A Geek Family's Adventures in The Power City

A breath-taking view of the American and Bridal falls from outside the Cave of the Winds.

There is an old truism that goes, "Wherever you go, there you are." While that might seem silly, self-referential and obvious, you can choose to view the comment in a more profound way to say that "Wherever you go, you bring yourself." And to that extent, I find that I bring a nerdy/geeky sensibility with me wherever I go--even on a family vacation. My recent visit to Niagara Falls was no exception.

Since this is a lifestyle blog, I feel I've got a decent amount of latitude to share travel stories. However, this isn't a proper travelogue and my comments aren't intended to provide a thorough overview of the things to do and see while in The Power City. Rather, these are just my musings about the cool things--some expected and some unexpected--that I encountered there.

Taken from a mural-covered alleyway off Third Street.

My daughter soaked in every perspective of the falls--sometimes giddily.

I'd been to Niagara Falls twice before, once as a kid on an occasion I only vaguely remember from an old sepia-colored novelty photo (in which my dad pretends to hang me over the side of the Skylon Tower on the Canadian side) and then again just a year ago on an anniversary trip with my spouse. My wife and I, throughout that more recent trip, found ourselves continuously cycling through the typical parental assessment process--judging various vistas and attractions against our children's likes and interests. Ultimately deciding she would enjoy it, we decided to bring our younger daughter back with us about a year later.

I'll confess that I was a bit apprehensive since, having gone to the trouble and expense of a 4-hour car ride and booking accommodations, I'd taken a bit of ownership over our destination. I was a travel agent with one customer--and therefore a potential success rate of either 0% or 100% with nothing really in between.

Last year, we'd stayed at The Red Coach Inn on Buffalo Avenue bordering the state park on the American side. It was a five-minute walk from the falls with stunning views of the American rapids. For our family vacation, we'd decided to economize a bit and we stayed a few blocks further up on Buffalo Avenue at the Double Tree. It also had a view of the river though not the rapids. Both hotels were quite nice while very different--the one quaint and steeped in history and the other sleek and modern.

Every meal we had at The Red Coach Inn across both trips was delicious and inexpensive. This is the beef on hummelweck roll with potato salad I had for lunch on Sunday.

Perhaps because it was the off season--as we'd planned our trip for after Labor Day, when the cost is somewhat reduced--we found that the lights along the river walk weren't lit on the last couple of blocks leading up to the Double Tree. As a result, we chose to take a city-side route back to the hotel both evenings. That made it a little less convenient than The Red Coach Inn had been--but not appreciably so. (Warm chocolate chip cookies in the lobby provided suitable consolation.)

In any case, a visit to the falls invariably involves a decent amount of walking. An inexpensive trolley service--for our group, a collective $8 expense per day--can deliver you to various points around the NY state park ranging from the observation deck to The Cave of The Winds and Luna Island to Terrapin Point and the Three Sisters Islands. But you still need to walk down to the actual points of interest in most instances. We also walked around the city itself, which had a bit of the feel of a beach town once you were a few blocks away from the park. It had all of the elements--a haunted house attraction, escape rooms, food trucks, a combination daredevil museum and convenience store, etc.

I'd been concerned that my daughter wouldn't react well to an itinerary that involved this much walking and nature and zero television, but I need not have worried. As soon as we arrived onsite, she had us rush to Prospect Point and the observation deck where she was suitably awed by the power of nature on display. I've included quite a few pictures from the trip here, but they can't convey the experience of watching the water tumble over the falls or listening to the uninterrupted roar that emanates as it does so. (To see additional pictures I couldn't fit within the blog itself, check out my Instagram feed here.)

A view of the American Falls from Prospect Point.

A view of the Horseshoe Falls from the deck of The Maid of The Mist

It was evening when we arrived, so we didn't venture out to Goat Island and a closer view of the wider Horseshoe Falls until the afternoon of the second day--though our morning was spent viewing it from within the gorge itself aboard The Maid of The Mist. My daughter's giggly reaction to the spray as we sat positioned in the churning cauldron at foot of the falls was an indicator of things to come. It was a cool day--in the 50s and low 60s--so we opted to put off going down into The Cave of The Winds until our last day, when we hoped it might be 5-10 degrees warmer. But as I mention above, we still visited Goat Island and ultimately Terrapin Point--both to view the falls from above and to eat at the Top of The Falls restaurant there for lunch. My wife and I had dined there the year before and had enjoyed their buffalo chicken mac and cheese--so we thought it warranted a second engagement.

After a brief return to the hotel mid-afternoon, we grabbed dinner at The Rainforest Cafe in town and then headed back to the park to make a grand trolley tour of the various views at dusk--stopping back at Prospect Point and the observation deck to wait for the 10PM fireworks display above the gorge.

The Hornblower seen approaching The Horseshoe Falls at dusk from a vantage on Terrapin Point.

The Horseshoe Falls at dusk, seen from the railing along the top of Terrapin Point.

Fireworks over the gorge as viewed from Prospect Point.

On the morning of our final day in Niagara, we headed directly over to The Cave of The Winds--figuring that we'd end up soaking wet and wanting to have sufficient time to dry out before going back to The Red Coach Inn for lunch. Not surprisingly, my daughter convinced my wife to walk up onto the Hurricane Deck with her so that they could feel a fraction of the ferocious deluge rushing past the wooden scaffolding outside of the cave. Needless to say, their clothes took the remainder of the day to fully dry--if, in fact, they ever did prior to our departure.

In the midst our efforts to take in the beautiful and inspiring scenery, I managed to indulge my nerd side. Among the other things that it may be, Niagara is in no small part a monument to one of history's great inventors. Not far from The Cave of The Winds, facing not only the American falls but also a skyline his discoveries helped to make possible, you can find a statue of Nikola Tesla on the bluff overlooking Luna Island. Tesla appears prominently in exhibits across the park commemorating the advent of hydroelectric power--and we even stumbled across his likeness in pop art in various places across town.

If Tesla's life wasn't fascinating enough because of his role in the development of alternating current electrical power transmission, speculation about his more obscure pursuits in wireless technologies and even a "death ray" have fueled a popular view of the figure that hovers on the edge of the fantastic. (While opinions on the movie The Prestige vary, I recommend it for David Bowie's typically offbeat portrayal of Tesla.)

Equally nerdy--or perhaps more appropriately geeky--we also found ourselves pointing out landmarks from the two-part episode of the sit-com The Office where fan-favorite characters Jim Halpert and Pam Beasley get married. If you happen to catch those episodes in syndication or on Netflix, pay particular attention to the facade of the hotel where the wedding party stays the night before the ceremony. That building is, in fact, The Red Coach Inn--though the interiors are dramatically different from those depicted in the TV episodes. (The real hotel's lobby and restaurant are much smaller and more rustic.)

On the whole, I believe everyone had a good time on our trip. We found fun and we made our own fun. Most of all, I'd like to think we had fun because we were together. Because that's the hallmark of a good family vacation--long or short, geeky or otherwise--spending time together. Wherever you go, there you are. Wherever you go, you bring yourself. And, if you're very lucky, you also bring people who like that about you.

Attack of the $20 Robots!: A Halloween DIY Outdoor Decor Story

If you've read my previous post about outdoor Halloween decorations, you know that a robot was one of the possibilities I'd been considering. I may experiment with some other ideas before October, but this one proved to be simpler than I'd supposed--so it has quickly become my front-runner.

Technically, these could cost anywhere between $17 and $28 each to create depending upon optional enhancements and the availability of tools. And I'm also going to be describing how much I paid for different components, but it's possible that you might not be able to secure them as inexpensively.

Pictured at right are the core pieces that I purchased, including: 

• An inexpensive trash can with lid ($10)
• Corrugated tubing (about $3 total for two arms--though that was cut down from a larger $6 piece)
• Two dollar-store waste baskets ($2 total)
• A dollar-store bucket with integral handles ($1)

Not pictured, but also used, included:

• Cable ties (which I didn't count because I genuinely only used a few cents' worth)
• Two each screws and nuts (A little less than a dollar's worth)
• A dollar-store push light ($1)
• An awl
• A hand saw
• Scissors

You can also decide to paint the robot, though I've got mixed feelings after my attempts. So you might want to read through my full description before you decide.

My original plan was to do something more elaborate and probably much less practical. If you read my earlier post, you'll recall I'd mentioned using plywood in addition to the elements described here. That's because I'd initially envisioned the robot being taller, with a top made of these plastic components supported by a backbone, pelvis, and legs made of plywood. (Picture something like "Maximilian" from Disney's The Black Hole.)

As I was collecting materials, my wife suggested a short cut--which was to eliminate plywood from the equation entirely and put the robot on some squat little waste basket legs. While I may revisit the original idea sometime, this approach appealed to me for several reasons. Not only did it make assembly a snap--I can put one of these together in less than 30 minutes--but I also liked the idea of a lower-profile stout little 'bot. It had a very different, more whimsical feel to it. And it promised to be more inherently stable, requiring less effort to anchor it.

I describe below my assembly process including some steps where I'd likely deviate in making future robots.

• While the order probably isn't critical, I chose to attach the feet to the trash can first
• I did so by using an awl to punch holes through the center of the waste baskets and then through the bottom of the trash can; I did this with the trash can turned upside down--its bottom having markings that facilitated equal spacing of the legs without measurement
• I twisted a screw through each hole and then threaded a nut on top to ensure they'd remain securely fastened
•  I then moved on to the head
• First, I snipped the handles on the plastic bucket; the trash can lid had a raised center and this allowed the bucket to rest on top of it bottom-side up
• With the bucket "head" in place, I estimated where to create one hole on either side of the bucket above where the handles had been snipped
• Directly below that spot on the trash can lid, I marked spots to create two holes each on either side of the head--one about half an inch outside of the bucket and one about half an inch inside of the bucket
• After carefully punching these holes--being mindful that the harder plastic of the bucket could be prone to split--I attached the bucket to the trash can lid with a single cable tie on each side of the head
• The arms were made from a single 10-foot piece of corrugated tubing, so I had to cut into segments that suited my purposes
• I made 4 equal-sized arms by cutting with a small hand saw
• These were then easily lashed to the trash can handles with additional cable ties
• NOTE: In retrospect, I'd probably have notched the tubing after cutting it, as it would/will be easy to make them more flush with the sides of the robot that way
• Last, I affixed the push light to the front of the face as an eye using it's adhesive backing

I also followed up with paint, though I'm not certain if it was worth the effort. I'd hoped a single can of spray paint would suffice--especially since I'd not been certain if I wanted to paint the arms or legs--but one can of light blue paint didn't even give me the coverage I'd wanted for the head and torso. I include an image here, but I'm likely going to either add a second coat of light blue paint... or, I might decide to make this robot look a little more weathered by using some dark orange paint to give the appearance of rust. (Haven't made up my mind.) I'm also considering adding a jaw line--either with a paint marker or by attaching a separate piece of plastic to the bottom of the face.

If I have one overall misgiving about this particular art installation, it's that it doesn't necessarily scream "Halloween." I've considered--if I make multiple copies--posing them in ways that are subtly sinister. (Maybe one is reading a copy of How To Serve Man? Or perhaps holding an oversized map of Earth with a big red "X" on it?)  I'll have to think on that some more.

If my kids were a bit younger and still actively collecting action figures, I'd be tempted to use these for a diorama--as they have an interesting Max Fleischer vibe to them. But since the original goal here was to create something for outdoor display use, that's going a bit too far "off label" as they say; I'm not confident that all of the pieces I assembled would be suitable for indoor use or in play.

So, what do you think? Is this a solid theme? And what would you include to complement the robots to flesh it out into something immersive? Let me know in the comments section below.

In the meantime, I'll post updates if take this any further or if I experiment with any other themes.

Happy haunting!

Strange Boardfellows: How I Began Using Art in the Workplace to Promote Random Acts of Kindness

My take on a classic Scooby Doo villain--the "Space Kook"

The first thing we need to get out of the way is that this isn't a post about artistic talent. The images I'm sharing here are probably not representative of my drawings on the whole--as they're among my favorites and therefore probably skewed towards the upper end of my skills. But that's all beside the point, I think--as this story is more about doing the things you enjoy while encouraging others to do the same.

Many of us spend a lot of our waking lives at work. In my case, most of that time has been spent in an office environment--a veritable cubicle farm. One day, in the midst of a lengthy conference call, I felt compelled to doodle in the corner of my board. It started out as a lone structure--a two-story haunted house with crooked gables and slanted shutters. Over the course of the day, as people visited my cube for various reasons, I entertained them by making additions to the scene until my whiteboard was filled by it.

To my surprise, people liked the picture--a Halloween night vignette with rolling hills, skeletal trees, and a cemetery--and I began to receive requests to make other drawings. In some cases, these requests came from teammates. But in others, I had people reach out to me who I knew very little--including people from different departments who had somehow learned about my hobby through water cooler conversation.

My take on the "ID Monster" from the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet

In no time, I was managing an evolving list. People began to erase their boards at regular seasonal intervals as an open invitation to be added to the queue. At first, the subjects were all chosen at random and based on whatever inspired me at the moment I undertook the project. Rarely, I'd take on specific commissions--which ranged from Marvel Comics heroes to comic strip and animation characters to famous actors. But I also found that, over time, I was able to base images on what I knew about the people whose boards I was decorating. What had started out as a moment of nonconformity--a mild rebellion against cubicle life--had turned into a way to connect with the other people working around me.

Soon, I was prioritizing my list based on who I thought needed a picture the most. Don't get me wrong--these were only ever small gestures, so I don't want to over-blow their impact. But sometimes a timely little something can be the right thing to express camaraderie or sympathy. Moreover, my pictures have generated tons of conversations about my interests--the numerous fandoms that have often driven what I choose to draw--and have, in turn, exposed me to my co-workers' interests and fandoms.

Ironically, while this has therefore been a very social activity, I almost always draw in seclusion. I don't take time out of the work day--both because of the potential impact on productivity and because I wouldn't want to be under foot in someone's work space. And, honestly, I just like to surprise people--though my work schedule does typically prevent me from being present when the finished product is discovered.

Ultimately, we all have agency in who we choose to be regardless of the setting. Whether we elect to base our identities on our jobs--inside or outside of the office--is a choice, be it conscious or unconscious. For my part, I choose to spend a few hours a month as a guerilla artist spreading cheer one mural at a time. The fruits of my labor are always fleeting, crowded out in time by meeting notices, pareto charts, and other business ephemera--fitting, as it ideally represents the tension between our work lives and our personal lives.

Interested in seeing more of my artwork? I've set up a dedicated Instagram account to support this blog which you can find here: Owl Cowl and Blaster on Instagram. I hope you'll find that I'm improving over time. If there are any subjects you'd like to see me try again--or others you think I should tackle--please let me know in the comment section below.

The Ballad of The Westmoreland Warbirds (or Why I Gave Up Fantasy Football)

If you've read some of my other posts--about my various fandoms and hobbies--you might be surprised to discover that I've always been a big football fan. But growing up in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region, I was really born into it.

When I was a kid, the entire week really revolved around football. On Sunday afternoons, I remember sitting on the couch in my grandparents' parlor watching the NFL before dinner. Mondays were also made for football--for marquee match-ups and a theme song that was the soundtrack for playtime during the rest of the week. We'd run around the yard, crunching through the leaves in the half-light while humming "dum-dum-dum, dum, dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum, dum, dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-duh-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah-dah-dah" and imagining ourselves making some fantastic over-the-shoulder catch worthy of a highlight reel.

Saturdays brought many college football games, and we went to quite a few during my teens. (Everyone should, at least once, see a game at Michie Stadium at West Point during the fall foliage. The stadium, the campus, the neighboring towns--they make for an amazing sight in autumn.)

And then there was Friday. On Friday, the entire town would turn out for high school football. All of the towns would across the entire region. Teens would walk the track and chat up the cheerleaders or band members. Parents would sit huddled under blankets and drink hot chocolate and eat thick square pizza slices or funnel cake or hot dogs with sauerkraut. They'd grouse about play-calling and officiating. They'd gasp, cheer, and cajole. And it... was... magic.

Then you grow up and find that adulthood involves very few pep rallies. I didn't stop enjoying football, mind you. But that visceral thrill--the joy of the home town team's victory and the agony of its defeat--I found that it gradually faded as I moved away and my life carried on, presenting other opportunities and challenges. That will probably come as a shock to some people I know who think my fandom has always been deep and absolute. In reality, I actually lost touch with football for several years until pulled back by the lure of what I thought was a new way to enjoy the game--fantasy football.

On paper, fantasy football should have been the perfect pastime for me. As will become evident in later posts, I have more than a passing interest in numbers and statistics. So combining that with my extensive--almost genetically inherited--knowledge of football should have been a marriage made in heaven. And on paper it was.

Those few--those fortunate few--who got to play against the Westmoreland Warbirds may tell you that they were always a contender, and that would be true. Over roughly a decade of play, they were a playoff fixture in office, family, and public leagues. To my recollection, I don't think I ever had a losing season. I missed the playoffs maybe a couple of times. My lifetime winning percentage across all leagues and formats hovered around 70%. And while I only won 3 championships over the above span, you'd certainly have supposed I was having a good time.

Only I wasn't.

Oh, certainly there were moments of enjoyment, if fleeting. That joy of victory was there on occasion--especially during those wild weekends when I'd find myself behind by maybe 20-30 points going into NBC's Sunday Night Football coverage only to pull it out in the last two games of the week. Just as often however, I'd find myself sitting on the edge of my seat on Monday night rooting against an opponent's quarterback or running back, watching their point totals slowly and inexorably climbing towards my own.

And then one day the realization hit me that I'd stopped watching football. Between 2004 and 2014, I'd tracked the performance of literally hundreds of pro football players only I'd stopped paying attention to the game itself. The TV would be on, but I was keeping one eye on the field and another more attentive eye on the crawl of statistics running along the bottom of the screen. I could be in a room full of people cheering and high-fiving over a local team's spectacular victory, and what would I be doing? I'd be quietly calculating point totals in my head, wondering if I'd have been better off if they'd kick one fewer field goal.

Ultimately, we all need to be true to ourselves. And if I'm honest with myself, I'm just not wired for fantasy football. Some people will tell you that it's because I'm too competitive; I don't think that's exactly it. Rather, I'm not wired to be casually competitive. If I do something, I figure out what my goals are--what I'm trying to get out of it--and then I lean into that. In that regard, I found fantasy football to be a bottomless pit. There is so much information to collect and deconstruct, so much change and churn. Not having an off switch, I quickly found myself in free fall. And so I decided to walk away.

Will the Westmoreland Warbirds ever have their day in the sun again? Perhaps, but probably not.

That said, one day you may be in a book store and see a man lingering too long by the magazine rack, eyeing that year's fantasy football draft guides. Try not to judge him. And if you happen to speak to him, ask him if he's seen any good games lately. If he has, then he'll likely smile and keep on walking.

My Continuing Quest for the Ideal Immersive Low-Cost Halloween Display

Every year as the days grow shorter and the leaves turn, I begin an inner tug-of-war between the artistic and frugal sides of my personality.

For more than a decade of my marriage, my family and I lived on a lonely street with little traffic. It was a two-lane road in principle only and the porch was separated from the street by just a handful of feet--meaning that passersby would rarely have more than a moment to view any seasonal decorations as they squeezed past oncoming cars. As a result, we didn't spend much time on outdoor decor.

More than for my spouse, this was a big struggle for me. When I was growing up, my parents took advantage of any reason to decorate. Our Halloween preparations were particularly elaborate. My dad went to the trouble of creating a six-foot tall Frankenstein monster out of plywood, newspaper stuffing, an old greenish brown suit coat and a plastic mask. He also wired the outside of the house for sound--piping spooky sounds and music out onto the lawn. We'd hand out candy in costume.

So when I moved my wife and kids into a new home a few years ago--one at an intersection visible from two different streets--I told myself that I'd make our holiday displays the most memorable on the block. However, as so often happens in life, I soon found that the pressures of work and chores didn't allow as much time as I'd have assumed.

Now I could just buy a bunch of stuff at a home improvement store, but I didn't want to buy something--I wanted to make something. And I have done so, on a small scale, as circumstances have allowed. A couple of years ago, I followed a tip I found online and made carnivorous plants out of plastic pumpkins. The stems were tree branches--yard waste--and the pumpkins and paint cost me maybe $20-30. I positioned them around our front door and along our retaining wall--leering into the street. Last year, I created some big disembodied eyes and stuck them in our trees and shrubbery. I wasn't as thrilled with this outcome--as there was more mess than with the pumpkins and I didn't like the aesthetic as much. (All-in cost was comparable.) In both cases, I saw these as nothing more than experiments, proofs of concept related to pieces that could one day be used as part of a larger display. So now I'm interested in putting together something more eye-popping. (Sorry--couldn't help myself.)

But what to make? I don't want to spend a fortune, though I'm willing to spend several multiples of what I spent in those prior years. And I want it to be unique.

There is another house not far from mine where the owners decorate their lawns with wooden cut-outs of Peanuts characters, and I've thought about doing something similar with different characters. But again, that wouldn't really be unique--just a different take on someone's existing display.

While my perfect display would probably be to buy a burned out van, paint it to look like the Mystery Machine, and park it on the edge of the driveway*, here are some (somewhat) more feasible ideas I've considered:

• Create a sea of hands sticking out of the ground across my lawn--perhaps with eyes in the palms
• Use flexible corrugated tubing to create a huge snake or octopus
• Use garbage cans, corrugated tubing, plywood, and silver spray paint to create human-sized robot alien invaders
• Stuff garbage bags with newspaper filler, cinch them near the top, and wrap them in gauze to look like mummies--perhaps hanging from a large spider web also made from gauze
• Put a plastic cauldron on a pile of fire wood, stuff it with gauze, and then have a trail of tentacles extending out of it and across the lawn
• Create a bunch of wooden or fiberglass shark fins, place them in lines and circles across my lawn, and then supplement with mannequin arms/legs as well as maybe a lifesaver, a broken oar or even a small boat. (This one might be my front-runner right now.)

Whatever I choose to do, I need to factor in several considerations such as:

• The display needs to be multi-directional and would ideally carry from my front yard to my side yard--as both are visible from the street
• We get significant gusts of wind blowing down both streets during the fall, so the display can't really include elements likely to catch the wind and tumble/topple
• We still want to get trick-or-treaters, so the display can't make either the front or side of the house inaccessible to foot traffic; and, of course, I still need to be able to park my car

What do you think? Do you have any other Halloween hacks that I should consider? Post your suggestions in the comments section below. Meanwhile, I'll update as I start to narrow down options and/or as I begin to tinker with any promising ideas for this season.

* A close second would be a damaged blue police box surrounded by statues. :)

Bringing the Racks to the Stacks (Part 3): A Not-So-Secret War and One of the Best Kept Secrets of the '80s

Continuing a story begun in a couple of prior posts, I'm briefly summarizing here two more comics compilations that I recently donated to my local library. If you're interested in my reasons for paying it forward by making such donations, please jump back to Part 1.

MARVEL'S SECRET WARS (or more accurately, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars)

This one hardly needs to be explained, as it's in many ways the harbinger of all the colossal Marvel comics crossover events that followed. The way the story goes, it was largely toy-sale-driven--based on a collaboration with Mattel--and related marketing considerations were critical to certain plot elements. But what can't be overlooked is what the creative team--including writer/editor Jim Shooter and artists Bob Layton and Mike Zeck--were able to create within those parameters.

This is the story that gave Spider-Man his black costume--so all of the alien-symbiote-based goodness to follow, including Venom, Carnage, Red Goblin... all of it owes its existence to this story. But more than that, this story upped the ante for the scale of cosmic adventures in the Marvel Universe on the whole.

"I am from Beyond! Slay your enemies and all that you desire will be yours," our heroes are told as they're whisked away to the other side of the universe--to a Battleworld and solar system assembled in front of their awe-struck eyes. Having a threat like The Beyonder--who could truly toy with all of the company's most popular characters (including Galactus!)--changed the stakes for all crossovers going forward. (It made the concept of a Cosmic Cube--the primary McGuffin of many prior epics--almost quaint.) So, in some sense, without The Secret Wars there is likely no Infinity Gauntlet/Infinity War.

Simply put, the Secret Wars are the first huge step into the larger Marvel Universe we know today--and therefore a worthy read for that if no other reason.

THE SQUADRON SUPREME

Much more obscure is the story of the Squadron Supreme.

First introduced in the pages of The Avengers as a foil for that team--a (very) thinly veiled representation of DC's Justice League--the squadron appeared in various '70s story-lines culminating in the near destruction of their alternate Earth in the pages of The Defenders. While this near-apocalypse was initiated by two world-class villains--the Over-Mind and Null The Living Darkness--it was also facilitated by squadron members who had fallen under their mental control. And so it is on the heels of that misadventure--where the squadron have been left to pick up the pieces of their broken world--that the late Mark Gruenwald's thought-provoking mid-80s tale takes place.

If the squadron members had started off as straw men--as stand-ins for a rival comics company's greatest heroes--Gruenwald makes them so much more. He turns them into a handful of super-powered men and women looking into the abyss of a world tearing itself apart because of their collective mistakes. And he plants an awesome terrible idea in their minds. "What if we fixed the world by taking it over?" they ask themselves. Their answer sets in motion a story that that raises fundamental questions about what it means to be a hero and what the limits of power are.

Another thing it does--almost 20 years before Marvel's much more celebrated Civil War--is that it pits self-professed heroes, friends, into direct and deadly conflict over their ideals. And unlike that other series (which I do, in fact, like), this story delivers much more dramatically on death and consequence.

If you ever wonder how you'd fare if you had super powers--ever wondered about the choices you'd make about how and when you'd use your abilities--you really want to read this compilation.

OK--that covers what I've collected and donated from my target list thus far. I'll provide more updates as I get my hands on other graphic novels. I'll also update as my list continues to evolve, sprinkled in among the other unrelated topics to come.

Bringing the Racks to the Stacks (Part 2): Sometimes DC Stands for Deep Cut

Continuing a story begun in my last post, I began--several months ago--to look for various graphic novels and comics compilations for donation to my local library. (See that prior post for my tentative target list and my reasons for pursuing them.) To be sure, many of these are readily available for purchase online--but I wanted to make some sport of it. Ideally, I wanted to get them at some significant discount as compared to the cover price. More importantly, I wanted to patronize local vendors if at all possible. So I decided to just keep an eye out while in the course of my usual travels--taking my kids to the local comic store, regional comics conventions, etc.

Ultimately, the best opportunity presented itself in May. As some may know, many comic book stores and chains participate in Free Comic Book Day on the first Saturday in May each year. In addition to promotional comics offered for free--usually appropriate to a wide age range--there are typically really great sales on exactly the sort of books I was seeking. And this past spring was no exception.

I was able to pick up 5 books in total*, 4 from my original list--two of which I describe below. (You can find the others in Part 3.)

* Taking a quick moment here to plug the people at Phantom of The Attic in Monroeville, PA, outside of Pittsburgh. They've got great back issue bins and they've always been super-nice to my family--my kids especially.

THE JUDAS CONTRACT

I'll confess that I was a little put off the first time I ever saw Cartoon Network's Teen Titans Go!  It didn't take them long to wear me down with outlandish edgy humor--think Archer, but for a K-8 audience--and the veteran voice acting of Khary Payton, Tara Strong and a stellar cast.

That said, I grew up with the Teen Titans as imagined by writer Marv Wolfman and the legendary George Perez. So while many who watch the CN show may not know the content that it lampoons, the era that spawned characters like Raven, Starfire, and Trigon (i.e., DC's demonic take on Galactus) was actually one of the most serious and dramatic in the team's history.

No story epitomizes this era more than The Judas Contract story-line. Ahead of its time in that it came at the front edge of a wave of darker, consequence-filled stories that pervaded comics in the following decade, this tale introduced one of the most pivotal villains (and antiheroes) in the DC catalog, rebranded a classic hero with a new name and costume, and hinged on a shocking betrayal that remains one of the most memorable in comics history.

If you've watched/liked the grittier Young Justice, you need to read this compilation.

THE RETURN OF SUPERMAN

Speaking of darker, consequence-filled story-lines, I've liked the second half of the "Death of Superman" story arc since I was in graduate school. Some of this is absolutely tied to nostalgia, as I remember the availability of these issues coincided with my moving to a new town and patronizing a new comic store with my wife. So a lot of my feelings about it are likely naturally intertwined with my feelings about that time in general. I don't know that this feeling mirrors general sentiment, as I often hear this story referenced in the same breath as the "clone saga" story-line in the pages of Spider-Man--which was out around the same time.

But the fact is that these stories were genuine page-turners. Superman is dead and Earth is vulnerable. Four mysterious heroes emerge from the wreckage of Metropolis with some claim to his logo and mantle. One claims to be the Last Son of Krypton. Another is a Man of Steel. Yet another appears to be a literal Man of Tomorrow. And a fourth may or may not be his clone. The reader is left to ponder which--if any--is the true heir to (or return of) their champion.

If one of the measures of quality is longevity, then the fact that many of the characters introduced here continued to pepper Superman stories for more than 20 years afterwards should speak for itself. I for one was especially intrigued at the time because I was aware of the parallels between this story and the bizarre true tale of The Four Dmitris from Russian history. (BTW - For whatever it's worth, The Death and Return of Superman game for SNES remains one of my all-time favorite 2D side-scrolling fighting games.)

So, overall, my recommendation is that The Return of Superman (or The Reign of the Supermen) is every bit as worthy of a read as The Death of Superman. While it's rarely given the same consideration as the first half of the story, it is just that--the second half, the completion of a full story arc that sees the title character defeated, deconstructed, re-imagined, and ultimately reborn.

OK--so that's it for my DC finds. Please join me for Part 3 to hear about my Marvel finds and why I chose to pursue them.

Bringing the Racks to the Stacks (Part 1): Paying It Forward by Donating Graphic Novels to the Local Library

When I decided to create a blog, one of the first things I promised myself was that I wouldn't indulge in too many posts about how much harder it was to access comics and other sci-fi and fantasy content years ago. Point in fact: I didn't have to walk 10 miles uphill (both ways, in the snow) to get my hands on a comic book as a kid. While I'll save the story of the first comic I ever bought for another post, there were comics racks at several local drug stores and convenience stores that I haunted throughout my adolescence.

Having said that, there's no denying that the pop culture landscape--and culture in general--has changed over the years. Several years ago, I was surprised when, walking my children through our local library, I found that it had an entire floor-to-ceiling shelving unit devoted to graphic novels and comics-related literature. I've always been a big user and defender of libraries, but this was a weird "crossing the streams" moment for me. I'd used the library a ton when I was a kid--usually to bury my nose in some Time-Life book series about folklore or the paranormal. However, I think I can remember there being only maybe 3 books about comics in the whole building back then--all of them scholarly tomes.

I'd collected comics, but I wouldn't call myself a comics collector. There wasn't a strategy to it. I simply read what I liked and kept those comics to revisit those stories. It wasn't an "on demand" world back then. If I missed an issue or a story arc, I missed it. So the idea of stacks and stacks of collected comics thrilled me as I ran my hand along the spines.

What I noticed though was that the offering was very much skewed towards the recent past. That's not to say that there aren't modern classics--as my kids have collected their own comics, I've been exposed to a lot of great story-lines and creators. But I was surprised to see little representation of the foundational stories that paved the way for present-day franchises like the MCU, DC Arrowverse, etc. And that fact birthed the kernel of an idea.

Because we do now live in an on-demand world where compilations of many great old comics stories can be had--sometimes at a considerable discount if you're patient. So I tucked that idea away and started to build a list of the books I'd grab for donation to my local library if I could get my hands on them at a reasonable price.

The list continues to evolve, but here is the latest version along with notes related to some of the books I've already snagged/donated:

• Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (DONE)
• The Death of Captain Marvel
• Justice League: Kingdom Come
• Justice League: The Nail
• Squadron Supreme (the original 12-issue miniseries) (DONE)
• Crisis on Infinite Earths
• Flash: The Return of Barry Allen
• Secret Wars (the original 12-issue miniseries) (DONE)
• The Return of Superman (i.e. Reign of the Supermen) (DONE)
• X-Men: Days of Future Past
• X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga
• Iron Man: Armor Wars
• Walt Simonson's Thor Ragnarok story-line
• Batman: The Long Halloween
• Spider-Man: The Death of Jean DeWolff
• Avengers: The Siege of Avengers Mansion 
• Watchmen
• Daredevil: Born Again

Some of these choices are sentimental, some are based on just their overall quality, some have awesome messages/insights worth sharing--and many combine all of the above. Please join me for Part 2 where I provide a spoiler-free review of several of these books along with the specifics of why I targeted them.