher or Garth Ennis’ Hitman, the latter of whom felt like the template here for a black-humored, creatively over-the-top assault against a billionaire bad-guy family. Much like Ennis’ Avatar Press work, except with fewer discernible organs. The equally dark backup story stars an antihero who has powers only when he’s really drunk. Hee?

The overly optimistic kids from The Intrinsic: Singularity Zero. Art by Thu Thai.

The Intrinsic: Singularity Zero (Arcana) — Two pages of dry text dossiers (UGH) lead into lots of DeviantArt CG material where teen heroes squabble, say wooden things like “Let’s flee!”, and are drawn in stiff poses with more shading than detail. This all feels like someone’s art-class project, but somehow the company coaxed superstar Alex Ross to paint a cover for their upcoming debut. Neat trick.

Sherwood, Texas/Boondock Saints (12-Gauge Comics) — Story #1: Robin Hood and his Merry Men rebooted as a Sons of Anarchy pastiche. Mostly it’s angry guys fighting, and the word “feisty” is misspelled twice. Story #2: a Boondock Saints vignette that bounced off me because I’ve seen neither film. Daryl Dixon and two other guys kill smugglers, blow up drugs, have half their dialogue censored, and make sad, dated Rick James jokes. This is cowritten by original writer/director Troy Duffy, so I have to assume something in here is exactly what Saints fans want. I seriously wouldn’t know.

Über FCBD 2014 (Avatar Press) — Several drawings of WWII superhuman ultra-violence aren’t nearly enough to disguise the fact that this is a comic entirely made of dry text dossiers. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.

…

…and here endeth the pile. In all, a few joyous discoveries and several works that bear further scrutiny in the months ahead, assuming my local comic shop orders all or any of them. See you next year!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For the last few years, my wife and I have spent our respective birthdays together finding some new place or attraction to visit as a one-day road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on this most frabjous day, partly to explore areas of Indiana we’ve never experienced before. My 2014 birthday destination of choice: the town of Muncie, some 75 miles northeast of here.

Sure, many people would spend their birthday drinking, partying, and making the day wild and regrettable. We have our own agenda. Finding creative ways to spend quality time together. Embarking on road trips that wouldn’t occur to our peers. Searching for gems in unusual places — sometimes geek-related, sometimes peculiar, sometimes normal yet above average.

We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

Part One was a general “hey, wow, still got a pulse!” birthday entry. Part Two was a salute to artwork around Muncie. Part Three covers the results of our primary objective, the twisted plan we knew no one would approve. It was a quest we’re sure many have tried, but few have confessed to attempting.

As it so happens, Muncie was once the town of residence for Garfield creator Jim Davis and his company, Paws, Inc. (Both now officially reside in Albany.) In honor of that intellectual property’s 25th anniversary in 2003 and its impressive long-term survival against all internet snark, dozens of Garfield statues stand in his honor all over Grant County and in Muncie. We weren’t prepared for a tour of neighboring Grant County, but Muncie boasts eleven of the known Garfield statues. We wanted to see how many we could track down. Because they were there.

We stumbled across our first one while visiting Minnetrista, inside their Orchard Gift Shop. Each statue has a name; this one’s “The Spirit of Minnetrista”. Coincidence, I’m sure.

Statue #2 was inside Jack’s Cameras, whose helpful sales rep gave us clues for tracking down some of the other Garfields. In return for this favor, please go buy many cameras from him. Much obliged.

Oh, and this one’s called “Feline Exposed”. You can write your own joke for that.

Statues #3 and #4 were deep inside the Cornerstone Center for the Arts, the former Masonic temple I mentioned in Part Two. We had to navigate its labyrinthine structure to locate the receptionist on duty, who was kindly enough to lead us upstairs to each specially themed specimen.

#3: “Paw Gliacci”. Some might look at the name and think opera, despite how they didn’t bother reproducing much of his costume beyond the color white. I see the name and I can’t help being reminded of the Comedian’s breakdown from Watchmen.

Statue #4: “Yo Yo Paw”. Yes, I know the cat puns aren’t getting any better. Let’s be honest: does any series of puns ever get better as they go? Stop judging poor Garfield according to your unrealistic expectations of cat puns, and instead spread some blame to other heinous perpetrators such as Heathcliff, Catwoman, or nearly every speaking cat in Disney history.

Statue #5 was in the window of the local Red Cross chapter. They were closed on Saturday, so shooting through the window was the best we could do. My wife took this photo and, despite my moving farther away at her request, still captured my reflection in the glass. So now she owes me my soul back.

Its official name is “The Angel of the Battlefield”, which should be innocuous enough to placate the pun haters out there for a moment.

(And while I’m thinking about it: for Garfield haters in general, if you think it’s the worst strip out there just because the internet said so, you really ought to pick up a hard-copy newspaper sometime and see how some of his obsolete competition are creaking and groaning. The current Paws Inc. team does an admirable job of finding different topics to mine besides Mondays and lasagna. It’s no Pearls Before Swine, but it’s still in the upper tier in its medium.)

…

Minor issue with our quest: nowhere in our pre-planning process did we find any indication that all the Garfield statues are located inside their respective businesses. Perhaps it was our fault for assuming Muncie would take the same approach as Punxsutawney, PA, which boasts a few dozen groundhog statues stationed outside on its city streets.

Nor were we aware that many Muncie businesses are closed on Saturdays. Despite the helpful tips from the guy at Jack’s Cameras, this meant some Garfields were beyond our grasp on account of closures. The Garfield allegedly in Muncie’s City Hall, for one. Due west of downtown, a medical imaging center had a Garfield inside that I could just barely see behind their furniture and walls. Because the sun was behind me and turning all their windows into mirrors, I had to stretch my arm out to one side and shoot this pic awkwardly through my own shadow on the glass just to snag a Bigfoot-level glimpse of his ears and upper eyeballs.

Our reference map says his name is “This Cat Has Nine Lives”, but I couldn’t see what he was wearing. For all I know he may have been dressed like a big bag of Nine Live cat food.

The most annoying offender was the Muncie Visitors Bureau, which has a Garfield but moved at some point without relabeling their location on their own Garfield statue reference map. That would’ve been good to know before we walked several blocks out of our way to where their map said they still were. Not cool, tourism guys.

We also walked around the Horizon Convention Center in vain for one that’s in there somewhere. Curiously, they had no events scheduled, but their doors were unlocked and no one stopped us from wandering around their big empty place alone for a good fifteen or twenty minutes. We appreciated the free restrooms, drinking fountain, and complete lack of trespassing accusations.

A couple more were listed on the outskirts of town, but by late afternoon we were tired and needed to tend to our dog at home. Besides, we had no reassurance that those Garfields would be any less locked up than the others who denied us.

Thus ended our quest with a mere five complete Garfields acquired, plus one set of blurry Garfield ears. We were awarded no bonus points and didn’t unlock the Tourist Equipment Upgrade that would’ve made our next road trip so much simpler. Better luck next time, I guess, should we choose to play again.

To be continued!

I thought I was getting funnier looks than usual today when I returned to work from my routine Wednesday lunchtime walk. It took me a few minutes to figure out why.

I have a special pattern on Wednesdays. I arrive earlier at work than usual; I spend my lunch break walking to my local comic shop to pick up the week’s new releases; I hurry back to my desk so I can finish out my early day and enjoy an extended evening. Pretty much like clockwork. My coworkers know me just enough to think nothing of it.

I paid for my hobby fix and got lost in thought while the clerk placed them inside the usual translucent bag. I remained pretty much on autopilot during the brisk walk back, through the heart of downtown, into the lobby, and up the elevator, passing a few distractingly odd expressions along the way.

When I sat down at my desk and began shuffling things around, that’s when I focused and really looked at what I’d been carrying.

You can click on the picture to enlarge, which I’m providing here for the sake of context, but I wouldn’t recommend it, especially not at work.

Oh, dear.

What you’re seeing through the bag is an ad for a comic I guarantee I’ll never buy. This ad is on the back cover of Doctor Spektor #1, a new reboot of a ’60s super-hero who means nothing to me in and of himself. I picked it up because it’s written by the great and powerful Mark Waid, 90% of whose works tend to rise to the top of my weekly reading pile. The front cover is comparatively benign — maybe a tad on the spooky side, nothing wilder than what you’d find on the cover of an old paperback ghost story.

Paranoia set in. Maybe I wasn’t imagining those expressions. Here we are in a professional environment with a reputation and a dress code and neckties and a workforce in which women outnumber men by a wide margin, and I’m cluelessly walking around with what probably looks to the undiscerning eye like a big, showy bag full of embarrassing little Maxim pamphlets. For new readers, let it be stated for the record my preferred reading matter normally doesn’t include glossy, modern burlesque. If this had been the front cover, I would’ve left it on the store shelf, Waid or no Waid.

I paused to think it through. Maybe no one had seen it and I was fretting for nothing. Maybe I had the other side of the bag facing outward while I was walking, no harm was done, and those alleged faces had been made because my antiperspirant expired ahead of schedule. Maybe I was worrying for nothing.

So I flipped the bag over.

Ahh, nuts.

You can also click and enlarge this one if you must. I’ll just be over here blushing and rolling my eyes at the same time.

This wasn’t even something I bought or requested. This was the cover of the new Comic Shop News, a free weekly newspaper that many retailers give away to regular customers. They toss it in your bag without showing it to you or asking, and when you get home you have a little extra reading material. Or in this case, ogling material. This week the fans at Comic Shop News decided to spotlight a new project starring Vampirella, a well-known, painstakingly curved character whose costume is made from three strands of Christmas ribbon. She’s practically a comics tradition, for those who like or think they need this sort of thing.

Not all comics readers, guys.

This isn’t the first time I’ve wound up with baggage from the comic shop that could easily invite the glaring wrath of the mothers and grandmothers who outnumber me at work. Last year the shop was using bags provided by Fox promoting their new TV series The Following. I can’t find a photo of this bag online and perhaps that’s for the best, but the image on both sides was the show’s logo next to a photo of a nude woman with a knife, her R-rated parts nestled behind her other parts. That one was impossible to overlook. When presented with one of those, I took the comics out of the bag, turned the bag inside-out, placed the comics inside the now-opaque reverse-bag, went on my merry way, and never watched the show. Problem solved.

But I’m not in the habit of inspecting the outside of my bag every week. Call me entitled, but I feel like I shouldn’t have to. I avoid comics that go out of their way to look anything like this for a reason, especially if they’re super-heroes. Zero interest here. I’m happily married, not looking to supplement or supplant that lovely woman, and really not keen on having things around the house that would need to be hidden from visitors. And it’s not as though all comics are like this. Within these simple, prudish guidelines, I still find plenty of quality books to read on a weekly basis.

But now I’m in the position having to inspect all sides of my purchases before I leave the shop, just to ensure my peace of mind and continual paychecks. I’d rather not have to resort to bringing my own bags to the shop, but I’d also rather not have friends and family fearing for my thought life or my marriage. Or thinking I’m the kind of guy who thinks strip clubs are cool and who marks the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue release date on his calendar every year.

Vehement online debates about chauvinist behaviors and exclusionary attitudes in the comics field have already been giving me cause for concern, shame, outrage, and sadness in recent months, each reaction taking turns prevailing from day to day. This kind of thing isn’t helping my mood. Yes, I realize it’s not certified nudity or hardcore porn. That doesn’t make it okay in my house, and it definitely doesn’t make it okay to leave lying around my cubicle.

If anything bad happens because of my little accidental parade, Comics and I are gonna have to have a very long talk.

Hey, kids! It’s the world-famous General Lee from TV’s The Dukes of Hazzard! Everyone likes TV cars, right? TV cars are pop culture and therefore totally on-topic at Indy PopCon. Please enjoy this eye-popping, gas-guzzling, moonshine-runnin’, crooked-cop-defyin’, Southern-fried, toy-selling idol of millions and be sure to Like and Share the heck out of it on all the best social media so I can finally take one evening this week to go rest and relax without fear of the oncoming post-convention traffic plateau. Remember, the power of my recuperation is your hands.

At long last, the week-long marathon reaches the end of its journey here on MCC! Presenting one last round of photos from the first annual Indy PopCon at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. Yes, we here at Midlife Crisis Crossover realize we’re still reliving this shindig long after the rest of the Midwest has gone back to their daily routine and stopped reminiscing about last weekend. And I can’t deny it’ll be nice to move on to other subjects and writing forms after this. We’re almost there, I promise.

Part Eight, then: the sights we saw (besides costumes) and the personalities we met.

Highlight of the day and so far my year: meeting Joel Hodgson from Mystery Science Theater 3000. He’ll also be appearing at Wizard World Chicago in August, but most likely with a much larger line. In fact, none of Indy PopCon’s actor guests had a long autograph line. At all.

We also saw Joel do a fifteen-minute interview with local Q95 DJ-turned-podcaster Chick McGee. No plugging, nothing serious, just a quarter-hour of goofing around. This episode of “Off the Air with Chick McGee” also included a twenty-minute interview with Drew Curtis, founder of Fark. Our lone photo of him is iffy, and I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly gone to their site. But hey: Joel!

Another pleasure to meet: Ron Glass, a.k.a. the late Shepherd Book from Firefly. Indy PopCon marks the first time in my life I’ve seen a Firefly guest at a convention without at least 200 people in line. I couldn’t help feeling suspicious….

He might not be a celebrity to anyone outside Indianapolis, but he’s big to us. As late-night TV horror hosts go, Chicagoans had Svengoolie, Angelenos had Elvira, and we Hoosier kids had Sammy Terry. Alas, the original passed away in 2013, but his son assumed both the mantle and control of his dreadful puns.

Lines were thin enough that my wife’s attempt to snap a pic of Kristian Nairn, a.k.a. HODOR! (the guy at left with the biggest beard), went unchallenged. This was much more relaxed than the one time a Wizard World Chicago staffer leaped like a Secret Service agent between my lens and Jon Bernthal. This seemed pretty cool for a while…

…but when even a Buffy guest like the Nicholas Brendon has a clear line of sight from his booth instead of drowning in fans, there’s only one conclusion I could draw: the con didn’t sell nearly as many thousands of tickets as they’d hoped. That meant folks like myself, my wife, and Silk Spectre up there received top-notch customer service everywhere we went, but it was entirely due to lack of competing consumers.

Fun trivia: my longest line of the day was the wait for Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There were ten (10) whole people ahead of us. Even when we arrived at 8:30 a.m. for our traditional long wait in line before the exhibit hall opens, there were maybe only six people ahead of us, not counting VIPs. So yeah, meeting Eastman was cool and definitely not hurried.

Among the other artists we met: animator Tom Bancroft, selling copies of the Kickstarter’d trade collection of his series Opposing Forces.

Cartoonist Guy Gilchrist is the current caretaker of the Nancy and Sluggo comic strip. Our local paper The Indianapolis Star dropped it years ago, but thanks to digital distribution via gocomics.com, its worldwide readership is still in the eight-digit range. In the past he’s also been part of studios who did merchandise work (e.g., coloring books) for properties such as Biker Mice from Mars, the Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa, and his studio’s longest lasting license, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Small world!

Among those making a go at Artists Alley were Geoffrey Wessel, writer/creator of the soccer/serial-killer series Keeper. I remembered seeing his name around Bleeding Cool on occasion, but I don’t like to lead off conversations with weird things like that. Trust me, you get the oddest looks. And I do so hate the oddest looks.

G. Pike was selling printed collections of her 2½-year-old webcomic series Title Unrelated. It’s in my immediate post-convention reading stack that I would’ve gotten to by now if it weren’t for this daily internet writing thing.

It’s my understanding that many retailers and sellers did not have the time of their lives. We saw some interesting displays here and there (behold the power of Castle Grayskull!). We can’t speak for today’s youth, but as for me and my house, we’re exceedingly choosy nowadays about what relics and antiques we’re interested in acquiring (e.g., my comics want-list). We’re not as bowled over by the novelty of forty-year-old toys as we used to be.

Some sellers tried anything to move units. Y’know that Guardians of the Galaxy movie Marvel’s got coming in August? Buy this book first and become one of us superfans who can brag that we knew Rocket Raccoon before the movie made him cool to commoners. Wouldn’t you like to be cool first? BUY THIS BOOK OR FAIL AT COOL.

Indy PopCon didn’t have regulated GenCon-style gaming , only a designated section of tables for gamers to game at their discretion. For aging holdouts who’re still waiting for anyone to teach us how Settlers of Catan works, there was another corral for ye olde video arcade games, all free-play. It’s a good thing someone got to Galaga before I could, or else I’d probably still be there right now.

You want more pop culture? Fine. I give you Lego Hoth from Lego Star Wars.

If Lego Star Wars was too passé for you, how about Lego Walking Dead? If you’re caught up on the show, you’ll recognize this scene from Season 4. If you were waiting for DVD or Netflix, forget you were ever here and go back to staring at Lego Hoth some more.

A small portion of Indianapolis’ food truck armada lined Georgia Street east of the Convention Center for lunch. My wife and I each picked up a sandwich from Johnson’s BBQ Shack. I approve of their sauces, but the sandwich wasn’t a meal in in itself. In the photo is Der Pretzel Wagen, where I went for seconds. Their “Big Helga” — pastrami, Sierra Nevada Spicy Brown Porter Mustard, Swiss cheese, and cole slaw on a pretzel bun — was one of the tastiest sandwiches I’ve had anywhere all year.

Apropos of something, the final image of our eight-part Indy PopCon 2014 writeup is a photo of the first thing that greeted us inside the registration hall: a Pokemon-themed VW Beetle! The “Pika3″ was loaded with too many stuffed Pikachu dolls and just looks keen. This is symbolic of pop culture itself on levels that I’m too tired to contemplate all the way through.

…and that’s a wrap. Beyond my Artists Alley purchases, I also picked up four hardcovers for a combined total of $22, including the quite recent Avengers: Endless Wartime and Marvel’s Once Upon a Time: the Shadow of the Queen. I filled a few more gaps in my ever-extending Incredible Hulk collection. I bought a prose anthology with a contribution by a fellow WordPress blogger. We picked up a few freebies. I found myself a nagging unsolved mystery about why IDW Publishing appeared on the website at one point but nowhere at the con itself. We have new sets of photos and memories. We have our fervent hopes that Indy PopCon 2015 will happen and will reach a wider audience. And I’m stuck with this sudden insatiable craving for another Big Helga right now.

The End. Lord willing, see you next year!

* * * * *

Links to the other installments in this very special Midlife Crisis Crossover event are enclosed below. Thanks for visiting!

* Part One: The Costume Contest Winners
* Part Two: the Big-Budget Blockbuster Costumes
* Part Three: Costumes from Comics
* Part Four: the Costumes of the Doctor
* Part Five: Gaming and Anime Costumes!
* Part Six: Last Call for Costumes
* Part Seven: the Sylvester McCoy Hour

Behold two panels from the cool thing that landed in my mailbox last week: Jamal Igle’s graphic novel Molly Danger. This forty-eight page tale about the responsibilities and hardships of a government-allied teen super-hero is spunky, dynamic, written from the heart, suitable for all ages, and highly recommended for anyone who could use a break from comics about white guys by white guys.

This first volume was made possible through a Kickstarter project that was launched in August 2012. My local comic shop had a copy on the shelf in November 2013. As one of the 1,240 backers whose pledges helped make the project possible, my copy just now arrived, seven months after retailers could sell it and nine months after the original, estimated delivery date of September 2013. Unfortunately for everyone, U.S. Postal Service rates skyrocketed sometime between project launch and project completion, which means shipping/handling costs exceeded what he’d expected. Once the books were printed, Igle mailed out backers’ copies a few at a time whenever he could afford to do so.

It’s a great book and I look forward to seeing future Molly Danger projects, but this aspect of the experience didn’t turn out quite like anyone had hoped.

Igle’s story is ultimately understandable and pretty benign compared to others I’ve faced. Am still facing, in fact.

Hang out at any geek-news site, wait a week or two, and you’re likely to see the latest headline about a Kickstarter fiasco whose broken commitments ended in teeth-gnashing and garment-rending. Here’s a link to a recent one in which things have turned so grim and sour that the Washington State Attorney General’s Office is involved. Since Kickstarter assumes no accountability or liability for its users’ inaction or delinquency, it was only a matter of time before someone began channeling consumer rage into legal threats.

…

Hi. My name is Randy. It’s been eighteen months since I last gave a single dime to a Kickstarter project.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

I loved the idea of artists, writer, musicians, inventors, designers, and other makers of stuff bypassing the corporate processes that normally rule their respective fields and obtaining the necessary funding to self-publish, self-release, or otherwise bring their works to life through the magic of crowdfunding, which in most cases works a lot like pre-ordering an item except you’re also adding a generous tip.

…But other priorities have come a-callin’. My last pledge was in December 2012 (a Bob Mould tribute concert film); I can’t swear it’ll be my final use of the site, but any future contributions will have to be severely limited, judiciously selected, frugally committed, and wildly recompensed with endless freebies.

Six months later came my most recent update:

I’m not backing anything else on their website until and unless I receive the rewards I’m owed from all other projects I’ve previously backed first. And I mean all of them.

That was October 2013, eight months ago. Of the six overdue projects I listed in “Former Kickstarter Junkie II”, I’ve since received backer rewards for two.

Besides Molly Danger, in November 2013 I received my copy of Gail Simone and Jim Calafiore’s Leaving Megalopolis, Vol. 1. Thanks to generous contributions the winning team behind DC’s Secret Six were able to add additional story pages and upgrade to hardcover format, all without passing new costs on to us backers. They kept up a steady communication stream through dozens of updates during the production process — concept art, preview pages, you-are-there status reports, and other behind-the-scenes tidbits. Even after deadline they maintained a professional, generous transparency and made sure we never once thought that they were hiding out from us or wasting our money on designer drugs. I was elated to meet Simone at this year’s C2E2 and ask her to autograph my copy.

As for those other four perpetually pending projects…

Well. Hm.

Kickstarter projects that have yet to deliver:

Project: the spaceflight documentary Fight for Space
Launch date: July 2012
Estimated delivery date: December 2013
Last update to backers: April 20, 2014
Status as far as we’ve been told: We’ve received four updates in eight months from director Paul Hildebrandt, each one revealing a broader, more ambitious scope than the last. The production ended up recording triple the number of planned interviews, attending more relevant conferences than expected, and encountered numerous barriers along the way, from scheduling issues to unreachable key sources to flat-out quasi-conspiratorial stonewalling on several upper-level fronts. In other news (as of April 9, 2014), if anyone out there in all Internetland has the preexisting high-end connections to arrange an on-the-record interview with any single living human of interest at Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Hildebrandt would dearly love to hear from you and possibly offer you his firstborn in exchange for a good word in edgewise. For all their highly publicized importance in the current commercial-spaceflight scene, SpaceX had thus far given Hildebrandt’s team the full J.D. Salinger treatment.

If you’d like to know more about this documentary, Fight for Space has an official site where you can view a trailer, a few extras, and, curiously, a PayPal button accepting additional donations. Apparently our Kickstarter funding wasn’t enough.

Project: Dan Harmon and Charlie Kaufman’s stop-motion short film Anomalisa
Launch date: July 2012
Estimated delivery date: May 2013
Last update to backers: June 2, 2014
Status as far as we’ve been told: Through five updates in eight months from Community creator Harmon and his trusty sidekick Dino “Starburns” Stamatopoulos, we’ve seen limited glimpses into the production (they’re scrupulously avoiding spoiler images) and been informed that the planned forty-minute project has been officially expanded into an eighty-minute feature, thanks to additional funding they obtained from sources other than the Kickstarter campaign because apparently our funding wasn’t enough. Understandably, this expansion means twice the stop-motion animation and therefore zillions of unplanned extra man-hours and jillions of extra months until our original deal is fulfilled.

Well, I guess that’s Hollywood for you! Hyuk! *slide-whistle* *canned laughter*

Project: The animated short Atomic Robo: Last Stop, based on the excellent all-ages comic series
Launch date: February 2012
Estimated delivery date: January 2013
Last update to backers: May 14, 2014
Status as far as we’ve been told: In September 2013 we were told some items would begin shipping shortly. On May 4, 2014, the animation studio uploaded the complete short was uploaded to YouTube so we backers could look for our names in the end credits. I eventually located mine toward the end after several erroneously duplicated rows. We were also told discs were being pressed “next week”. As of today, six weeks later, none of us has received a single tangible item. The May 14th update was simply a link to corrected credits, no product news.

Other than those end credits, I refuse to watch the short itself until and unless I receive the physical copy we were promised. And to be honest, my irritation with the short is killing my enthusiasm for the comics themselves.

Project: folk-rocker Mary Lou Lord’s next album
Launch date: September 2011
Estimated delivery date: December 2011
Last update to backers: June 14, 2014
Status as far as we’ve been told: Follow the complete comedy of errors, now updated:

* February 2012: we received a digital download of one (1) song.
* June 2012: it was “coming along nicely”.
* September 2012: it was “almost done”.
* February 2013: it was “pretty much finished”, but was being held back to coincide with an album release by some other solo musician, so that they can go on a shared tour and sell records together and it’ll be just like any other new-album release except for the part where promises were kind of made.
* May 7, 2013: The other guy’s album is released.
* June 4, 2013: Album release postponed to coincide with a planned Fall 2013 tour. If this tour ever happened, I never caught wind of it.
* November 25, 2013: Recording delayed due to hospitalization after a nasty ladder accident. Some mastering had been done, leaving “three songs yet to be done.”
* June 14, 2014: We’re told the album will be sixteen tracks in all, and those last three songs will feature guest contributions from some other singer, a new 20-year-old named Matt whom she just met this past year and she’s really excited about working with him and he’s totally gonna be huge someday and the album is gonna be worth it now even though it was “pretty much finished” back in February 2013. Also, did she mention her brother died at some point? Plus she moved? Uh, yeah, so those happened, too. And retroactively undid everything that was “pretty much finished” back in February 2013, I guess?

Now we’re told the album will be “done this week (Godwilling)”. I’m afraid to make any idealistic assumptions about what “done” is supposed to mean anymore. Direct quote as of June 14th, regarding her scant, infrequent updates:

“I also want to you know that I have not been avoiding you guys. I’ve just been totally freaked out thinking you want to throw me in jail or something as a kickstarter avoider b.s artist….Thank you for all you’ve done again, your patience, and for believing in me….”

Patience and belief rode a stagecoach out of town months ago. After the first year had passed, I felt as if my money had been kidnapped. It’s now been TWO-AND-A-HALF YEARS since estimated delivery date, and the project itself will celebrate its third birthday in September. The hostages are now effectively dead, there’s no SWAT team going in to round up the shooter, there’s no media surrounding the house and providing fruitless live updates, and there’s no Nancy Grace to shriek at everyone about grave injustice or to make up inappropriate hashtags like #Lordscam or #LordHathForsakenUs or #MaryLouEvilOverLord.

If and when the CD is willed into existence, the quality of its music will be irrelevant. The CD will be, at best, a souvenir coaster to remind me to think twice before I indulge any more creators on Kickstarter ever again.

To be continued. Hopefully someday with endings.

…

Anyone interested in a bonus appendix? Here’s a list I’ve kept of Kickstarter campaigns I’ve viewed and considered over the past eighteen months but declined specifically and solely because of my moratorium:

* Brian Augustyn’s graphic novel Dead Ringer
* Five Year Mission’s latest album, Year Three (I bought a copy at Indy PopCon. It truly rocks.)
* The Veronica Mars movie (which I rented via Google Play last March)
* The first solo kid’s album from Danny Weinkauf, bassist for the great They Might Be Giants
* Save Fantagraphics Books after the passing of co-founder Kim Thompson
* Fantasy anthology graphic novel Cartozia Tales
* New album Dimetrodon from the Doubleclicks, whose geek-girl anthem “Nothing to Prove” remains one of the best songs of 2013
* Jackie Estrada’s coffee-table book Comic Book People: Photographs from the 1970s and 1980s
* Varney the Vampire digital/print comic by Scott Massimo and DC Comics artist Scott Kolins
* Nexus co-creator Steve Rude’s 2014 Sketchbook
* Seqaurt Research’s documentary She Makes Comics
* The indie film Enemy of Man starring Sean Bean, Rupert Grint, Charles Dance, Jason Flemyng, et al. (successfully funded by a narrow margin)
* The sci-fi short film “The Sandstorm“, co-starring incendiary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei
* The Rifftrax guys doing a one-night Fathom Events double-feature mocking both Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla and the Ice Cube/Jennifer Lopez vehicle Anaconda
* Van Jensen and Jose Pimienta’s bizarre graphic novel The Leg
* Levar Burton reboots Reading Rainbow!

…and those are just campaigns I ran across through social media by chance. I haven’t used the Kickstarter “Discover” function to seek out viable donation opportunities for myself in a very, very long while. Sure, nearly all these campaigns did fine without my participation. The mightiest of them all, Reading Rainbow, has nine days to go and nearly four million in pledges, so they’re probably gonna be okay. I wish I could’ve helped.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a brand new comic book shop.

The Android’s Dungeon has operated as an online store since 2009, but this year its owners saw their long-standing dream of a brick-and-mortar storefront come true. After months of searching and hoping for the right combination of location and timing, they planted stakes, opened their doors to the public in March, and made history as the first official comic shop in the ever-expanding town of Avon, Indiana.

Such a move would seem to defy current quote-unquote “wisdom”. Just as hard-copy books, newspapers, and magazines fight for relevance and survival in our increasingly paperless society, all the internet hubbub nowadays among comics fans is about digital comics as the wave of the future. All the major publishers have made long-term investments in a number of enticing digital initiatives, from online exclusives to discounted back issues. The premier independent digital comics distributor, comiXology, was acquired earlier this year by Amazon, so someone in Jeff Bezos’ chain of command apparently thinks there’s potential in the field.

Meanwhile in the physical shopping world, America’s comic-shop count is a fraction of what we had twenty years ago. Most small towns and a few major cities have nowhere within fifty miles where they can walk inside, browse new titles at random, and spend a few bucks on an impulse purchase for themselves and/or their kids. I’ve been frequenting Indianapolis shops since I was thirteen and have fond memories of many of those locations that would become casualties in our somewhat temperamental hobby. The list of the dead includes but isn’t limited to:

* John’s Comic Closet, the very first shop I ever entered, which was on the other end of town.
* Comics Unlimited, near the low-income neighborhood of Haughville.
* Blue Moon Comics, also owned by John of the Comic Closet, but on our side of town.
* Comic Carnival West, Comic Carnival East, Comic Carnival South, and the original Comic Carnival in Broad Ripple. (A single north-side location remains their last stronghold.)
* Range Line Comics, which began in Carmel but had at least one other location I visited before they vanished.
* A comics/skater shop down the street that had the misfortune of opening a few months before the infamous Heroes World debacle.
* When Indy’s downtown Union Station was rebooted as a shopping mall for a while in the late 1980s, one of its first stores was a short-lived comic shop.
* A couple of tiny, nearby used bookshops that ordered new comics on the side.
* All our long-gone Waldenbooks, B. Dalton Booksellers, Media Play, and Borders Bookstores.

It’s into this historical minefield that the Android’s Dungeon now marches forth, waving their banner high, spreading word of all that’s great about our beloved medium, and determined to avoid the fates of their predecessors. They’re located in a heavily trafficked commercial area with no shortage of consumers, but tucked away in an older strip mall so modest that their section doesn’t have rooftop signage. The strip mall’s collection of aggregated roadside signs out front only has enough room to list their name as “COMIC BOOKS”. Fortunately when my wife and I dropped in to check them out, none of the neighboring businesses had enough customers to create any parking issues.

Inside the store was, in my amateur opinion, a healthy crowd for a Saturday. The owners were friendly, the customers were happy, there were kids enjoying themselves, and even I was pleasantly surprised in the diversity of new-comics offerings. It’s been my experience that smaller stores tend to function basically as narrow-minded Marvel/DC outlets, but the Android’s Dungeon proudly carried series from all the major companies and even some of the indies, even titles such as Lumberjanes or Bee and PuppyCat that aren’t aimed at super-hero-lovin’ macho dudes. They have a discount program in place, they cheerfully add freebies to your bag, they have monthly giveaways, and they’ve even launched a reading club. This is a comics store that’s primed to explode from trying to contain so much love for the medium.

Lord willing, maybe they’ll see more readers lining up at their doors over the days and months ahead. It’s worth noting that, setting aside big-box joints like Target or Walmart, the only other bookstore in Avon is a Half Price Books. The Barnes & Noble closed a few years ago over a lease dispute with their allegedly miserly landlords. Even the lone Christian bookstore in town ended its run last month. Avon fans of the printed page don’t have many places to turn unless they’re up for a drive out to the Barnes & Noble in Plainfield, unless they’re willing to settle for corporate-approved big-box options, or unless they keep ordering online and killing local retail jobs dead. To assist us all with our reading plans, the Indianapolis Star just posted an article about the Android’s Dungeon that will be featured in their June 29th edition, which is probably rolling off the presses as I’m typing this.

Curiously, the Android’s Dungeon isn’t the only new shop to open in central Indiana this year. I’m aware of two other newcomers some forty-odd minutes away from us. At a recent event I heard a sales pitch from one store owner who made sure I knew up front that he doesn’t order shelf copies of smaller titles. I didn’t have the heart to tell them those are about 85% of my monthly reading list. I know little else about the other new shop except that their name bugs me.

I’ll be curious to see if the Android’s Dungeon can compete in this tough climate and carve out a niche for itself in the Avon community. My initial experience was positive across the board, especially the part where I found an issue of The Royals: Masters of War I’d been missing for months that I couldn’t find at four other shops. For that I owe them my gratitude, and they have my fond wishes for their success.

Also, I love that their store’s symbol (at right in the photo) is an homage to a classic Steranko Incredible Hulk cover, a simple image of Our Hero straining against a massive weight that’s threatening to crush him, but obviously won’t because he’s the strongest one there is. Nice touch.

Art by Joe Giella.

You don’t? Cool. Neither do I. But when America’s Independence Day rolls around, any number of internet hangouts feel much like that every year. I’m not really in the mood for it just now.

I was trying to come up with some balance of “America” and “sincerity” to mark the occasion here on MCC, and the first icon to leap to mind was Captain America, because that’s how my mind rolls. I could’ve spent hours digging through my collection and scanning pages from the greatest Cap stories I’ve ever read. Instead I’ve consciously opted for a mix of quaint simplicity, practical wisdom, and childhood nostalgia that brought a smile to my face when I revisited it for the first time in years.

The clickable image shown above is page 122 from the 1976 self-help classic The Mighty Marvel Comics Strength and Fitness Book, in which some of Marvel’s greatest heroes teach readers a series of exercises to improve their health, tone their physique, get their blood pumping, dispel their couch-potato image, and give them an edge in crime-fighting. The book isn’t exactly one of the classics from the Marvel library, but its advice and demonstrations are useful and encouraging to anyone seeking that sort of thing.

Among the participating big names are Captain America and the Falcon, along with the Falcon’s li’l sidekick Redwing. Modern readers may find this all dated and a wee silly, but consider what’s demonstrated in the space of that single page besides the exercise itself: teamwork; perseverance; trust; inter-demographic cooperation; focused dedication toward a shared goal; and complete disregard for whether or not anyone else thinks they look foolish. So many great features from the factory showroom model of Classic America.

The short version: they’ve got each other’s backs no matter what. It’s wildly off-topic, sure. It’s no one’s idea of an overt “Happy Fourth of July!” greeting card, but it exemplifies much of what I’d love to see in one. Your move, Hallmark.

Happy 4th. Stay safe. Go find something in your country to enjoy. Maybe stow the partisan rhetoric and played-out “‘Murica!” jokes till at least the 5th, what say?