Christmas Comics Cavalcade: Batman Family #4

This week, we’re going to be looking at Batman Family #4, published in March-April of 1976 (ah, the vagaries of copyright information!) by DC Comics.

This one of the DC Giant issues that featured newly commissioned stories in addition to reprints of classic tales, sort of an inexpensive way to publish a big ol’ comic for not a lot of money.

Batman Family was an anthology series which primarily featured solo and team-up tales starring Robin the Boy Wonder and Batgirl. This was a fun period for both characters, well before they would be swept away by their 1980’s characterizations… Robin mainly defined as the leader of The New Teen Titans and Batgirl/Barbara Gordon by her spine-shattering encounter with The Joker in Batman: The Killing Joke.

Indeed, during the 1970’s, various DC Comics’ writers had worked up a pretty fun take on both Robin and Batgirl’s solo adventures. Let’s check ‘em out!

Bookery Fantasy Finds!

Here’s a comix shopping recommendation from me to you, if you’re ever in the greater Dayton area. Bookery Fantasy, man. BF is a store specializing in all the things I love: comics, paperbacks, and magazines new and old as well as gaming supplies (which I don’t care about so much, but you might!).

The store is so massive, it’s TWO stores, across the street from one another. A weird, fun shopping experience for sure. One of my favorite things about BF is the massive “discount warehouse” set-up, which includes an entire basement full of single issue comic books for a buck apiece. I spent an hour and a half digging through their archives and I barely made a dent… but the above picture includes most of my spoils.

Thrift Store Finds: Cincy Comicon Finds!

I’ve been posting stuff about the Cincy Comicon on my Tumblr all week and I thought I’d take today to post some of my comic book finds. Most people going to comic conventions have agendas they like to follow. Some folks are there to cosplay. Others are all about buying toys or art prints.

My agenda is to dig through longboxes and find cheap comics, both new and old. If I’m being honest, I was a bit disappointed with this con in terms of my finds – I try to concentrate on finding far-out weird stuff and there weren’t many of that to be had. Still, I did manage to bring a ton of funnybooks home with me, so I guess I can’t complain too much. Here’s what I picked up.

Sketchbook: Batty-boy

First of all, I love Tommy Boy. I think it’s a classic and please understand, I don’t use that word lightly.

Secondly, I did not write this thing. One of my students did! Or at least, he came up with the basic idea and I fleshed it out.

odds and ends: more oral surgery, halloween

If you follow me on the various social networks I take part in you know this already but… I had my final two wisdom teeth removed this pat Tuesday. I’ve been putting this off for (no kidding I’m ashamed to say) YEARS now so when I was up all night Saturday racked with pain, I had no one but myself to blame. Ideally, having a procedure like this done would be something a teacher would try and schedule for a spring break or a summer vacation. I was betting I’d be able to make it to our school’s winter break and I lost.

It seems small potatoes when compared to what my many teacher friends in New York and New Jersey are contending with right now but I hate missing a big chunk of school like this. One day here or there is fine, but anything more than that and it’s bad news all around. Bad for students… bad for the school… and bad for me. I’ve been feeling nothing but down in the dumps about this since Monday afternoon when I realized I’d be out for at least a day, probably two.

The procedure went without a hitch but I spent much of Wednesday in a gross amount of pain. Seriously, you wouldn’t BELIEVE what my pillow looked like when I woke up from my post-operation nap; it was like something out of one of those torture porn movies. Since then, I’ve been getting by on a steady diet of painkillers and soft foods. Tonight I successfully chowed down on boxed macaroni and cheese and considered it a success.

The funny thing is, this same thing happened to me around this time last year and I did a week-long series of comics about that experience, which you can read if you click here. The only difference between last year and this year is I smartened up enough to take time off from work. Last year, I went into school and tried to “be a hero” as it were. My reward was a surprise walk-though inspection from the assistant principal; he was disappointed I was sitting at my desk, less active than a teacher should be during a sustained silent reading period. I had forgotten all about that incident until this morning but it made me GLAD I took today off. The last thing I needed is to be judged on my teaching today by someone who wouldn’t take the “whole picture” into consideration.

I go back tomorrow. Half of my mouth will be wadded up with cotton. I have a low impact agenda for tomorrow, including administering a “common assessment” for the 9th grade students and a lesson I hope to pull together for my 12th grade class by waking up early tomorrow and hitting the 24 hour Meijer for supplies.

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Although I was in pain, I would have disappointed my boys greatly if I hadn’t sucked it up and squeezed into my Halloween costume this year.

…besides, it wouldn’t have been very “Batman” of me to wuss out, right? Rest assured, the costume was peeled off and I was back on the couch recuperating about two minutes after this snapshot was taken.

christmas comics calvalcade: dc universe holiday bash III

Today we’re going to look at DC Universe Holiday Bash III, published by DC Comics in 1999.

I’m going to break down the individual stories behind the cut.

Christmas Comics Cavalcade: Christmas with the Super-Heroes Special #2

Alright, here it is. This is the whole reason I wanted to take the month of December to write about Christmas comics. Ladies and gentlemen

Christmas with the Super-Heroes Special #2, published in 1988 by DC Comics.