Well, four if you count The Flash, but they’re hardly an objective source on that.
It’s that time again! At long last my regular super-hero shows are seeing their season premieres on The CW this week and next — The Flash this past Tuesday, which I live-tweeted per personal standard procedure…
…followed by the relocated Supergirl this coming Monday, then Legends of Tomorrow the following Thursday. I don’t watch Arrow yet except for crossovers, but I can tell how Ollie and his aggravating pals are doing whenever other Twitter users start griping and throwing their phones at their TVs.
In the spirit of the proceedings, our local CW affiliate here in Indianapolis, WISH-TV channel 8, declared “Superhero Week” and has been featuring stories connected to the wonderful world of comics, possibly for the sake of hyping their own shows. Normally I’d toss them a Like in the appropriate social-media point of contact and leave it at that, but two of their segments spotlighted high achievers in the field of comics excellence that we previously covered here on Midlife Crisis Crossover. A third segment had a more personal connection to us.
Gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe, here in this great Hall of Heroes, are the most powerful collections of good ever assembled!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: last May for my birthday weekend, we visited the Hall of Heroes up north in Elkhart, Indiana — one longtime super-hero fan’s toy, comic, and prop collections turned into a fun eye-candy museum. This week WISH-TV paid a visit and took a scenic video tour with owner Allen Stewart. Frankly, I’m not sure our humble photos can compete with a video tour. Video isn’t something we do here at MCC because it never occurs to us to try and I can imagine scores of things that would go wrong if we did.
* * * * *
I don’t read many webcomics because I’m sometimes a stodgy fussbudget about some aspects of new media, but I’m a big proponent of print collections.
Also previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: at three different conventions this year we met Lee Cherolis and Ed Cho, Hoosier creators of the fantasy webcomic Little Guardians, whose official site contains the complete saga to date and offers extra tidbits a-plenty. WISH-TV visited their creative space, stepped back and gave them room to talk about the series, their creative process, and the fulfillment of designing a universe that readers love seeing explored.
* * * * *
To learn more about comics, be sure to visit your local library, stake out the 741.5-741.59 section, check out everything you find, and be prepared to fight other patrons for all the really good graphic novels and comic strip reprints.
Then there was the time WISH-TV drew connections between comics and reading, and the difficulties some youngsters can have in finding the right literary niche that speaks to them and opens their mind to the power of the written word, with or without pictures. They visited a local high school and chatted at length with one student who struggled for years with books and schoolwork alike, but who’s made tremendous strides in recent years thanks in no small part to finding a medium and format that resonated like no other.
Full disclosure: the student in that video segment is our nephew. As you can imagine, the story has been bandied about our Friends lists quite a bit the past few days.
Fuller disclosure as a grumpy but forgiving fan: I do recommend checking out the video on their site and skipping the accompanying transcript, which isn’t the best it could be. The story’s cumulative inelegant minutiae needed a heavy-handed red pen taken to some parts, and this entry very nearly took the form of a nostalgic diatribe called “Pow! Zap! Media Never Stops Making Batman ’66 Jokes When It Rediscovers Comics Aren’t Just for Kids Every Five Years”. My wife recommended heading in a different direction, and so here we are with a case made for the joys of reading wherever it’s waiting to be discovered, tinged with unabashed family pride.
And if any of these stories can pique a viewer’s interest in reading in general and/or graphic storytelling in particular, then Superhero Week wins on principle despite my urge to nitpick.
