Tuesday evening coming down

And so another New York Comic Con comes to a close. Funnily enough, I've spent some of my free time since the con ended shopping for comics. Yeah, I know, right? But there's a reason for it.

My friend Howard, the Henchman 21 to my Henchman 24 if you will*, went into the hospital for emergency surgery last week, as I briefly hinted in my previous post. There were complications and he's been through a rough time of it. But I finally received word that Howard was doing a lot better and, although he's still not up to receiving visitors, he wanted me to get him some reading material to pass the time. I didn't see this last message until late Sunday night...that is to say, just after three whole days during which I was surrounded by dealers eager to sell me their comic books at low, low prices. If only I'd thought of it at the time, I could have got a huge stack of comics right there. Complete with autographs for the sick boy in hospital. That would have been lovely. Not to mention a prerelease copy of Teenagers from the Future before they all sold out.

But I didn't, so I hit the comic shops to get the books he wanted (Dynamite Entertainment's Lone Ranger and Project Superpowers and the latest Buffy) plus some others I hope he'll find entertaining (my chance to make him read Patton Oswalt's brilliant JLA: Welcome to the Working Week has come at last). Howard keeps up with the current titles a lot more than I do, so this means for a change I'll actually be hitting the shop every Wednesday and scoring his weekly fix for him until he's back on his feet.

Hey, it's the least I can do for a guy who keeps a complete set of Legion of Super-Heroes action figures on display next to an open window, hoping a stray bolt of lightning will transform him into the Composite Superman.

I'm working on a writeup of the convention, but I've also got a backlog of messages to catch up on so please bear with me a day or two longer.

* Or am I the 21 to his 24? It's a tough call. On the one hand I'm the thinner one and he's the one with the bigger collection of geeky memorabilia...but I'm also the more emotional one whereas he's the more grounded and efficient one. **

** No, I am not saying he's the husband and I'm the wife. That kind of talk is childish, not to mention sexist, and has no place among adults. Quite frankly I'm surprised you even thought such a thing.