Eventually Clever

The donations are still trickling in, so I’ll post the latest donor count and fundraising total in a couple of days. At the same time, I’ll offer the lucky winners their pick up the Boom! Studios trades and the lucky commenters their choice of the books.

I had a five-hour nap Sunday morning, and that kept me going for the rest of the day. Believe me, it was an early night!

Thanks to everyone for making this event a huge success! This was a terrific group effort!

Looks like this is the end of the Blogathon! I’ll get in touch with all the prizewinners as soon as I have all the figures in. Believe me, I’m in no condition to handle basic arithmetic…or spelling, as you may have noticed of late.

That’s 50 posts, plus interludes. An awful lot of typing for one day.

Time for breakfast, and a nap.

See you next year!

…to Jen at Day of Blogs, for organizing the event this year.
…to Lindsey, for being my monitor, and reminding me of my own monitor duties
…to Chip Mosher and Boom Studios for the prize support.
…to Steve Faguy for the Gazette article
…to Loretta at the Commemorative Giving department of the Montreal Children’s Hospital, for keeping the pledges organized.
…to the staff athe Autism Clinic, for giving us information and support.
…to Ben’s therapists and CROM, for helping Ben tell his stories in his own words.
…to Ben and Naomi, for playing nicely and not erasing files from my laptop.
…to Dina, for fundraising, love, child-distraction and support.

…to everyone who donated and/or pledged (in no particular order): Albena, Tamu, Karen, Gen, ***Dave, Albert, Matt, Kuan Yin, Mark, Judy, Christine, Susan, Annelise, Leslie, Phil, Lynda, Exivrogne, Mom & Dad, Scott, Lou & Tilly, Mireille, Stephen, Deb, Barb, Tal & Erik, Ramsay, Adriana, Dan & Libby, Lisa, Bill, Jill & Kathy, Lyle, Tanya, Michel, Melissa, Martine & Ed, Jonet, Peter & Lysanne…and everyone else whom I may have forgotten in this early morning haze. Thank you for your great generosity.

…to everyone who left comments or sent emails of support: Michel, Ramsay, Tal & Erik, Exivrogne, ***Dave, Barb, Dave, Tamu, Mom, Martine, Lysanne, Kathy, Phil, Peter, Andrew, Karen, Melissa, Jeff, Barb, Tanya, Jogany, Adriana, Bill, Lynda, and Scott…couldn’t have made it without you!

Looking through the basement and closet longboxes was as much about finding the wheat as it was removing the chaff. Here’s one treaasure I enjoyed.

Mobfire 1-6 This Vertigo series is the first crime comic I can claim to have read. It’s about British mobsters who use magic to attain their dominant position…but when the family patriarch dies, they learn that he had control, but somebody else had the power.

I thought I would spend the better part of the night listening to music, but I find I don’t like being cut off from the sleepy sounds of the apartment. I like listening to the kids rolling around in the beds, and to the sounds of the fan spinning in the office. These things are keeping me focused where music might just let me drift off.

Hey, I’ve been awake for 24 hours already. Go me!

I’m hitting that real low, right about now. I can’t quite focus my eyes on the page, so I’m going to take a break from reading the comics and I’ll resume writing about them soon. I’ll try to avoid last year’s pitfall of rounding out the Blogathon with bullet lists…but I can only do so much.

…and look at they sky! The sun is coming up!

Overall, this series is of secondary importance to the new version of the Supreme Universe. It’s an extended origin story that doesn’t add much to our understanding of Doctor Spectrum because we knew he was a tough guy as soon as he made his appearance in the main series. I wonder if this series was a market test for other origin stories.

Doctor Spectrum #4 The story is dragging. I already knew that Joe had done bad things the first time the little gun-toting boy showed up in his memories. Sometimes, suggesting is better than showing. The world around the unconscious soldier is interesting – somebody is blackmailing the duty nurse for access.

Doctor Spectrum #5 Ah…a surprise! There’s a little more to Joe’s background than atrocities committed during covert ops…there’s a family secret, which makes enough sense on the face of it. But as interesting as this development is, I’m more curious about the fate of the Joe’s kidnappers. The gem will never leave Joe alone, so goes the refrain.

Doctor Spectrum #6 One of the recurring mysteries of the Supremeverse is the planet of origin of Hyperion and Zarda. Yes, an origin has been presented in the past, but it sounds loopy…especially when Zarda describes it. Since Doctor Spectrum is an instrument of that alien civilization, I had hoped for some clarification but, beyond a cultural preference for violence, there’s nothing. A bit of a fizzle, really.

Doctor Spectrum is a Green Lantern-analogue. He has a power gem embedded in the back of the right fist that gives him tremendous energy powers but, because the gem is originally from the space ship that brought Hyperion to Earth, it occasionally takes over Spectrum’s mind and forces him into action.

Doctor Spectrum #1 The series starts with Joe Ledger’s initial involvement with the Hyperion gem project. He’s a career special ops soldier with a “surgical state of mind” that earned him the nickname “Doctor.” Yeah, it seems just as forced to me, too. When he works with the gem, it bonds to his hand, makes him comatose, and forces him to relive his past. Meanwhile, the gem defends its new hosts against the doctors who would remove it…explosively.

Doctor Spectrum #2 It’s a contest of wills between Joe and the Gem, with the gem taking the role of every bully in Joe’s life. This only pushed the good Doctor further than the gem might be prepared to follow.

Doctor Spectrum #3 There’s an odd Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vibe with this story – Joe hides in his memories, and the gem follows to wreck things, all in the name of determining if Joe is strong enough to be it’s bearer. The gem is also not going to let the Army’s timetable terminate this interminable internal interview (alliteration – egads, I’m getting punchy).

Two things I’ve (re)discovered: One, the less the villain talks, the creepier he is. Whiteface is a far better bad quiet when he’s the quiet clown, not the gabby, giggly one. Two, I enjoy Nighthawk written by anyone other than JMS. Funny, that.

Nighthawk #4 The Mayor cannot cope with the death of his family at the hands of Whiteface, so he publicly calls for Nighthawk to kill the murderer. This kind of thing never happens to Batman (unless Frank Miller is writing, maybe).

Nighthawk #5 The story takes a terrible turn into Killing Joke territory. Whiteface has Nighthawk captured and starts going on and on about how Nighthawk completes his psychosis. That works between Joker and the Batman because there’s established history between the characters, but Whiteface has been in a catatonic state for years before Nighthawk went public. How could there be any imaginable connection. There are explosions, murder and kidnapping, and Whiteface starts to smile. It’s an ordinary criminal leer.

Nighthawk #6 The ending is short and sweet, once again from the Killing Joke. Whiteface is at the city water treatment plant and throws the foundling orphan into the water. Nighthawk could have just save the child and let Whiteface escape but, in a gruesomely efficient move, he fires a grapnel through Whiteface and uses him as a support while he dives to rescue the baby. Needless to say, Whiteface is a little worse for wear.

It’s a little unfair to this series to be reading it right after seeing The Dark Knight. Nighthawk is a pseudo-Batman by design, but how can Whiteface possibly compete with the Joker. Sure, the smile is carved upside down, but still…is that enough?

Nighthawk #1 Whiteface was a racist pharmacist imprisoned for poisoning poor families in his neighborhood. A prison assault left him mutilated and catatonic, and then transferred to a minimum security prison…from which he escapes. He’s the perfect villain for a one-track vigilante like Nighthawk.

Nighthawk #2 Nighthawk takes down a crack den, and then the addicts start dying. He finds a baby and saves it (thank goodness – but I hope that poor child doesn’t turn into a Robin-equivalent). Addicts are all over the city, thanks to poisoned drugs. No one makes the connection to Whiteface.

Nighthawk #3 This is more of a political issue, where the Mayor and Governor try to figure out how to address the issue of nearly three thousand dead. Nighthawk takes a more direct approach to the problem…a golf club to the knees of a drug smuggling federal judge, to be precise. Meanwhile, Whiteface attends a children’s party. That’s not going to end well at all.

First, I read Rorschach. Then I saw ads for The Question in DC Comics, but I skipped him. A faceless investigator didn’t look interesting. Then I saw The Question on the Justice League Unlimited cartoon and was intrigued. Imagine my surprise when I picked up the Denny O’Neill / Denys Cowan series.

The Question TPB #2: Poisoned Ground I love reading DC stories where they mock the Wolverine/Logan tough guy figure– just add bushy sideburns and a growl, and you have a comment on Marvel’s most popular hero. These are crime stories, of course, but they’re all crimes and murders related to identity in one way or another: from Volk/Wolverine’s dual soul to a vengeful masked murderer to a torturer who wishes to achieve a higher plane of consciousness through atom-smashing and alchemy. The stories are interesting, but they’re not terribly compelling. Perhaps that’s intentional – Vic Sage is more a cipher than a question.

I’ve gone through the emails and Facebook messages and arrived at a new preliminary fundraising total: $1515 from 40 people! I know that’s on the low end, because I’ve been told about some pledges without the amounts.

We’ve beaten last year’s total! Thank you, everyone!

Interesting. Reading the final issues of the second Tangent series gives the lie to the Superman origin depicted in Superman’s Reign #4 – he never really loved his wife, so he couldn’t have been too worked up if she died. Plus, in the Justice League story (Justice League as a group of human-only terrorists was a brilliant idea, by the way), we see Superman’s wife alive and well post-Miraclo – though she doesn’t exercise any powers. Hmmm..

Tangent, Vol 3 The highlights of this collection are the Green Lantern origins, the Superman tale and Powergirl, where the President of the USA, his chief of staff and his wife infiltrate a Chinese weapons lab during a diplomatic mission – once a Metal Man, always a Metal Man, I guess! Fun comics, the way they should be.

The Cthulhu tales have been more uneven than the zombie tales in the past, but when they’re good, they’re amazing.

Cthulhu Tales #1 The simplest tales bring about the biggest horror – a baseball fan takes things a little too far, a priest has a new way of looking at the world, and the plot of Stand By Me takes an interesting turn when Herbert West is nearby. All strong, all necessarily creepy.

Cthulhu Tales #2 Steve Niles writes a good angular tale of a detective and his criminal nemesis. The middle story about lovecraftian monsters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was weak, but more then compensated the last story about an ambitious colledge sorceress. Any story with the line “The college wiccans have failed me” is a keeper in my book.

Cthulhu Tales #3 There doesn’t appear to be a recurring story in this anthology series. I had hoped to learn more about that college priestess or that detective tale. But that just leaves room for three more tales, and they’re good: an Elder God is murdered with a candlestick in the library – it’s Cthulhuclue! Next, there’s an alcoholic intervention of a most surprising nature. Finally, there’s a light tale of a lovecraftian cruise line that promises the world but understates the cost – it’s a cute gimmick, but not much of a story. Though there are sight gags, which work for me.

“Daddy! You’re making too much noise!”

The squeak of my office chair carries at night, apparently.

Time to put the kettle on and enjoy a tasty reconstituted drink!

After Alan Moore’s superlative retro-fun series 1963 and his Victorian mash-up, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the next work of his I picked up was Tom Strong. Here was a figure of pulp legend who was square-jawed and upright without being a dunce, and who had marvellous adventures with fantastical creatures, gods, aliens and science villains.

I started buying the individual issues, but they were published too slowly, so I abandoned them for the trades…and they were published even more slowly. Finally, the concluding volume is in my hands.

Tom Strong Book 6 Another collection of stories not written by Alan Moore, but with no loss of effect. Tom and the gang are strong characters, if you’ll pardon the pun, and work well with other writers. Michael Moorcock tells a two-part Melniebonean tale of demons and piracy that’s just great, and there’s a fine tale about Tom discovering a lost city from a living novel. Alan Moore returns to write the final story, placing Tom and the rest of the Top 10 characters, from Splash Brannigan to Top 10, in the apocalypse of Promethea’s final issue. It’s more of the same Dr. Manhattan-esque “time is all of an instant” stuff, but it works because the characters are so well drawn that we appreciate when the revelations about their lives overtake them. And there’s a wonderful scene where the color palette changes, and everything becomes more detailed during the moment of cognitive apocalypse, which made me nostalgic for the final pages of 1963, and the promise of that annual that Jim Lee was too lazy to draw in time.

Y: The Last Man was my major comic book indulgence of last year. I bought one trade, read it, and then immediately ordered every other trade I could find. I read volumes 8 and 9 during the wee hours of last year’s Blogathon and I have waited oh so patiently for the final story to be complete and collected. Let me tell you…

Y: The Last Man Vol 10: Whys and Wherefores …it’s worth the wait! No, the cause of the gendercide isn’t explained (that was given out last year and it’s so implausible that you finally give up asking), but the final relationships are all worked out. I have to admit, I didn’t see the end of Alter’s story coming, but I did see the other “twist.” The final issue was a bold choice – jumping ahead 60 years to show how society hasn’t really changed all that much, even with women in charge, mixed with flashbacks of the intervening years. I’m sorry to see the series end, but I’m looking forward to re-reading it from start to finish.

I’m trying to stay away from too much sugar and caffeine for the Blogathon. I’m already flying on six hours of interrupted sleep (darn cats!), so I don’t want to burn myself out.

Instead, I’m following the secret of my success last year: pastries and pink lemonade. Yes, manly pink lemonade…but I’m not going to knock what works. And not too many pastries. I’m not going to gorge myself, but I am going to take a pick-me-up now and again.

And I’ll have one cup of instant coffee at around midnight. That stuff is usually so…striking…that it’ll perk me up for a couple of hours.

Nothing’s ever certain when it comes to autism, but there’s definitely some kind of genetic component. Naomi had already joined our family when Ben was diagnosed, so, naturally, we paid close attention to her development as we helped Ben get a leg up on his…and, naturally, when she wasn’t talking by the age of eighteen months, we were concerned.

So, we got the ball rolling. First came the referral to the audiology clinic. Naomi screamed through the hearing tests, but they concluded that she could hear fine in at least one ear. The audiologists didn’t recommend an autism assessment, though.

Then came a referral to speech pathology. The speech therapist and Naomi got along famously, and she communicated and played with the therapist in ways that she never did at daycare or with us. Still, the therapist noticed a couple of trouble areas and suggested an autism assessment. “Better to have them look at everything all at once,” she suggested.

Which is pretty much what the audiologists had said about Ben, way back when. Naturally, I blanched. But I agreed, because it did make the most sense.

The thing was, aside from the speech, Naomi was much stronger than Ben in terms of social interaction and shared attention. She wanted to look us in the eyes and laugh. She wanted others to share her space. But, she undeniably had some speech issues, despite everything, and she had some sensory preferences for soft fuzzy things and gritty things, like seeds and sand.

She went for an occupational therapy assessment, as part of the autism global assessment. She did well, but again, there were concerns.

Then, we got a call from the CLSC and CROM, the agency that provides ABA services. They had an early-intervention pilot project where one of the therapy specialists would consult with us and the daycare and give us advice until such time as a final diagnosis came down.

We accepted the help, but didn’t think we’d need it. Then game the assessment with the psychiatrist. We thought Naomi would pass with flying colours, but instead, she just shut down and would respond to the psychiatrist until the psychiatrist left the room. Then, Naomi perked up and started playing. The psychiatrist observed from behind the one-way mirror.

The thing about Ben’s diagnosis that convinced us he was autistic was that he behaved exactly the same way during the assessment that he did at home. There were no changes in demeanor. Naomi, on the other hand, was clearly too shy, and I worried about her getting a false-positive.

The psychiatrist was worried about that as well. Naomi hadn’t behaved at all as she expected, so we scheduled another appointment.

Meanwhile, the pilot project ran on, and the specialist reported back to us that Naomi continued to improve between every visit to the daycare (and she went on and on about how great the daycare was – which is true. It’s awesome.) She submitted a report that we brought to the final assessment.

There was another psychiatrist there, and Naomi was shy with him, but she was happy as a lark with the psychiatrist from the previous visit. She was comfortable and she did everything she was supposed to do.

The verdict: Naomi fits the “broader genetic phenotype” but she’s not autistic. Basically, she has some of the genese that would predispose her to autism, but they haven’t triggered, for whatever mysterious reason they get triggered. They key is to this diagnosis is that she’s so much stronger in most of the key areas used in an autism evaluation and she continually improves in the areas where she’s weak. The report from the pilot project was all the corroboration the doctors needed.

Phew!

Now, they’re going to continue following Naomi for at least one more assessment, but our concerns are much less than before.

Now we just have to keep her from climbing up the bookcases.

And, as you can imagine, I’m grateful to the Autism Clinic for all they’ve done for Naomi, as well as Ben.

Boom! started running ads for this series just when I started watching The Wire - naturally, I was intrigued. The editors have good taste in crime, from what I’ve read so far.

High Rollers #1 CQ is a soldier – for a drug dealer and once, it seems, in Iraq. His loyalties are divided between his boss, who has a drug problem and a druggie lawyer problem (bad news for a drug dealer), and a sister who scorns him but manipulates him into helping her gambling-addicted husband. When CQ’s boss cuts him loose, but the hired guns don’t finish the job, CQ finds himself freelance. The streets of LA don’t seem like they’ll be safe for long. A strong start. I want more!

I’ve been waiting for this series to start for almost a year. It was advertised heavily in the early Boom Studios books I picked up, but it never materialized. I know the company went through some scheduling and production (and presumably funding) hiccups that lead to delays in some titles, but they seem to be back on track and with bigger plans than ever (three or four new titles advertised, plus the Pixar deal…it’s pretty big stuff).

Station #1 There are eight people aboard the International Space Station, and now one of them is dead. He was out on a dangerous untethered repair mission and, because the mission failed, the entire crew is in danger, but only some of them know that. This has been called “Whiteout in space” but that’s only partially correct. Yes, this is a closed room murder mystery set in an extreme human environment, but there’s no hardboiled US Marshall handling the investigation – just a starry-eyed American backup astronaut. Those stars are going to fall pretty fast. The series is off to a good start. (I hope the dead guy didn’t fake his rocket pack failure and sneak back onboard. That would be lame.)

Dave had a question for me when I started the Facebook Event for the Blogathon: “A quick recap of the different kinds of Kryptonite might a good post make.”

And a good post it would make, indeed! Fortunately, this Wikipedia article has done all the research for me, but I’ll only count the colors that I’ve seen in the cartoons or the comics:

• Green - the classic. Makes Superman powerless and ill, and will eventually kill him.
• Red - The weird stuff. Gives Superman extra powers…or extra arms.
• Blue - Power booster. Gives Superman extra abilities.
• Gold - removes all Superman’s powers. Permanently.
• Yellow - Fake Kryptonite used by Lex Luthor to trick Superman while he robbed Fort Knox. Lex was exceedingly pleased with himself until he learned that he had only tricked one of Superman’s robot duplicates, who knew full well that the yellow Kryptonite was fake, but pretended anyways. Luthor returned the gold. From Action Comics #277 (though I read it in a Superman Digest on a long drive one summer as a kid).

You’ll notice that I have just five ongoing series on my comics reserve list: Fall of Cthulhu, Cthulhu Tales, Zombie Tales, Rex Libris and Legion of Super-Heroes. Of those titles, only Legion and Fall of Cthulhu are traditional continuing series with a story that develops from month to month; Rex is a quarterly, and the two Tales books are anthologies, with only one recurring story in each (or so I’m told – I haven’t read them yet).

All the other books on my list are mini-series. Much like I prefer short-run British TV to long drawn-out episodic North American shows (mostly), I’ve developed a preference for the completed tale. I don’t have the attention, time or headspace to get back into synch with stories that go on endlessly. I like have something certain to look forward to in the short term, not something that meanders with occasional flashes of excellence.

I must be getting cranky with old age. Tell me a good story, and make it snappy!

The Legion is such a keen idea – superpowered teens in the future banding together to protect the United Planets. They have spiffy space-age costumes, flight rings and Superman as a reserve member when he decides to time travel to the future.

Jim Shooter got his break as a comic book writer on the Legion…when he was 13! It’s great to see him back, after all these years.

Legion of Super-Heroes #43 The problems keep on coming: one squad of Legionnaires is captured by Ikonn space pirates; another is pinned down by a squad of Science Police; a whiz-kid genius has been breaking into the Legion to steal/sell their tech, and the entire Legion has been outlawed. And yet, the new United Planets hero squad, filled with Legion rejects (not that they weren’t powerful, just that their powers were…unconventional, even for a group with Matter-Eating Lad).That’s a lot of a story to develop primarily through blaster fire and fist-fights, but they manage. I’m especially amused by Chameleon, the shapeshifting comic relief who is being set up as one of the most powerful members.

Legion of Super-Heroes #44 Ah, there’s nothing that a few trillion credits and a legion of good lawyers can’t fix – the whiz-kid genius has pulled a Maxwell Lord and over-funded the Legion, removed the threat of arrest and lawsuit and restored the Legion’s operational independence (at least until the next revamp). This is quite the Revenge of the Nerds, because Invisible Kid manages to take out the space pirate captain and save his team. Now, if memories of rumours serve me, this was the last issue Jim Shooter turned in before he quit the book…and was promptly convinced to return. He had so many scripts submitted that there will be no breaks or fill-in issues. That’s the old-school way of doing things.

…it’s Comic Con in San Diego, the epicenter of everything mass media geeky (except for Gencon, which is in a couple of weeks in Indianapolis).

I wish I could be there, but, as an excellent substitute, I’ll follow Io9’s coverage of the Comic Con 08.

Check out the awesome Watchmen posters!

There comes a time in every blogathon where work comes to a halt. That time is…dinnertime!

There’s too much rain to BBQ, so we’re enjoying some hot pizza. Next up: bathtime and storytime for the kids. My next couple of posts will be close to the deadline, but they’ll be there.

Alpha Flight: I have the same problem here. I love Alpha Flight. It’s the skeleton key to my superhero comic book interests and preferences, but I don’t have every issue, and I don’t love every issue. The Byrne years are great, from 1-28, but then come the Bill Mantlo years, which aren’t so good, the James D. Hudnall years, with the Wrath of the Dreamqueen and the Llan the Sorceror vs. Talisman storyline that I remember being very long and odd. I never needed to see Sasquatch reincarnated in Snowbird’s body and become a blonde woman. Just doesn’t make sense. But the Madison Jeffries Box robot fighter was pretty cool. But after that long bad middle, which I picked up in back issues, Marvel made a legitimate attempt to make the series cool again – they hired Fabian Nicieza and Scott Lodbell fresh off the X-titles, and they put together a good run of stories that actually had Canadian content (Bourassa jokes! Warren Moon references! G.S.T. complaints!) But then the wheels fell off before the end, and I dropped the title. It has since been revived twice, and cancelled quickly. The last version hardly had any Canadians in it at all! Right now, I can’t bear the idea of missing issues 29-86 from my collection…but I do have the idea.

When the rain started coming down heavily at quarter to five, Ben looked up at me and said eagerly “Can we go play in the rain?”

So I said, “Yes!”

I did run home mid-way to quickly publish my post. One of the advantages of running ahead of schedule!

New Mutants: This was the one X-book that I collected during the start of the hobby, while Scott picked up Uncanny X-Men and X-Factor. My first books were from the tail end of the Mutants in Asgard storyline, followed by Rob Liefeld’s emergence on the book and his invention of Cable and his refined artistic technicque of never drawing backgrounds or ankles because they’re too hard (I snicker now, but I loved it then). Then I went back and bought the rest of the series, so I have the full run, plus annuals and specials. The problem is that there are whole chunks that I can do without – The early Claremont issues don’t do anything for me, I love Fall of the Mutants and Inferno, the Asgardian special, the Alan Davis-drawn annuals and, for historical accuracy, the Liefeld years, but the rest I could let go. But it’s a full set, so I can’t.

Preacher: I have a “used to love, now kinda hate” feeling about Garth Ennis books. Most of his current work I find unreadable, even though it may be technically excellent – it too callous and violent and lacks the soul that I know he’s capable of expressing despite callous and violent characters. Preacher was his first long-form Vertigo series about a preacher who had the power of the Word of God to compel people to do what he want, and that preacher was going after God. It started out as an almost satirically violent and gross transamerican journey, where excess was part of the joke (that poor Armadillo!). Then it took a left-hand turn into tough-guy Western ethics and I stopped being hugely interested in the story, but I kept buying it to see the overall tale come to an end. So I’m torn. I don’t like the early issus, because they’re repugnant, and I’m not thrilled with the finale, because of all that testosterone flying about the page. One thing I did do was get rid of all the character one-shots, except for the Saint of Killers mini-series, which was a fair rewriting of Unforgiven.

…my collection of basement books would be at least one box shorter. Why? Because I would have gotten rid of large chunks of four titles:

Starman: This amazing series by James Robinson and, later, Robinson & David. S. Goyer, is one of my all-time favourites. So much so, in fact, that I’ve bought the entire series again in trade paperback. The only reason I haven’t sent the originals to a more loving home is that not all of the issues were reprinted. They’re only being reprinted in a series of hardcover omnibus volumes, but I can’t bring myself to pay for the same story three times, and I can’t quite bring myself to keep just the un-reprinted books.

So far, I’ve received emails from five people saying they discovered the Blogathon through the Gazette article and that they made a donation. Plus, I’ve received a few other comments and emails of support.

Thank you, everyone!

Spending an hour painting with the kids brings home a valuable high school lesson – and not one of those embarassing lessons about showing up to an exam buck naked (yeah, I know, for most people that’s just a nightmare…I should be so lucky [ha!]). – but an actual pedagogic lesson.

I’m talking about typing class. I’m so glad I skipped Grade 10 chemistry and ducked out of the high-falutin’ science prep stream so I could take touch typing. Sure, it mucked up my schedule and confused my teachers, but it has paid off huge dividends.

Without touch typing, I’d never be able to sit down and bang out two or three posts in half an hour, leaving me time to play with the kids and put food on the BBQ, as required.

Thank you Miss Campbell, wherever you are.

The trick with comic book adaptations of film and TV properties isn’t necessarily getting the faces right – though reading a Buffy comic where Ms. Summers looks like Ed Asner is off-putting – it’s getting the tone and the pacing right. If the characters don’t sound like they’re being broadcast, no amount of artwork can save the book.

Chuck doesn’t have that problem. Both issues are written by staff writers from the show, and the humour is flawless. The faces aren’t bad, either.

Chuck #1 The book starts with a Gilligan’s Island dream sequence and ends with a prison escape. This is everything a Chuck story needs. Oh, wait, it also needs all the bad guys from the TV series - La Ciudad, Gymnast, Pita Girl, Genius Boy – making a break from the super-secret government prison. Plus, a great one-liner from Casey “I speak ‘gun in mouth’.” More! More!

Chuck #2 Alright! There’s more! The next lead on the escaped criminals leads the trio to Tokyo, where Chuck indulges in more than his fair share of Blade Runner and Lost in Translation jokes – but they’re all quite good. Not as good as the Planes, Trains and Automobiles joke, but that really hinges on the Casey/Chuck interaction. Add in the the yakuza schoolgirls on motorcycles (ah, a classic) and you have another fine episode…I mean, issue.

An adaptation this good makes me wish that Veronica Mars series would get off the ground…

The weather’s a little wonky, so Ben and Naomi were expressing themselves artistically. I watched and wiped.

Since I go the comics shops on a regular basis, Ben comes to comic shops on a regular basis. Fortunately, the two shops that we visit are family friendly – no gory or busty Milo Manara statues within view.

I let him browse the shelves and ask questions – but not grab! – and, every couple of weeks, pick out a comic of his own. He likes the little Johnny DC digests, reprinting the kiddie versions of Justice League and Teen Titans, the Marvel Adventures line, and Batman Strikes.

But picking out the comic is just part of the fun. Then, I let him go up to the cash to pay for the book. It’s great conversational practice, because he’s highly motivated to buy the comics. The staff at Astro Books are especially good sports about this.

The exchange goes something like this:

“Excuse me?”

“Yes? Can I help you?”

“Please, can you buy this for me?”

“Of course. That will be two dollars.”

I hand Ben some money.

“Here’s your money!”

“Thank you. Here’s your change.”

“Thank you. I want my book, please.”

“Do you want to carry it in a bag?”

“Oh, yes. That’s a great idea!”

“Here you go!”

“My comic book! It’s my favourite! You found my favourite comic book! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.”

“Bye-bye!”

And then we leave, Ben clutching the bag to his chest, and everybody has a bit of a giggle.

Scott asked me a good question in the comments: “What’s the first comic you remember? The one that really started the collection.”

That would have to be this

Alpha Flight #2 I first read this comic at my friend Duane’s house, and it stuck with me: a Canadian super-team, a colony of alien invaders, the first appearance of the Master of the World, a team betrayal, and the essentially Canadian origin of Guardian – a scientist who built an exploration exo-skeleton for research and stole it rather than see it sold and used by the US military. This was the first comic I looked to find in the back issue bins when I paid my first visit to a Capitaine Quebec comic shop.

Any more questions? I’m game!

One of my biggest comics discoveries last year was the work of Jonathan Hickman, thanks to favorable reviews from Hannibal Tabu at Comic Book Resources. I devoured his first series, The Nightly News, and now I’m enjoying his work on Pax Romana, Transhuman and this, Red Mass for Mars.

My one complaint? He’s too slow! He’s only published two issues of Pax and Trans, and I’m wondering how long it’s going to take to see the end of Red Mass.

This is one of the cases where I’d like to wait for the trade…except that without sales to spur him to complete the series, that trade may never come.

Red Mass for Mars #1 Another excellent start – in a dystopic future faced with mass extinctions and alien invasions, a long-lived alien with the ability to see into the future with perfect clarity sees the next invasion as the last, and travels to Mars to ask a superhuman to intercede. That superhuman demands grovelling – not a good sign. Another riff on the Superman-as-Alien-Tyrant theme, but no less compelling for it. But for all that the story is good, Hickman may well deserve a poke in the eye for the xenophobic Lightbender and his slur against Canadians (I know, it’s the character, not the author talking…but I’m still annoyed [grin]).

I have written often about my fondness for the original Tangent Comics run created by Dan Jurgens and published back in 1997-1998. I’m glad DC is revisiting the world with this new series.

Tangent: Superman’s Reign #4 Batman, Black Lightning, Hal Jordan and Black Canary cross over to the Tangent Earth…not realizing that they do so with Superman’s permission…and meet the resistance fighters and the rescued Atom. Meanwhile, Superman discusses tyranny and justice with John Stewart (the Green Lantern, not the comic) and reveals that the rescued Atom is someone else entirely. Meanwhile, in the backup story, we learn that the seeds of Superman’s tyranny were sown with the Miraclo pill he gave his wife at the very end of the the original Tangent Superman story. One extra panel turned that story into a tragedy. My one complaint: The Ultra-Humanite recap was given short shrift.

Tangent: Superman’s Reign #5 What in all the 52 Earths is Power Girl doing with Superman? There’s a huge untold story there, and I want to know it. But first, we’ll have to contend with Tangent Superman launching a pre-emptive strike against the heroes and villains of Earth, all in the name of peace and stability. That will never as well as he thinks. Even if he does have the power to remove a power ring from a Green Lantern! (What’s next? He shatters Captain America’s shield?) The backup story here is fairly pedestrian – more background about the Joker that we already knew.

Crime comics catch my attention more often nowadays. I’m not a full-fledged crime afficianado (for example, David Lapham’s Stray Bullets freaked me right out after just one issue), but I’ll pick up stories here and there.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips Criminal series is the bee’s knees…right until you get stung.

Criminal v2 #2 Extraordinary. Show how Teeg Lawless, the terrifying father of Tracy, came to work for the Hyde mob family. The story isn’t pretty, but it began with an honest attempt to protect his children from worse men. The black panels for Teeg’s alcholic blackouts are more disturbing than his Vietnam flashbacks.

Criminal v2 #3 This is Danica’s tale – the femme fatale who went with Sebastian instead of Jake and who tricked Teeg into robbing Sebastian’s stash on her return. The whole issue is a flashback to how she fell in love with Sebastian and was ruined by his mobster family and drugs as a result…and how, after a life of seducing men for money, she decides to exact her revenge on Sebastian and the Hyde crime family. We already know what happened to her, and how the story ends…but it’s sadder to hear the tale in her own words.

This is a perfectly appropriate title for a comics blogger (leave a comment if you know why!). I’m also a monitor on Day of Blogs, which means that I’ll drop by from time to time and check in on other bloggers to see how they’re doing and give them a bit of an ego boost.

Heck, Let me start that right now! Check out these blogs for good writing and good causes to support:

Dog’s Eye View
FigmentJ
Note to Self
A Splash of Joy
Another Random Memory
The Bilson Archives

While I putter around on the ‘puter and take care of some mundane chores such as dishes and laundry, Dina and Naomi are playing around at the park and Ben is having his regular ABA session in the dining room.

ABA stands for Applied Behavioural Analysis, and is the only therapy sponsored by the government for autism. We were on the waiting list for a year and a half, which is a long time for two reasons: one, it’s always better to start early; two, the therapy stops being effective and the government stop providing it around 6 years of age.

I’m glad we had Ben’s diagnosis early, because he was able to start the therapy last year. The results were fantastic: his focus and vocabulary improved, and he’s learning the practical skills that made daycare less stressful. ABA, combined with the More Than Words training we picked up from the Autism Clinic, has helped him build his strengths.

I love listening to his therapy sessions. Most of the time, he’s having great fun cutting out pictures or talking about mazes, books and painting projects. The activity almost doesn’t matter – it’s the careful attention paid to the therapist that counts.

In addition to the prizes for the top donors, I’ll be raffling prizes for the commenters who visit during the day. One comment equals one vote. The winners will choose from this list of books. The kid-friendly titles are marked with an asterisk (*)

1. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol 1 #1-6
2. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol 2 #1-6
3. *Tangent vol 1
4. *Tangent vol 2
5. Moonshadow (Vertigo edition) 1-12
6. *Aquaman: Time and Tide 1-4
7. *JSA: Justice Society of America 1-15
8. Tom Strong 1-15
9. *Daredevil: Yellow 1-5
10. *Captain America 1-17 (Heroes Return)
11. *World’s Funnest Comics (Bat-mite vs. Mr. Mxyzpltk)
12. The Ultimates 1-6

Any books that aren’t raffled off are going up on eBay for a post-Blogathon sale.

Work was slow this week, so I had a couple of mornings to spare for Blogathon preparations. One of the things I like to do each year is pare down my collection. I’ve been collecting comics for about 18 years (it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the stack of books became a collection - probably the time that I first put together handwritten list of titles and creators), and that adds up to quite a few books…books that don’t always stand the test of time.

My collection and storage system is a form of triage: the current and favourite books are stored safely upstairs; the favourite but no longer current books are stored in the closet; and the books that I still have but aren’t quite my favourites are in the basement, where, if something should happen, I would be sad, but I would get over it quickly.

I hauled out all the boxes and started flipping through the titles, setting aside some for giveaways and auctions, and others for just giveaways. I was pretty cutthroat, but not entirely ruthless. Of the 10 long boxes (holding about 150 books apiece), I designated two boxes for removal from the collection. Most of these were issues I already owned in trade paperback form, others were from stories that went on too long.

I used a cover-flashback rule: If a glance at the cover reminded me of the story, I probably kept it. If the cover said nothing to me, then the book was removed.

This was also a good opportunity to revise my database system. After flirting with OpenOffice: Base and a dedicated blog, I decided to return to a trust Excel spreadsheet (though, if OpenOffice: Base had a “Duplicate Previous Entry” function to save my typing fingers, I would have gone with that).

As of this moment, my collection stands at 2798 single issues, trade paperbacks and graphic novels. It could be cut a little further, but I wasn’t feeling too ruthless.

Maybe next year.

Dina and I kicked off the Blogathon with a trip to the movies. You can guess which one.

Batman: The Dark Knight This isn’t a Batman movie - it’s a Joker movie. Heath Ledger dominates every scene, from his first appearance, his first magic trick to his hospital visit to his final cackle. Batman spends more time reacting and playing the straight man because he’s quite simply out of his league. Aaron Eckhardt is tremendous as Harvey Dent / Two-Face. I wish he had a little more screen time to develop his character further. There’s no real character arc for Batman in this movie, though. He says he’s conflicted, but we never quite believe it. Still, count me in for a final chapter in a trilogy. The Joker won, in a way, at the end. My favourite part? The fact that the trailer didn’t spoil the movie - in fact, the actual scenes were the opposite of what I expected, and all the better for it.

In anticipation of the Blogathon, I’ve held off posting reviews of comics purchased during the months of June and July. This turned out to be quite the stack:

1. Cthulhu Tales 1-3
2. Fall of Cthulhu 11-14
3. Zombie Tales 1-2
4. High Rollers 1
5. Station 1
6. Chuck 1-2
7. Red Mass to Mars 1
8. Tangent: Superman’s Reign 4-5
9. Criminal vol 2 #3
10. Legion of Super-Heroes 43-44
11. Supreme Power: Doctor Spectrum 1-6
12. Supreme Power: Nighthawk 1-6
13. Tangent Comics vol 3
14. Y: The Last Man vol 10: Whys and Wherefores
15. Tom Strong vol 6
16. The Question vol 2: Poisoned Ground
17. Savage Sword of Conan Omnibus 1-3
18. Scud the Disposable Assassin: The Whole Shebang
19. Goldfinger
20. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

That’s quite the collection, but a mere shadow of what I used to buy when I had more disposable income and fewer children.

As time permits, I’ll read through these books and post short reviews. I won’t stick to my usual 50-word rule, but I won’t be far off either (especially as the hour grows late).

Will I get through the whole stack? Heck no! But I’ll make a concerted effort.

This is the cleanest my desk is going to look for the next 24 hours.

Hello! My name is Steve and I’ll be your blogger for the next 24 hours.

I’m raising money for the Autism Clinic at the Montreal Children’s Hospital on behalf of my son, Ben. How am I doing this? Though a Blogathon.

What’s a Blogathon? It’s a promise to you that I’ll post something new every half-hour u