Thursday 14 February 2008

It's Christmastime (Again)!

As you might guess given my annual Christmas Covers feature, I collect comics with Christmas-themed covers. Each year I dutifully order such comics out of Previews. They usually arrive before Christmas, as I suspect it's much easier for a retailer to move a Christmas-themed comic before the holidays than after.

This week I got two Christmas-themed comics in my shipment: Walt Disney's Comics & Stories #687 and Furrlough #179. Just in time for the holidays!

Colleen Coover Alert!

Since Marvel never sees fit to include Colleen Coover's back-ups in the solicits, you may not know that Colleen Coover illustrates a one-page story, written by Margot Blankier, in this week's Iron Man and Power Pack #4.

She's also drawing the back-up in next month's X-Men: First Class #9, written by Jeff Parker (A fact that Marvel also left out of their solicits...)

Update: Jeff Parker tells us why!

Valentine's Day - Grand or Grim?

Your feelings about this day depend entirely on your love life. When I was a kid, we decorated white paper bags and put them on a shelf in the classroom and everyone put a valentine in everyone else's bag, whether you liked them or not. A strange ritual for prepubescents on a day designed for lovers.

In middle school it became a public test of your attractiveness to the opposite sex. Just what you need at the most vulnerable time of your life. It made for a miserable and anxious day for virtually every student in the school – faculty members likely went home with hormone poisoning just from breathing the air. I can only imagine how gay and lesbian students dealt with it.

As adults, if you're in a relationship you're happy with, you're cool. If you're not, this day sucks. It also sucks for those in relationships with difficult people who expect the day to be perfect and mope for days if it isn't. I was in a relationship like that once and I dreaded Valentine's Day and her birthday more than my yearly colonoscopy.

Whatever VD means to you (pun intended), I hope you're well today. Here are a couple of cartoons on the subject that may give you a smile.