In the nascent days of my Common Elements commission theme — before I had any clue it would take on a life of its own, spawning well over 100 commissions to date — the connections between the featured characters were often simple and rather obvious. (Sometimes they still are.) And yet, even in those early concepts, my subconscious frequently bubbled up a more subtle subtext.

That’s certainly true in Common Elements #3, which I commissioned on New Year’s Day 2005. Artist Jeffrey Moy — probably best known for his work on DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes — served up this pinup-style piece pairing Luke Cage, Power Man with Karen Starr, Power Girl.

The superficial common element between Luke and Karen is pretty clear — they both have the word “Power” in their fighting identities. (Cage long ago abandoned the “Power Man” handle — as well as the flashy outfit — and now simply goes by his own name.) The pair, however, share another commonality, in that they represent caricatures of masculinity (Cage with the open shirt displaying his bulging musculature — a shirt which had the unusual knack of getting shredded off his torso in practically every issue) and femininity (artist Wally Wood famously drew Power Girl’s bust increasingly larger over a several-issue run, until an editor finally took notice and ordered him to quit). Granted, most superheroes — male or female — can be viewed as hypersexualized gender stereotypes, but Cage and Power Girl were created with those stereotypes in mind more flagrantly than others.

None of this has anything to do with the reason why this Common Elements piece marks a milestone in my collecting career. It’s important because it’s the first tangible evidence of my friendship with fellow collector Damon Owens.

After all these years, I don’t recall exactly how Damon and I began corresponding. (Damon probably does, and I’m sure he’ll correct any errant reportage that follows.) I think he might have sent me a note about my Bob McLeod Black Panther commission when I posted it to my Comic Art Fans gallery. Whatever the impetus, it became immediately clear that the two of us shared much in common. (There’s that Common Elements thing again.) Our casual correspondence evolved into a virtual friendship (we’ve never met in person; Damon lives in suburban Houston, while I’m in San Francisco) that persists to this day.

Without question, part of the connection between Damon and me is that we are both African American. That may not sound like a big deal to you, but I can tell you from a long lifetime of experience that black folks (and racial minorities of all shades, for that matter) have historically been underrepresented in science fiction and fantasy fandom in general, and in comic book fandom — okay, let’s call it geekdom — in particular. Thankfully, that’s changing — I see a lot more faces from a lot more races at comics conventions these days than I did in the 1970s, when I would often be the only person of color I encountered at a Star Trek or science fiction con. (Not that I encountered myself. You know what I mean.) But there’s still an element of “hey! another one of us!” when I run into someone of my background who’s into comics; someone who understands firsthand some of my frustrations with the mainstream comics industry’s embarrassing and often downright offensive depictions of black characters (or its failure to depict such characters at all), as well as its corresponding ill-treatment of many talented African American comics artists and writers.

Damon also shares my predilection for theme commissions, though he was in the game long before I was. His collection still contains many incredible pieces that, when I look at them, make me want to pitch all of my portfolios into the nearest Dumpster. (I lie down with a cool compress on my forehead until the temptation subsides.) Damon’s signature theme features The Brotherhood, an Avengers- or Justice League-style assemblage of legendary black superheroes from across the comics industry. He’s gotten some of the top talent in comics to draw scenarios starring these characters, and the results inspire in me both awe and envy.

From the beginning of our friendship, Damon has proven an invaluable resource for artist recommendations. It was Damon who tipped me to Jeff Moy’s availability for commissions, resulting in the piece shown above. This would be the first, but hardly the last, time that my interaction with an artist resulted from an introduction by Damon. In fact, as I’ve been composing this post, I’ve received two emails from an artist who’s working on my latest Common Elements addition — an artist to whom I was referred by the redoubtable Mr. Owens.

Last evening, I attended a screening of the documentary film White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in Comic Books, at the Museum of the African Diaspora here in San Francisco. Following the screening, the filmmaker, Dr. Jonathan Gayles of Georgia State University in Atlanta, joined us via Skype for a discussion about the film and the issues contained therein. While I didn’t agree with every point made in the film — you know me; do I ever agree 100% with anyone about anything? — I found it a fascinating and enlightening (if occasionally frustrating) conversation. I especially appreciated Gayles’s interviews with the late Dwayne McDuffie, a veteran comics writer who is even better remembered as the story editor and producer of the popular Justice League animated series, as well as such figures as comics historian Bill Foster and writer/producer Reginald Hudlin.

Many of the documentary’s participants related accounts that mirrored my own childhood experiences, in which finding superheroes who looked like ourselves proved challenging. Among my most vivid memories as a young comics reader is the day I found the first issue of Luke Cage, Hero for Hire on a supermarket rack in Kokomo, Indiana, and for the first time saw an African American hero on the cover of a comic with his name in the title. I remember equally well the series of early-1970s issues of Jungle Action featuring the Black Panther, and the run of Captain America and the Falcon — the latter being Marvel’s very first African American hero (the Panther, who preceded the Falcon by a few years, was African, but not American) — during that same time period. These comics and characters weren’t perfect — in those days, their adventures were being scripted almost entirely by writers of the Caucasian persuasion, whose attempts at “black” dialogue often sank to ludicrous depths — but they were steps in a fresh new direction. By the late ’70s, Storm was a major character in X-Men, long-running supporting character Bill Foster (no relation to the comics historian) had taken up the mantle of Goliath, and even the ultraconservative DC had introduced John Stewart (a.k.a. “the black Green Lantern”) and Black Lightning. Again, it wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

Diversity remains a problem in comics, not just for black fans, but for Latino and Asian readers as well. The list of prominent non-Caucasian superheroes remains a short one, and the list of such characters that aren’t stereotypical in some way is shorter yet. (One of my favorite recent additions to the superhero pantheon is DC’s Mister Terrific, the rare black comics hero whose race is almost entirely incidental to the nature of his presentation.) And that’s not even considering the depiction of female characters, or gay characters of either gender, in mainstream comics. The industry still has a long way to go toward realistic, genuinely human portrayals of characters who aren’t white males (or, as in the case of Superman, space aliens who conveniently happen to look like Caucasian human males). As a wise person once observed, the wheels of progress grind slowly. But grind they must.

I look forward to the day when all comics readers — people of every ethnicity, gender, background, and orientation — can open a comic book (or view a digital comic, as the future of the industry lies in that direction) and see heroes and heroines with whom they can fully identify, and in whom they can see the materialization of their own fantasy selves. Won’t that be awesome?

After all, our most precious Common Element is our humanity.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

One of my personal projects for this year is building a database for my comic art collection. As astounding as this may seem, given that I’ve been collecting art for nearly a decade now, I don’t have a comprehensive catalog of everything I own.

My online gallery at Comic Art Fans showcases practically all of my art, but there’s no easy way from there to compile a simple list that contains every item. Plus, there’s information about each artwork that I’d like to capture, but that isn’t included in the CAF listing. My late first wife KJ helped me create an Excel spreadsheet many years ago, but spreadsheets and I don’t speak the same language — I’m a writer, not an accountant — so that document hasn’t been updated in, like, eons. The other night, I took a 12-part online tutorial in the basics of Access, Microsoft’s database program, and I believe I now have a tool that will accomplish what I need.

As I fill the database — which is going to take some time, since I have close to 400 individual pieces to catalog — I’m going through my portfolios and taking a fresh look at each physical artwork, as opposed to the digital images that reside in my computer and online. There are practical reasons for this: I want to (a) verify what I still own, because I’ve sold or traded some pieces over the years, and haven’t always been meticulous about noting that those items have moved on to new owners; and (b) document the dimensions of each piece, and I can’t tell what sizes things are from the scans.

There’s an even more important reason, though, for reconnecting with each piece in my collection, especially those that I didn’t commission personally. For the preexisting pieces, it’s nice to be reminded of why I bought them in the first place.

Both of the artworks we’re featuring today sprang from the hand of the same talented artist — James E. Lyle, who signs his work “jel” and is known to his friends as Doodle. I acquired both pieces in March 2005 from the same vendor, who if I recall correctly was selling them on Doodle’s behalf. Over the next several months, I commissioned three new pieces from Doodle directly, including two for my Common Elements theme. His work has many wonderful qualities that I enjoy — strong lines, expressive characters, exquisite costume detailing, and an old-school, retro feel that breathes and radiates the comics of my youth. He also uses shadows (or “spots blacks,” as they say in artist lingo) as effectively as anyone in the business, as you’ll see in a moment.

Doodle titled this first item “Canary in a Coal Mine,” and it’s easy to see why. His juxtaposition of Black Canary against a solid black background make for a bold, arresting image, despite the relaxed posture of the subject. This piece has consistently ranked among the most-viewed items in my online gallery over the years.

For me, Lyle’s Canary reflects a humanity that we don’t often see in our superheroes. It reads to my eye as though Dinah Drake Lance has come home from a long, arduous night of fighting crime, and she wants nothing more than to just sit down and rest. She just walked through the door of her home and plopped down on the sofa. She doesn’t even have the strength left to completely remove her jacket. And yet, exhausted though she is, there’s a trace of a smile on Dinah’s lips as she reflects on the lives she’s saved and the evildoers she’s sent off to prison. It’s been a tough battle, but a job well done.

I also like that Doodle has given his Canary naturalistic proportions. Her figure is a bit fuller and softer than the typical mainstream comics artist would draw. She looks less like an idealized, male-power-fantasy caricature of a woman, and more like an actual woman. If there were a Black Canary in real life, she’d probably be closer to Lyle’s depiction than to that of whoever’s drawing her at DC this month.

Next, Doodle presents his take on Doctor Mid-Nite, a favorite hero of mine from comics’ Golden Age. In contrast to Black Canary, Mid-Nite finds himself in the heat of battle, facing down an unseen enemy. I think Doctor Mid-Nite’s original costume as seen here is one of the best superhero designs ever — the guy just looks like a superhero, and he also looks totally cool. (Credit Mid-Nite’s co-creator, artist Stanley Aschmeier — a.k.a. Stan Josephs — for his timeless style.)

Lyle invests meticulous attention in the minute details of the good doctor’s outfit, taking care to get every crease and fold in Mid-Nite’s tunic, gloves, and boots exactly right. The smoke effect generated by Mid-Nite’s blackout bomb is also beautifully done. And, like his Black Canary, Doodle’s Doctor Mid-Nite is perfectly, realistically proportioned. He appears strong and sturdy, but his muscularity doesn’t brand him as a steroid junkie or a freak of nature.

I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of a blind superhero (which Doctor Mid-Nite is, for those not up on their comics lore). When I was a kid, Daredevil was one of my favorite characters. (I haven’t been able to stomach DD’s modern adventures since Frank Miller gave the character an unnecessarily antiheroic spin in the early ’80s, a trend that subsequent creators appear to have followed. But those Silver and Bronze Age Daredevil stories — including that early ’70s run where he’s partnered with the Black Widow — remain classics.)

Tangentially related: I was a major fan (come to think of it, perhaps the only fan) of CBS’s 1990s late-night TV drama Dark Justice, about a criminal court judge who moonlights as a vigilante, rounding up malfeasants who previously escaped punishment through loopholes in the legal system. The lead character in Dark Justice was not visually impaired, but he had a habitual quirk of telling his foes, “Justice may be blind, but it can see in the dark.” I always wanted to add, “So can Doctor Mid-Nite. And Daredevil.”

It’s been 20 years since that series last aired, but I still recall it vividly as a great concept. Someone should pick up the rights and resurrect it. (A bit of Dark Justice trivia: Although the show was set in an unnamed American metropolis, its first season was filmed in Barcelona, Spain, shortly before the 1992 Summer Olympics were held there. Part of the fun of watching those early episodes was trying to catch the instances when the production team failed in its efforts to make Barcelona look like, say, Los Angeles.)

But I digress.

Sometimes people ask me whether there’s a difference in my mind between the artworks I’ve commissioned and those I’ve purchased. To be frank, there usually is — I have a deeper, more visceral attachment to my commissions because they would not exist had I not hired an artist to create them. My theme commissions, especially, reflect my personal tastes and vision in a manner than no preexisting piece ever could. There are, however, some pieces I’ve picked up over the years that I absolutely love, as much as any I’ve commissioned, because they just speak to me in a special way, and at a unique level.

You’ve just seen two of them.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

I won my first match in LearnedLeague last night.

Now I have to explain to the rest of you what that means.

LearnedLeague is an online trivia league, populated by more than 1200 players from all over the globe. (The preponderance of the League resides in North America, but there are a surprising number of folks on other continents.) Among the membership, you’ll find college quiz bowl stars, pub quiz mavens, crossword puzzle fanatics, and — not surprisingly — quite a few of my fellow Jeopardy! champions, including the nonpareil Ken Jennings.

Admission to LearnedLeague is by invitation only, so you have to be referred by a current member in order to join. However, previously posted questions are openly accessible on the League’s website, so anyone can challenge themselves by playing along. I scoured the archives diligently for months before I scored my invitation. (Speaking of which, my sincere thanks to Paul Paquet, proprietor of the Trivia Hall of Fame, for referring me into LL.)

Players compete in one-on-one matches each weekday over a 25-game season. (The current season is the League’s 56th –LL56 in League nomenclature. Four seasons are conducted each year, roughly once per calendar quarter.) For each match, six questions spanning a broad variety of topics are posted. Each player has 24 hours to access the questions and upload answers, with a strict honor-system understanding that the player will use only the knowledge residing inside his or her noggin — no reference materials or web searching permitted. The somewhat relaxed time element can be either a blessing or a curse. You have plenty of opportunity to mull over the questions and dredge up that obscure factoid lurking in the deepest recesses of your brain. You also have ample chance to overthink, and talk yourself out of a perfectly valid response.

Modeled after international soccer leagues, LearnedLeague divides its participants into ranked brackets called Rundles. Each Rundle contains an even number of players, between 24 and 32 (most commonly, 26). The Rundles are stacked by player performance, with the League’s top 26 players assembled in the Championship Rundle. The next-best players compete in one of several A-level Rundles; there are also B, C, D, and E-level Rundles. All first-time players such as myself are assigned to R (for Rookie) Rundles. This helps ensure that participants compete against others who are at a similar skill level. (To illustrate how essential that is, consider that the most recent winner of Championship Rundle scored 98.7% correct during the season.) The ultimate goal is to win enough matches to advance to a higher level Rundle for the following season (called Promotion), or at least to avoid being demoted to a lower Rundle (called Relegation).

What differentiates LearnedLeague from any other trivia competition I’ve encountered is the element of defense. In addition to answering the day’s six questions, each player must assign point values to those questions, from which her or his opponent’s score will be calculated. You assign three points to the question you believe your opponent is least likely to answer correctly, making it the highest-valued. The two questions you think are next in descending order of difficulty, you assign two points each; the next two, one point each. The question you believe will be the easiest for your opponent gets a value of zero, meaning that even if the other player gets it right, they don’t add any points for doing so. A perfect score on all six questions is nine points (3+2+2+1+1+0).

Likewise, your opponent will assign values to the questions based on what he or she thinks will be most or least difficult for you. You have no way of knowing when you submit your answers what point values have been attached to each. That information is only revealed at the conclusion of the 24-hour match period. So, unlike Jeopardy!, where a $200 answer is always $200, and a $2000 answer always nets you $2000 (unless it’s a Daily Double), answering any of the six questions correctly in a LearnedLeague match might earn you three points, two points, or one point, or it might earn you no points at all, depending on how your opponent assessed the values.

This makes defense critically important to winning a match. It’s entirely possible — in fact, it happens frequently — that you might answer more questions correctly than your opponent does, and still lose the match. Let’s say you get four answers right. Your competitor has preassigned those four items values of 2, 1, 1, and 0 points. That makes your total score 4 — or as it’s represented in LearnedLeague standings, 4(4) with game points preceding the parentheses, and the number of correct answers within the parentheses. Suppose your opponent only answers two questions correctly, but you’ve assigned those questions values of 3 and 2. Your opponent’s score is 5(2). Because only the game points determine the winner and loser of the match, your competitor snatches the victory — even though you came up with twice as many correct responses.

As you can see, the more you know about the person you’re playing against, and the parameters of her or his knowledge base, the more effectively you can assign points on defense. To facilitate this, the LearnedLeague site compiles detailed statistics about every player, so you can see at a glance how well he or she has performed in various categories. For those of us playing in our first League season, there’s not much information yet to go on. But this profile data becomes more useful the longer a player continues in the League, as his or her strengths and weaknesses become clearer.

(Did I mention that every LLama — that’s insider-speak for a LearnedLeague member — has his or her own flag? That’s mine at the top of this post. Having my own flag is wicked cool.)

I was first introduced to LearnedLeague at the inaugural Trivia Championships of North America (TCONA) in 2011. LearnedLeague at TCONA is played in a modified live format — instead of Rundles, the field is divided into eight-player tables, and the matches are played at a rapid pace, allowing players only four minutes to record their answers and assign defense points. The first round consists of seven matches, so everyone at a given table has one match against each tablemate. The winner of each table advances to the next round of play, an elimination round in which only the winners of each individual match continue. Ultimately, the two players left standing face off for the title.

At TCONA ’11, I won my table (despite the fact that I was new to the game and didn’t understand the scoring system all that well — which is an ego-preserving way of saying that I didn’t understand it at all) and found myself in the quarterfinals alongside Jeopardy! legends Ken Jennings and Jerome Vered. I lost my first elimination match (not to either Ken or Jerome, not that that’s any consolation), but felt vindicated to be in such lofty company. This past year, I finished second at a table that included another Jeopardy! veteran and LLama, Dr. Shane Whitlock.

So what’s a LearnedLeague match like? I’m glad you asked. Here’s how my first match of LL56 went down.

Question 1: Geography — France is divided into 27 régions, which are divided into 101 départements, which are further divided into 342 districts known by what term?

I stewed over this one for a while, because I knew that I had heard this somewhere (possibly, on Jeopardy!) very recently. I couldn’t dredge it up, though. Instead, I answered “cantons,” which was the only French administrative division that popped into my head. The correct answer is ARRONDISSEMENTS. My opponent got this question right, but unfortunately for him, I’d assigned it a value of zero. Which, as it turned out, was the best move — statistically, this was the easiest question of the match (meaning that, Leaguewide, more players answered this question correctly than any other question). Just not for non-Francophile me.

Question 2: Literature — Thanks to his famous literary depiction, who is the best known king to have ruled the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk (outpacing Lugalbanda, Enmerkar, and Dumuzid, among others)?  Often on Jeopardy!, keeping the category in mind helps you focus on the correct response. The fact that this question was classified as Literature rather than History pointed me quickly to the right answer: GILGAMESH. He’s the only Sumerian king I could think of who’s also a famous literary character. (And a Marvel Comics superhero, not that that’s germane to the question.) Had this been designated a History question, I might well have struggled between Gilgamesh and Sargon (thereby exhausting the names of Sumerian kings I know). My esteemed opponent gave me two points for this correct reply; he answered incorrectly. [EDIT: As noted in the comments below by fellow LLama Bill Penrose, the categories don't appear until the answers are revealed. I clearly sussed this out from the reference to "famous literary depiction" in the original clue. Seriously, I should not write from memory about something I did at 1 a.m. 36 hours ago. -- Uncle Swan.]

Question 3: Film — The seminal 1984 comedy film Stranger Than Paradise was the first major work from what acclaimed independent filmmaker? As an actor and former film critic, I’m embarrassed to admit that I missed this. I put down “Spike Jonze” as my response; the correct answer, of course, is JIM JARMUSCH, which I remembered the instant I saw the answer key. Ah, well. My opponent earned himself two points for his accurate response.

Question 4: Games/Sport — The items in this photograph are used primarily (and quite importantly) in what sport? It pays to watch television. Just one week earlier, the Pirate Queen and I had watched a Season Three episode of Downton Abbey that depicted a CRICKET match. The second I saw this photograph, I recognized these wooden pegs as the little crosspieces that rest atop the posts of a cricket wicket. That lightning bolt of recognition garnered me three points, while my opponent guessed incorrectly. Thank you, Julian Fellowes.

Question 5: The largest vein in the human body, which returns deoxygenated blood from the lower part of the body into the heart, is known specifically as what (three words)? I’m not a doctor, but I know how to play one. I worked in the healthcare industry for nearly a dozen years, about half of which I spent in a job that required me to review copious numbers of medical records. So I actually know a considerable amount about anatomy and medical terminology. I was surprised that this question was the stumper of the match day — only 27% of the League got this one correct. I’m guessing that a lot of people put down “superior vena cava,” thinking that “superior” meant “largest.” In fact, the correct response is INFERIOR VENA CAVA — inferior because it enters the heart from the bottom, while the superior vena cava enters from the top. It’s tricky. (I’ll bet Shane Whitlock aced this one. Had I been playing him in this match, I would have valued this at zero.) I earned two points for the right answer, which my opponent did not come up with.

Question 6: Flaming Pie, Run Devil Run, Driving Rain, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, Memory Almost Full, and Kisses on the Bottom are the six most recent rock studio albums (and, strictly speaking, numbers 10-15 overall) released by what solo artist? The only one of these album titles that rang any bells at all was Memory Almost Full, but that little tickle did not lead me to PAUL MCCARTNEY. Instead, I took a wild flailing guess and said “Captain Beefheart,” who was also fond of bizarre album titles — his discography includes such works as Bat Chain Puller, Trout Mask Replica, and Ice Cream for Crow. My esteemed opponent appears to be no more fond of Macca’s later works than am I, because he missed this one too.

If you run the numbers, my final score for this match was 7(3) — I earned seven match points (2+3+2) with my three correct responses. My opponent scored 4(3) — he also got three correct answers, but picked up only four match points for them (0+2+2). Thus, even though we each answered the same number right, I won the match on points… which illustrates why defense is so important to LearnedLeague success. (My defensive “prowess” on this initial Match Day can be chalked up to sheer beginner’s luck.)

I’ll drop in periodic updates as my LearnedLeague experience progresses. And if you’re a fellow LLama (the official nickname for League members), perhaps we’ll cross swords on some future match day. I’m in Rundle R Central, and my Player Name is RankinsM. You’ll recognize me by my flag.

“Hi, Michael. This is Scott Rosema.”

I’ve taken a few surprising phone calls in my lifetime — some wonderful (“We want you to come play Jeopardy!“), others horrific (“Your wife has cancer… again”). One of the more pleasant telephonic surprises began with the two brief sentences in the preceding paragraph.

The artwork you’re viewing, although officially designated as Common Elements #2, was in fact the first piece I commissioned (in December 2004) with Common Elements specifically in mind, and is the first to reflect the theme in its now-well-established form. (I know, I know — Iron Man and Iron Fist make for a transparently obvious pairing. I got better, okay?) By the time this work arrived in my hands in April 2005, I had commissioned and received a handful of other Common Elements pieces, so I sometimes forget that this one’s conception preceded all of the others.

But I don’t forget that phone call.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the mechanics, commissions fall into two general categories: direct and brokered. The majority of my commissions over the years have been arranged with the artist one-on-one via email. Many others, however, have been worked out through an artist’s broker, representative, or agent. At the time I commissioned today’s spotlighted piece, Scott Rosema‘s commissions were managed by another Scott — last name Kress — whose business is called Catskill Comics. (I have both commissioned and purchased art on numerous occasions through Catskill, and recommend Scott Kress’s services without reservation.) As is typical of a brokered commission, I had no direct communication with the artist during the process. I sent the payment and specifications to Mr. Kress, who forwarded them to Mr. Rosema. After the art was completed, Mr. Rosema mailed the piece to Mr. Kress, who in turn sent it to me. (I wouldn’t usually say “Mr.,” but it sounds less lame than “Scott R.” and “Scott K.”)

I’d had the art in hand for a few days when the phone rang.

“Hi, Michael. This is Scott Rosema.”

This being very early in my commissioning career, my immediate thought was that something had gone wrong. Had Scott not received the correct payment? Did he think he’d made an error in the drawing? Had he or Scott Kress accidentally stuck someone else’s commission in the package along with mine, and I’d failed to notice?

None of these fears proved valid.

The truth was that Scott simply wanted to know whether I was happy with the work he’d done. He had enjoyed the project, and wanted to be sure that I was equally pleased.

I was stunned. To me, comic artists still seemed a bit like unapproachable demigods, from whose gifted imaginations and dexterous fingers sprang the legends that fueled the fantasies of my youth. Only a few months previously, I wouldn’t have imagined that one of these lofty superbeings would even deign to draw something just for me, as opposed to the pages of comic books that were read and loved by millions of fans.

And now, a member of the Pantheon had dialed up my home number — not to rage and threaten, but to seek my approval.

It was almost too much.

I felt a bit like Ralphie on Santa’s lap in A Christmas Story. I knew that there were such things as words, and I was certain that I knew some — I was even reasonably confident that I had spoken some at one time or another — but getting my brain to unleash them and push them outward through my lips and tongue seemed an impossible task. I probably sounded to the man on the other end of the telephone line like a blithering moron as I fumbled to express my appreciation. I might as well have been trying to shout “AARON BURR!” with a mouthful of peanut butter and a dearth of milk.

Somehow, with the air as thick as molasses in my larynx, I managed to communicate to Scott that I was indeed quite thrilled with his drawing — not to mention his call.

In the years since, I’ve come to know a number of comic artists — and artist’s representatives — rather well. Several have even become friendly acquaintances and semi-regular correspondents. I’ve gained comfort in knowing that even the most talented of artists are just folks, who like to be appreciated for their abilities, and for themselves.

But I’ll never forget the first artist who picked up the phone to make that lesson personal.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

Before I get into the meat of today’s post, I want to throw a word of congratulation to Colby Burnett, winner of this season’s Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. As winner of the Teachers’ Tournament this past year, Colby becomes only the second player to graduate from winning one of the show’s special-interest tournaments (College, Teachers’, Teen, and the long-defunct Seniors) to also winning the TOC. (Back in 1989 — the year after my own TOC experience — a guy named Tom Cubbage won the College Tournament before advancing to and winning the TOC. Tom was in my taping group for the Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005. I’m pleased to report that he’s done quite nicely for himself, despite having become an attorney.)

Colby blazed through the field in both his tournaments, in both instances going into the last Final Jeopardy! of the two-day final round with an insurmountable lead. He displayed quick buzzer skills, a broad range of knowledge, and a quirky sense of humor throughout. Way to represent, Colby!

Speaking of knowledge and quirky humor, it’s time for an update on my rookie season in LearnedLeague. (For the backstory on this online trivia league, and my participation therein, check out this post.)

Six games into LL56, I’m astounded to find myself in first place in my bracket (or Rundle, as it’s called in LL). Match Day 6 also afforded me my first “six-pack” — that is to say, I answered all six of the day’s questions correctly. (LearnedLeague members — “LLamas” — refer to a six-for-six Match Day as “drinking the beer,” or “downing a six-pack,” which accommodates the soda-swilling teetotalers equally.) I’m not sure that says as much for my prowess as one might suppose, as MD06 appears to have been the easiest day of the season thus far, based on League-wide accuracy statistics. But it sure was nice to get that perfect-score monkey off my back at last.

My opponent for the day earned seven points for his four correct answers, against my nine points and six correct. So I needed a flawless card, or nearly that, to get the victory.

If you’re curious whether you could have “drunk the beer” on this particular round, these were the day’s questions. I’ll give you my thought process after you’ve had a chance to answer.

• Question 1: This sturdy young woman is the work of what Dutch master? (Click here to view image.)
• Question 2: Give the term from economics, a portmanteau coined in a 1965 speech to the British parliament, used to illustrate a scenario where prices are increasing at a high rate, economic growth slows, and unemployment remains at a steady high level.
• Question 3: The most produced variety of sweet cherry in the United States is a cultivar which goes by what name, after the Chinese foreman who worked for the orchardist who created it in 1875?
• Question 4: Which is the only NFL franchise to have won championships in three different cities? The first two were won in Cleveland and Los Angeles, the third in the team’s current home city, in 1999.
• Question 5: A collection of figurines kept lovingly on the shelf of an introverted young woman named Laura Wingfield provides the title for what classic play of American theatre?
• Question 6: A pair of wars were fought in the mid-19th c. between China and the British Empire over restrictive Chinese trade laws, and specifically the trade of what product, in very high demand in China at the time?

Done? Excellent.

The answers follow.

Answer 1: Given that he’s her favorite artist, The Daughter would never have forgiven me if I didn’t immediately recognize this as the work of JAN VERMEER. The title of the painting is The Milkmaid, and it’s probably Vermeer’s second most famous work, after Girl with a Pearl Earring. (The latter, incidentally, is currently here in San Francisco at the DeYoung Museum, as part of a rare North American tour of artworks from the Mauritshuis in the Netherlands. I’m looking forward to seeing “the Dutch Mona Lisa” in person soon.)

Answer 2: I’m far from an expert on economics (just ask the Pirate Queen, who holds both an MBA and a Master’s in Financial Engineering), and I’ve never heard of the 1965 speech mentioned in the clue. However, the conditions sound a lot like what I’ve heard described on news-talk programs as STAGFLATION, which is definitely a portmanteau (a word made by combining two or more existing words). And in fact, it’s the right one.

Answer 3: The only varieties of cherry I can name off the top of my head are Bing, Montmorency, and Maraschino. The last two don’t sound even remotely Chinese, and I’m pretty sure that Montmorency cherries are sour rather than sweet anyway. So BING it had to be.

Answer 4: This was an instaget for me. The NFL franchise now known as the ST. LOUIS RAMS began life as the Cleveland Rams before a lengthy stint in L.A. (1946-1979) and Anaheim (1980-1994) as the Los Angeles Rams. The team moved to St. Louis in 1995, following the Cardinals’ departure for Phoenix. The most common wrong answer to this question was “Oakland Raiders,” who did play in L.A. for a number of seasons in the ’80s and ’90s, but never in Cleveland.

Answer 5: Another instaget. The combination of “collection of figurines” and “classic play” could only mean Tennessee Williams’s THE GLASS MENAGERIE.

Answer 6: This was the only question on this Match Day that I struggled with even slightly. My first thoughts were “tea” and “silk,” but I couldn’t recall any wars being engaged over those commodities, at least not between the British and the Chinese. As I was mulling that over, I thought, “The only wars I can even remember those two countries ever fighting were the Opium Wars… oh, yeah… OPIUM. Duh.” Sometimes, it really is that simple.

How did you do with this set? Did you drink the beer (or soda, if you prefer), or were you a bottle or two short of a six-pack?

I’ve already submitted my answers for Match Day 7. Alas, I won’t be drinking anything but my own sorrows today.

One of the most legendary origin stories in comics — an industry fraught with legendary origin stories — is the one about the Silver Surfer. Not the origin story of the Surfer in Marvel Comics’ fictional universe, but rather the origin of the character in the all-too-real world.

Cognoscenti will recall that in the Silver Age (the roughly 15-year period from the mid-1950s until around 1970), Marvel’s output was scripted via what came to be known as “the Marvel Method.” Instead of giving the pencil artist a complete manuscript from which to draw the story, the writer — usually Stan Lee, in those days — would instead provide a more general outline that might range from a few paragraphs (or even a few sentences) to a mere list of plot points. The artist would develop the visual story however he deemed fit. When the pages were completed, the writer would then fill in dialogue and captions that suited whatever the artist had drawn. This often meant that the writer had little clear idea what images would appear on those pages when they came off the artist’s table.

When Lee received from artist and co-creator Jack Kirby the pencil art for Fantastic Four #48, famous today as the first book in the three-issue arc that introduced the cosmic supervillain Galactus, he was surprised to see that Kirby had drawn in a character riding a flying surfboard. Kirby explained that he thought Galactus — a gigantic, supremely powerful humanoid being who consumed planets to ingest their energy — needed a herald, someone who would warn the denizens of worlds in Galactus’s path to prepare for their doom. After some initial reluctance, Lee wrote the character into the story. Later, the Surfer became a major point of contention between Lee and Kirby, who each had radically different ideas about how the Surfer’s persona and back-story should evolve.

As I’ve intimated in previous Comic Art Fridays, I tend to be a Marvel Method scripter when it comes to my commissions. Typically, I give the artist the barest of instruction — no more than the names of the character(s) to be depicted, in most cases — and allow him or her free rein to draw whatever pleases their creative sensibilities. Therefore, I’m always at least a little bit surprised by the finished product. And on occasion, like Jack Kirby and his Silver Surfer, an artist completely startles me by including an element in a drawing that I never expected to see.

The first artist ever to throw me a happy curveball in this regard was Geof Isherwood. One of my first commissions from Geof was an ink drawing of Valkyrie, a favorite heroine from her days in Marvel’s superteam book, The Defenders. My only direction to Geof involved Val’s weaponry; I wanted him to make use of both her trademark sword (named Dragonfang) and spear (named… um… Spear, I guess). I was totally shocked, then, when Geof sent me a scan of the completed artwork. There alongside Valkyrie, in all his glory, stood her winged stallion Aragorn. (Apparently someone in the ’70s Marvel Bullpen dug The Lord of the Rings.)

As you can see in the image above, Geof’s equine illustration is impeccably detailed and astonishingly accurate. How many comic book artists can draw a horse that well?

When I asked Geof why he’d gone to all that extra (and uncompensated) work, he said simply, “She (Valkyrie) just didn’t seem complete without him (Aragorn).” Of course, he was correct.

Later that same year, I commissioned an artist named Scott Jones — who frequently signs his work “Shade” — to draw a Common Elements piece featuring Liberty Belle, the Golden Age heroine most closely associated with the All-Star Squadron (and, in her present-day incarnation, the Justice Society of America), and an obscure character from a now-defunct Webcomic, Liberty the American Girl. Once more, I was blown away when I discovered that Scott had included yet another figure in his drawing, none other than the Statue of Liberty herself.

As I had with Isherwood, I asked Scott why he added the additional figure (which, again, is painstakingly accurate and beautifully detailed). His response mirrored Geof’s: “A Liberty-themed scene just wouldn’t have been complete without the Statue of Liberty in there.” And of course, Scott also was correct.

Artists who take on commission projects almost always quote additional fees beyond their typical charges when called upon to add backgrounds or extra characters. And well they should — artists deserve fair compensation for their work, and more work merits more pay. I support that principle wholeheartedly. As someone who routinely commissions multiple characters for my Common Elements themed pieces, and specialized design work for my Bombshells! pinups, I always expect to pay an artist more when I request these items. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised on numerous occasions by artists whom I’ve paid for a simple one- or two-character drawing, who have thrown in a detailed background — or even another character or three — without asking for another dime.

Why do they do it? Because they just can’t let the art their drawing tables until they’re satisfied with the product… and it just needs that extra something.

I hope I always remember to say thanks.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

It was fun while it lasted.

I made it all the way to Match Day 12 of LearnedLeague Season 56 before losing a match, exceeding my initial expectations by roughly a factor of 11. The fact that my opponent on MD12 “drank the beer” — answering all six of the day’s questions correctly — made my first loss inevitable, given that I only went four-for-six. (My opponent, a six-time Jeopardy! champion and 2010 Tournament of Champions finalist, will run the table frequently, I suspect.)

Let’s review the set of questions that wrought my first crushing defeat.

• Question 1: The 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro, is the third volume of a mammoth biography of what American?
• Question 2: The 32-song soundtrack to what film, released in July 1994 and filled with American artists such as Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, The Mamas & the Papas, Bob Seger, and Aretha Franklin, peaked at #2 on the Billboard chart, and was ultimately certified 12x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America?
• Question 3: The only blemish in what thoroughbred racehorse’s 21-race career was a place at the 1919 Sanford Memorial Stakes in Saratoga Springs, New York, behind a horse named, appropriately enough, Upset?
• Question 4: The scientific field of nuclear physics was born, one could argue, in 1896, when radioactivity was discovered by what Frenchman, for which he shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with his doctoral student Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre?
• Question 5: Name the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran who was ousted in August of 1953, in a coup d’État orchestrated by intelligence agencies of the United States and United Kingdom.
• Question 6: What is the most common term in mathematics for the type of number that is the sum of a real number and an imaginary number, typically expressed as x + iy, where i is the square root of negative 1?

Got your answers ready?

Okay then, let’s check them off.

Answer 1: A fair chunk of my pleasure reading consists of biographies. Although I’ve never read any of the books in Robert Caro’s series on President LYNDON JOHNSON, I’ve certainly heard of them. Caro is probably one of the three or four best-known biographers of this era, and he’s won pretty much every award that one can win for writing such books. Although, why anyone would want to write four thick volumes about LBJ (with a fifth and final still to be published) is beyond me.

Answer 2: I have a difficult time remembering numbers — I have to look up our home phone number every time I order a pizza — but the two categories of numbers I do well with are the sequence of U.S. Presidents and the release years for movies. The key to this question is the year the film was released — 1994. The two biggest Hollywood hits of that year were Disney’s The Lion King, whose soundtrack consists of several now-famous show tunes written by Elton John and Tim Rice, and FORREST GUMP, whose soundtrack boasts a wealth of classic rock songs. Clearly, the latter was the correct response here.

Answer 3: Here’s another of those questions for which The Daughter, a horse-racing aficionado, would never forgive me if I didn’t know the answer. It’s also a familiar etymology factoid. One of racing’s most legendary horses, MAN O’ WAR, lost his only match against a little-regarded challenger named Upset. Prior to this event, the word “upset” only meant “angry” or “irritated.” Afterward, sports fans started referring to an overwhelming favorite’s loss to an underdog as “pulling an Upset,” and the word gained a new meaning — one that’s almost as common in usage today as its original ones.

Answer 4: This is where the first wheel fell off for me. I know about the Curies, of course — Marie Curie remains to this day the only individual to win Nobel Prizes in two different fields of science. (A frequently handy nugget of trivia, that.) But the name of her mentor? I hadn’t a clue. After assuring myself that this snippet of information wasn’t in my memory banks anywhere, I typed in the name of the only French scientist from the relevant time period that I could think of — Louis Pasteur. Yes, I know Pasteur had nothing to do with radioactivity, but at least I filled in the blank. My esteemed opponent, conversely, had no difficulty in coming up with HENRI BECQUEREL, whom I might have thought invented one of the mother sauces in French cuisine.

Answer 5: There’s only one reason I knew this. Just last weekend, the Pirate Queen and I finally got around to viewing Argo, the reigning Best Picture Oscar winner. Without that very recent hot dip into modern Iranian history, I’d have never known that the Shah’s predecessor was the duly elected MOHAMMAD MOSSADEGH. I still didn’t know how the man’s surname was spelled, but the Commissioner of LearnedLeague took pity on me and gave me credit for a correct response despite the mangling.

Answer 6: I probably shouldn’t admit this in print, but my future opponents will quickly figure it out anyway: Math is not my element. I need the calculator on my iPhone to figure out the tip on a restaurant check. Algebra and other higher mathematics? Please. When I see a question with an equation in it, like this one, my eyes glaze over. I put down one of the terms floating about randomly in my skull — irrational number — which proved to be incorrect. (I felt better after learning that my response was the most common wrong answer to this question. At least a number of other players knew as little about math as did I.) My esteemed opponent, who apparently has no gaping holes in his knowledge base, accurately identified the correct answer as COMPLEX NUMBER. Me, I only have a complex about numbers.

Having been soundly thumped for the first time in LearnedLeague, I’m off to lick my wounds. But before I dash, here’s a bit of bonus trivia for you:

What was the name of the British one-hit wonder whose song title I parodied in the heading of this post?

The first person to answer correctly in the comments wins… well… nothing material. But I’ll give you my undying admiration, which you’ll have to admit is priceless.

[Note from your Uncle Swan: I've told this tale before -- on March 21, 2005, to be precise. But since it's been eight years to the month since I last told it, and inasmuch as that telling resides on my legacy blog which many of you have probably never visited, I think there's little harm in telling it again. However, if you're a long-time reader who followed me here from the old blog location, you may have read the following -- minus an edit here or there -- before. In that case, feel welcome to take this Comic Art Friday off.]

Someone — I believe it was Rod Stewart — once said, “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?” I don’t know whether that’s true of every picture, but it’s certainly the case with this one.

I picked up this pencil sketch of Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, from an art dealer at WonderCon in February 2005. Drawn in 1992 according to the signature — and signatures never lie — it’s the work of the great Bob McLeod, who created the very first piece of custom art I ever commissioned, a gorgeous pinup of one of my favorite heroes, the Black Panther.

Bob McLeod is best known in the sequential art trade as an inker. In fact, in my never-humble opinion, Bob is one of the finest inkers in the business — in part because he’s also a terrific pencil artist. But because McLeod is most closely associated with inking, one doesn’t see very much of his raw pencil art. (Well, you might have if you ever checked out Rough Stuff, the short-lived magazine that Bob edited for Two Morrows Publishing, the folks who bring you Alter Ego, Back Issue, and The Jack Kirby Companion. In Rough Stuff, Bob frequently showcased uninked pencils from artists whose work is rarely seen in that condition.)

That’s one reason I was so excited to find this sketch, which shows Bob’s fine grasp of expression and anatomy to perfect, unvarnished advantage. The other reason was that I thought it would be fun to have Bob revisit and complete the drawing thirteen years after he began it.

So, a few days after I purchased it, I packed the sketch off to Bob. Below, you see the finished art, vintage 2005.

Dramatic, huh? Yes, believe it or not, both of these pictures are scans of the exact same physical piece of art, scanned (about four weeks apart) at two stages of its development. Not only can you see the amazing change a comic art drawing undergoes from its pencil origins to camera-ready inks, but you can also get a sense of the way one artist’s personal style evolves over the course of several years.

In comparing the two versions, Bob McLeod joked that the Scarlet Witch appears to have shed about 30 pounds between 1992 and 2005. I wish it were that easy to lose a few, by means of a handful of brush strokes and a strategically applied eraser!

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

(All-new material next week, I promise.)

I earned my first tie score in LearnedLeague yesterday.

Considering that this was my 20th match of the season, that’s remarkable. Ties are relatively common in LL. (At the Championship level, in fact, ties are almost as frequent as wins and losses, since the majority of the players on any given day will answer all six questions correctly.) My first tie kept me solidly in second place in my Rundle or bracket, behind (coincidentally) my opponent in this particular match.

Want to play along? Here were the questions for Match Day 20. Answers will follow below.

• Question 1: Johannes Brahms’s Opus 49, No. 4, which he titled Wiegenlied, is most widely known today in English by what name?
• Question 2: Identify the country in this photograph.
• Question 3: Kix and Ronnie are the first names of what country music duo, who had a total of 20 number one and 39 top ten hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart before splitting in 2010?
• Question 4: The Baltusrol Golf Club (seven-time US Open host and 2005 & 2016 PGA Championship host) and the Pine Valley Golf Club (which frequently tops lists of World’s Best Golf Courses) are both located in which U.S. state?
• Question 5: In the history of the Oscars, the only film to receive four acting nominations for women is 1950′s All About Eve (two for Best Actress, two for Best Supporting Actress). Name any two of the four women who received these nominations.
• Question 6: This is a screenshot from what popular (and seminal) video game?

I’ll give you a moment to jot down your responses.

Ready?

All righty then. Here’s the answer key.

Answer 1: I thought this was about as close to a “gimme” as LearnedLeague offers. Even if you know nothing at all about classical music in general, or about Brahms specifically — and if you do, I don’t know an awful lot more than you do — you’re probably familiar with the piece commonly called “Brahms’s Lullaby.” Indeed, I suspect that for most people, “Lullaby” is the first word that springs to mind upon hearing the name Brahms. You might not know that this familiar ditty is formally titled Opus 29, No. 4, or that Brahms referred to it as Wiegenlied (“Cradle Song” in German), but if I said, “Name a musical composition by Brahms,” I’ll wager you’d guess “LULLABY” if nothing else came to mind. I did, and was correct in so doing.

Answer 2: Picture clues are among the most difficult, because often you either recognize the image immediately, or you don’t. There are probably ways to suss this one out — it’s a black-and-white photo, which might suggest age — but I’m betting that if you got this one (as did my opponent), it’s because you recall seeing this picture before. If so, you recognized it as one of the photos used at the height of the early 1960s missile crisis to purportedly show where the Russians had installed nukes in CUBA. I, on the other hand, didn’t find it familiar, so I took a random stab that it might be an aerial shot of the compound where Osama bin Laden was taken down, and answered Pakistan.

Answer 3: Regular visitors to this site know of my unrepentant antipathy toward country music, a term which I contend is an oxymoron. Still, I do own a television, so I’ve at least heard of most of the more popular artists in that genre. Besides, if you run across a guy whose parents named him after their favorite breakfast cereal, you’re probably going to remember that. The name Kix led me straight to BROOKS & DUNN. Although I’ll admit that until reading this question, I was not aware that Brooks & Dunn were now Booked & Done. But now I know.

Answer 4: Like classical and country musics, golf is not among my areas of expertise. I only care about the game when Tiger Woods is in contention and the Giants aren’t on. Speaking of Tiger, one of the more notorious incidents in his career (before we knew he was picking up waitresses at the Waffle House, that is) occurred during the 2005 PGA Championship at Baltusrol. Tiger finished his final round on Sunday at two under par. Rain, however, stopped play in the early evening while several other golfers — notably Phil Mickelson (at the time -4), Steve Elkington and Thomas Bjorn (both -3) — still had multiple holes to complete. Apparently figuring that at least one of the three players ahead of him would hold score, Woods packed up his gear and went home to Florida on Sunday night, despite the fact that if Mickelson, Elkington, and Bjorn fell back when play resumed Monday morning, Tiger might be forced into a playoff — or might even win outright if all three completely tanked. Luckily for Tiger, all three played even the rest of the way. Mickelson won by a stroke, with Bjorn and Elkington one shot behind him and one ahead of Tiger and Davis Love III.

If you remember that story, you probably remember that Baltusrol is in Springfield, NEW JERSEY.

Answer 5: “What’s the only film in Oscar history to garner acting nominations for four women?” might be among film trivia’s most often cited questions. I was therefore a bit surprised that my esteemed opponent — who had been stellar in the film category going into this match — didn’t come up with two of the names involved. The film, of course, is All About Eve — a movie so legendary that I once named our family dog after it. (Our late, beloved Pembroke Welsh corgi was registered with the American Kennel Club as Tams All About Even. I devised the moniker to combine her chosen call name “Abby” with her breeder’s request that the word “even” appear in her registry name. The movie’s title provided a perfect vehicle, with just a little tweak.) In a feat yet to be duplicated, All About Eve notched Best Actress nods for BETTE DAVIS and ANNE BAXTER, and Best Supporting Actress acclaim for CELESTE HOLM and THELMA RITTER. Ironically, none of the four women won; their male costar George Sanders nabbed the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. (For you minutiae fanatics, I knew all four actresses, but answered with Davis and Baxter.)

Answer 6: We all have bugaboos. You know, that word you just can’t spell correctly, even though you’ve written it a thousand times? Or that phone number you always miss by a digit, even though you call it all the time? Well, when it comes to video game history, King’s Quest and THE LEGEND OF ZELDA constitute a bugaboo for me. I can’t tell you how many times over the years the correct answer to some trivia question was “The Legend of Zelda,” and I blurted out “King’s Quest” instead. I’m not sure why these two games are so completely conflated in my memory banks, but they are. Here again, the bugaboo stung. I even challenged myself before I submitted my answers: “Are you sure this isn’t The Legend of Zelda?” “Shut up, fool! It’s King’s Quest! I know what I’m doing!” One of these days, I’ll learn.

My esteemed opponent on this day answered five of the six questions accurately to my mere four, but we tied at 8 points each due to defensive assignment. His one miss was on a question I had assigned one point (Question 5); my two misses were questions he’d given one point and zero, respectively (Questions 2 and 6). This demonstrates how it’s possible in LearnedLeague to tie or even lose on a day when one’s opponent nails fewer right answers.

Defense is all — well, almost all — in LL.

And… we’re back.

Sorry about the dearth of activity for the last little while. The Pirate Queen and I jetted off Down Under from late March into mid-April for an extended tour of Australia and New Zealand. As we chat, I’m pulling together my notes and photographs for a series of posts showcasing the highlights of the trip. Check back here next week for the first fun-filled romp.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Comic Art Friday.

Longtime readers know that I keep lengthy lists of potential concepts for my two signature commission themes, Common Elements and Bombshells! That way, when the opportunity to commission an artist presents itself, I have several ideas ready to roll. I also keep a “wish list” of artists whose availability I monitor, in hope that I might jump on the chance to add their talents to my theme galleries.

I love it when the cosmos aligns, and the two lists intersect.

Drew Edward Johnson found his way onto my radar as one of a handful of artists who’ve been regulars on both of my favorite DC headline heroines, Wonder Woman and Supergirl. Drew’s commission list had been closed for some time, so when he began taking assignments again, I couldn’t wait to get on his list. I had the perfect Common Elements scenario in mind: a pairing of two of comics’ greatest archaeologists — Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, and Shiera Hall, the Silver Age version of Hawkgirl (or Hawkwoman, if you prefer… more on that in a moment).

Lara Croft is familiar to most as the lead character from the Tomb Raider video game franchise, as well as a pair of live-action feature films starring Angelina Jolie in the title role. Lara, however, has also enjoyed a successful history as a comic book heroine. She starred in a monthly series published by Top Cow Productions from 1999 to 2005, as well as several miniseries and one-shot specials during that period. Most of these comics presented Lara in different storylines from either the video games or films. (Drew Johnson was one of the pencil artists on Tomb Raider: Journeys, a 12-issue limited series that began in 2001.)

Although Lara began life as little more than a distaff Indiana Jones knockoff, I find that her comics capers have developed her into a vital, unique, and compelling character — a tough, resourceful, and brilliant scientist-adventurer who fearlessly engages any foe. Most of the writers who’ve scripted her books have attempted to give her a quirky British sensibility, which provides an interesting texture. Much is made of Lara’s appearance — she’s an attractive, athletic woman, usually drawn with a prominent bustline — but in the main, her stories in the comics don’t focus on exploitation. I think she’s a terrific heroine, one who’d make a great lead for a weekly TV series.

Hawkgirl suffers from the same insanely convoluted continuity that has plagued Hawkman, her frequent partner in life and combat, over the decades. In fact, it’s more accurate to speak about Hawkgirl in the plural than in the singular, because there have been several versions (often conflicting in origin, backstory, and name) since the character debuted in 1940. At times, she’s been presented as Shiera Hall, a reincarnated princess/goddess from ancient Egypt; at others, she’s been Shayera Hol, a police officer from the planet Thanagar; in still other versions, she’s been Kendra Saunders, a tormented young woman possessed by the spirit of a previous Hawkgirl. Umm… yeah. I won’t even attempt to untangle all of that twisted history in this space.

In recent years, Hawkgirl underwent yet another revision, this time as a member of the Justice League of America as shown in the animated TV series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Her television persona possessed organic wings — historically, Hawkgirl’s wings have generally been explained as prosthetics, fashioned from the mysterious Nth Metal — and developed a complex, realistic romantic relationship with Green Lantern John Stewart. In my opinion, this Hawkgirl combined the best elements of the character’s potential, allowing her to flourish as an independent entity freed of her status as Hawkman’s significant other and sidekick.

Back to our earlier point: Depending on which iteration of the female Hawk we’re discussing, the character has employed both Hawkgirl and Hawkwoman as her code name at various times. Throughout most of her history, however, she’s been Hawkgirl — which, sexism aside, does roll more trippingly off the tongue. Since Hawkgirl is her most familiar nom de guerre, and the one most fans would associate with the uniform she wears here, that’s what we’ve used. I hope this doesn’t cost me decades of feminist street cred.

Uniting these two heroines is, for me, a chance to extol the virtues of the multidimensional superheroine. Neither Lara Croft or Hawkgirl is just a hot chick in abbreviated attire. They’re scientific explorers with expertise in an academically rigorous field. I believe it’s important that we have female role models in our culture who embrace a broad array of skills and disciplines. Young girls need to see that women can be smart and talented, and not mere eye candy. If heroes are crack shots and expert fighters, why not have heroines — such as Lara Croft — who can outshoot and outfight the best of them? And if a hero can swing a medieval mace, why can’t a heroine — a heroine who also can explain the historical significance and context of that weapon? If there’s an Indiana Jones, there ought to be a Lara Croft. If there’s a Justice League, there ought to be a Hawkgirl (okay, okay… Hawkwoman) in it.

As for the argument, “But do they have to be gorgeous?” well, that’s how we like our heroes, regardless of gender. There’s a reason why Harrison Ford nabbed the Indiana Jones role (which was originally intended for Tom Selleck, by the way; he couldn’t get out of his Magnum P.I. contract fast enough to make Raiders of the Lost Ark) and, say, Steve Buscemi or Rick Moranis didn’t. If masculine heroism is going to be typified by Harrison Ford, it’s hard to say that the ladies shouldn’t be represented by the likes of Angelina Jolie.

For this commission, Drew Johnson decided to create a look for Lara Croft that differs from her classic image — no braid, no sunglasses, no cargo shorts — yet keeps her clearly identifiable. I like Drew’s approach a great deal — retrospective yet sleekly modern, and beautifully heroic. I also appreciate that he gives her a more naturally athletic frame, without the exaggerated proportions (read: mammary appendages) that people sometimes associate with Ms. Croft. Together, we decided to use Hawkgirl’s Silver Age costume — both of us favored that particular look among the multiple designs she’s worn during her decades-spanning tenure.

The scenario portrayed here, incidentally, is all Drew — with a single exception that he revealed on his blog. After he originally sketched the layout, Drew showed his rough draft to his studio mate, Chris Moreno. Chris thought Drew’s first take on Hawkgirl felt a mite too static, so he suggested a different pose. Drew liked Chris’s retooling, and used the alternate Hawkgirl positioning in his final pencils. Nothing like a little collaboration between two titanic talents.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

Last year, Big Wow ComicFest coincided with the Pirate Queen’s and my honeymoon. (A honeymoon outranks a con every time.) That accident of timing, coupled with the greedy [plural expletive redacted] at ComicCon International moving our beloved WonderCon to SoCal, meant that I hadn’t had the chance to attend a comics convention these past two years. It was, therefore, with giddy anticipation that I awaited this year’s Big Wow.

My eagerness did not go unrewarded.

Unlike WonderCon, which has become increasingly multimedia-focused over the past decade, Big Wow remains mostly what it claims to be — a festival celebrating comics, and the talented people who make them. Perhaps in part due to WonderCon’s departure, the event has ballooned to attract many of the biggest names in the industry, including the legendary Stan Lee, who drew hordes of autograph-seekers to his signing appearance on Sunday afternoon. The focus on comics means that one need not wade through acres of gaming displays and movie studio publicity machinery to access artists, many of whom spent the weekend busily sketching away for their fans.

Namely, yours truly.

After scoring a gorgeous Supergirl commission from Brian Stelfreeze at (what proved to be San Francisco’s final) WonderCon two years ago, a companion Stelfreeze ranked high on my shopping list for Big Wow 2013. Thanks to Brian’s fan group coordinator, I was able to arrange a Mary Marvel commission in advance of the show, and Brian spent a fair chunk of Saturday working on her. I’d specifically asked Brian to draw Mary old-school — that is, not in the hypersexualized style in which the character is often presented these days. (Mary is, after all, supposed to be a teenaged girl.) Brian complied with a wonderfully adorable rendition that captures Mary’s sweetness perfectly. Both artist and commissioner took delight in the result.

I’d also reached out prior to the convention to Steve Mannion, who’s probably best known for his Fearless Dawn creator-owned series. Steve has done several commissions for me over the years, including two entries in my Common Elements theme. I’m always fascinated by his unique, distinctly off-kilter style. This outing, I decided to have him draw Mantis, a heroine from the Bronze Age period of the Avengers for whom I’ve always had a certain fondness. Steve did not disappoint, turning in a quirky-cute portrayal of the Celestial Madonna. This One likes her very much.

Ron Lim, one of comics’ underrated classic superhero artists, can always be counted on for a solid commission under the time pressure of a con. My original plan for Ron was to have him draw a solo piece featuring the Falcon. As I approached his table, I decided instead to have him add a third Common Elements project to the two he’d drawn previously. I came up with the concept on the spot, pairing Falcon — Marvel’s first African-American superhero — with Storm, the company’s first black superheroine. And of course, Ron rocked the execution like nobody’s business. I couldn’t resist fitting Ron’s young son, who spent the weekend happily sketching alongside his dad, into the photo. (Ron assured me that his son did not draw any part of this commission. But give the kid a few years. The apple does not fall far from the tree.)

I hadn’t crossed paths with David “BroHawk” Williams in a few years, but I was delighted to see that Big Wow’s website used the Mary Marvel commission David drew for me back in 2008 as an example of his work. Dave recalled that piece fondly when we chatted at Big Wow — a typically self-critical artist, Dave noted several details in Brian Stelfreeze’s rendition of Mary that he wished he himself had included. I enjoyed chatting with him about his recent and current projects, as well as watching him polish off this striking portrait of Vixen. Dave is another criminally undervalued talent whom I’d love to see doing more high-profile comics work.

One of the genuine pleasures of conventions is meeting in person artists I’ve interacted with, and even commissioned, via the Internet. This time out, I had the opportunity to thank Drew Johnson for the incredible Common Elements commission he completed for me earlier this year. Not coincidentally, I brought Drew’s artwork with me to the con, and got him to pose for a photo with his creation.

Having dialed in my collecting focus on commissions in recent years, I rarely buy preexisting art these days. A handful of pieces, however, managed to find their way home with me from Big Wow this year. The big prize among these was a stunning noir-inspired drawing by pinup artist Jim Silke, whose work I’ve admired for a long time. Jim’s work generally rides above my usual price point, so I mostly content myself with salivating over his portfolios whenever I see him at a con, and hope that someday I’ll stumble on that winning Powerball ticket. When I saw this piece on Saturday, I immediately felt drawn to it — and Jim’s listed price on it fell into a range where I could at least permit the flirtation. I showed it to the Pirate Queen on Sunday, and her reaction surprised me: “You should buy it.” I demurred, but I found myself back at Jim’s table several more times during the day. (I tried to pick times when Jim had stepped away. I didn’t want to be one of those people.) After I’d collected my last completed commission for the weekend, I still had enough budgeted cash left to cover the Silke. With the Pirate Queen’s blessing, I brought her home. Jim was probably more relieved than anything.

Cat Staggs has worked on various Star Wars properties, and more recently has been drawing interiors and creating digitally painted covers and pinups for DC. This introspective Saturn Girl is the original pencil art for one of the latter, and I was thrilled to pick it up for a surprisingly discounted price. I’ve posted both the pencil art I purchased and a scan of the finished painting, so that you can see how Cat completed her masterpiece.

Most comic art fans know Joel Adams as “Neal Adams’s son.” While that is true, it’s a more than a trifle unfair to Joel, who’s a talented artist in his own right. I couldn’t decide whether I liked his Supergirl or his Spider-Woman more. Lucky for me, Joel offered a price for the pair that made it unnecessary to choose between them.

Part of the fun of a convention’s Artists Alley is wandering past all the tables of budding artists whose work I’ve never seen before. Most of these I glance at and keep walking, usually with a smile and a (hopefully encouraging) nod to the artist. Every once in a while, I come across something that actually makes me stop and take a longer look. At Big Wow, that happened to me at the table of Ramon Villalobos, a young artist previously unknown to me. I found Ramon’s style intriguing enough to pick up two of his original drawings. There’s an otherworldly, yet somehow retrospective, quality in his work that appeals to me. There’s some Frank Quitely in Ramon’s style, some Los Bros Hernandez, and maybe even a bit of Juan Gimenez in there as well.

A panel we attended on Sunday stands out among the highlights of the con: The legendary Olivia DeBerardinis, in my opinion the greatest female pinup artist ever, being interviewed by Jim Silke, no slouch himself in the pinup genre. Both the Pirate Queen and I enjoyed hearing Olivia’s unique perspective on the art world in general, and specifically on her place in it as a woman who paints women almost exclusively. I’m rarely starstruck, but I could not resist having a photo taken with Olivia after her panel, and having her autograph a copy of her Bettie Page art book.

All in all, Big Wow 2013 proved well worth the investment of time and capital. I’m already looking forward to next May.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

Big Wow ComicFest… the gift that keeps on giving.

In last week’s Comic Art Friday, we checked out the superfluity of goodness that came home with me from the Bay Area’s favorite comics confab earlier this month. That abundance did not yet include an additional item that I commissioned during the con for completion afterward.

Now it does.

When I first rolled up on Steven E. Gordon‘s table in Artist’s Alley on Saturday, his name did not immediately register with me. I did, however, admire the samples of his art that were on display. After chatting for a bit with Steve and his wife, I told him I’d return on Sunday with a commission project for him. Steve advised me that he probably wouldn’t be able to start the piece before the con ended, but that he would gladly take my information and send me the art when it was done.

At home on Saturday night, I Googled Steve to get a better idea of his style, with a view to choosing a Common Elements concept appropriate to his talents. I was astounded to discover that I actually knew Steve’s previous work quite well — I just didn’t realize who he was.

As it turns out, Steve Gordon possesses one of the most extensive and impressive resumes in the animation business. In film, he’s worked as an animator, designer, and animation director on numerous projects, ranging from Disney classics (The Black Cauldron; The Great Mouse Detective; Oliver and Company) to several directed by the legendary Ralph Bakshi (Lord of the Rings; American Pop; Cool World). In television, Steve has contributed his talents to a host of series, from Mighty Mouse to The Avengers.

With the light of giddy anticipation breaking over my mental horizon, I realized that I just met a key contributor to one of my all-time favorite animated features: Ralph Bakshi’s sword-and-sorcery epic, Fire and Ice – the product of Bakshi’s collaboration with the dean of fantasy illustrators, the late, lamented Frank Frazetta. Sometimes described (not altogether inaccurately) as “Conan the Animated Barbarian,” Fire and Ice melds Frazetta’s unmistakable design aesthetic with Bakshi’s storytelling and unique cinematic style, including ample use of the latter’s trademark rotoscoping technique. From a narrative perspective, it’s not the most original film Bakshi ever directed, what with veteran comics scribes Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway importing a bucketload of tropes they’d each previously employed writing Conan’s adventures for Marvel. But without question, Fire and Ice stands among Bakshi’s most visually appealing creations, thanks in large part to Frazetta’s input, along with background artists James Gurney (Dinotopia) and Thomas Kinkade (yes, that Thomas Kinkade), as well as Peter Chung, who would go on to create Aeon Flux for MTV. And of course, the work of animation director Steven E. Gordon.

Having made the Fire and Ice connection, I knew what Steve’s Common Elements assignment would be — two characters who would fit perfectly into Bakshi and Frazetta’s world of swordplay and mystical mayhem: Marvel’s Viking vixen, Valkyrie, and Taarna, the iconic heroine from my beloved Heavy Metal: The Animated Film.

Aside from the obvious “blade-slinging beauty” angle, Val and Taarna share two other, more subtle commonalities. Both have real monomymic real names — Valkyrie’s true identity is simply called Brunnhilde — and both are seen to be reincarnated in multiple persons. Over her career in comics, the spirit of Brunnhilde has been reborn in several women, most notably Barbara Norriss and Samantha Parrington. At the conclusion of Heavy Metal, we find Taarna’s spirit alive new in the young girl seen previously in the linking segments (titled “Grimaldi”) throughout the film.

Steve’s sensibility as an animation designer fits these heroines like an armored gauntlet. Who wouldn’t want to watch an entire movie of Taarna and Val wading into pitched battle against hordes of hostile foes? Sign me up!

Not only did Steve turn out his take-home commission assignment beautifully and speedily — I received a scan of the finished piece less than a week after Big Wow concluded — he also graciously autographed the cover of my Fire and Ice DVD. (He did seem a touch surprised that someone actually owned one.) Now if only I could run into Ralph Bakshi one of these days…

And that, friend reader, is your Comic Art Friday.

As proud as I am of the way my primary commission theme, Common Elements, has evolved over the years, I still find myself looking at the themes of other collectors and thinking, “Man, I wish I had more stuff like THAT.”

Every time I browse the galleries of such theme commission powerhouses as these –

• Michael Finn (who specializes in reimagining classic comics covers in a concept appropriately called “One Minute Later…”);
• Brian Sagar (whose collection extrapolates upon his favorite comic series from the Bronze Age, Marvel Two-in-One);
• Chris Caira (he of the wickedly inventive “Trophy Wall” theme);
• And especially my good friend Damon Owens (best known in collecting circles for his commissions featuring The Brotherhood, a cross-publisher superteam of African-American heroes and heroines, Damon keeps creating new themes all the time, each one more eye-openingly clever than the last) –

I realize that my own efforts merely scrape the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Specifically, I marvel at how these other collectors pack so many characters into their commission projects. Most artists charge for commissions based on the number of figures they have to draw, which means that an artwork featuring multiple characters can get pricey in a jiffy. For that reason, more than 90% of my Common Elements projects feature only two characters, and most of the handful featuring three or more were drawn by artists who quoted a set page rate as opposed to a per-figure upcharge.

All of this means that when I get the opportunity to commission a Common Elements scenario with more than two heroes, I thank my lucky stars.

Speaking of lucky…

…”luck” is the theme for today’s featured artwork, rendered with painstaking detail by Brazilian artist Allan Goldman. (Be sure to click on the image below to get a closer look. Trust me — you really, really want to. This is one I wish I could invite you all over to see in person, because the scan just can’t show you every nuance.)

From left to right, that’s…

Lady Luck. Created in 1940 by the legendary Will Eisner (The Spirit), Lady Luck was one of the earliest costumed heroines to headline her own comics feature.

Jack of Hearts. The brainchild of writer Bill Mantlo and artist Keith Giffen, the half-human, half-alien Jack has appeared mostly as a secondary character in the Marvel Universe since the mid-1970s.

Gambit. Familiar as a member of the X-Men, the sweet-talking, staff-wielding Cajun Remy LeBeau has the power to imbue objects with kinetic energy — most frequently, the playing cards he uses as throwing weapons.

What I love most about Common Elements — aside, of course, from the incredible images these concepts evoke from the artists who draw them — is the fact that every Common Elements scenario implies a story that in most cases would never be told in an actual comic. Because the heroes featured in a given scene are often the intellectual property of competing comics publishers — and sometimes, of comics publishers that no longer exist, as in the case of Lady Luck — there’s no way these characters would ever come together, outside of this theme.

Part of the fun is imagining what menace would unite this specific combination. In the piece we’re looking at today, for instance, why might this rooftop meeting take place? What foe might either Lady Luck, Jack of Hearts, and Gambit be confronting that would cause one of them to reach out to the other two and say, “We need to talk”? What challenge might require these three unusual and varied skillsets, and specifically, why these? And who is the implied fourth person who’s just entered the scene, from whose point of view we’re observing?

I have my own thoughts about the answers to the above questions. Allan Goldman had his, as he was conceiving and drawing the piece. You likely have yours as well. All of these thoughts are probably very different. Each of us is making up our own individual, personal, unique story as we go.

Isn’t that awesome?

That’s the hidden beauty of Common Elements. It’s one reason why my answer to Dirty Harry Callahan’s infamous query is, “Why, yes… yes, I do.”

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

In last week’s Comic Art Friday post, I noted several theme commission collectors whose galleries continue to inspire my own efforts. With today’s featured artwork, I’m reaching back to one of the first theme collections of which I ever took serious notice.

Walt Parrish is revered in comic art collecting circles as “The Cliff Guy.” As you look at Phil Noto‘s drawing of Tesla Strong (daughter of Tom Strong, hero of Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse’s eponymous series for America’s Best Comics), which moved from Walt’s collection to mine about three years ago, you can appreciate where the nickname came from. Walt’s theme was “comics characters on a cliff.” That’s it — simple, elegant, evocative. His online galleries once held hundreds of artworks, from rough sketches to elaborately finished pieces, built around that concept.

Artists always seemed particularly inspired by the “Cliffs” theme, perhaps because it challenged them to come up with some unique way to depict a character on a cliff. So they played around with perspectives, angles, and poses. Characters stood on cliffs, fell off cliffs, dangled from cliffs, or even looked up at cliffs. Quite a number of the “Cliffs” drawings were intensely dramatic. Almost as many were humorous. All were unique.

About three years ago, Walt sold a large portion of his art collection. At the same time, he took down all the images from his “The Cliff Guy” website. His remaining galleries at Comic Art Fans, last updated in December 2010, showcase a smattering of pieces marked as “Art I Used to Have.” I don’t know whether Walt stopped collecting altogether, or if he merely decided to downsize his holdings and forgo a public presence for the remainder. I certainly don’t know his reasons for doing whatever he did, and it would be unfair for me to speculate.

All I know is, I miss the Cliffs.

I’m glad to own a reminder of Walt’s terrific theme. But I have to admit — it makes me more than a trifle sad to look at it, thinking of the once-inspiring collection whence it came.

Tesla seems sad, too.

At the moment, I’m engaged in a massive project: a comprehensive inventory and catalog of my comic art collection. It’s a ton of work, but it’s also been great fun, as I reconnect “up close and personal” with every single piece of art I own. I’m forced to recall how I acquired each item — both those I’ve commissioned, and the many others I’ve purchased that existed before they came my way — and the reasons for each acquisition. I’ve rediscovered a few pieces I’d completely forgotten that I owned — today’s feature being one example. I’ve certainly encountered some that made me question my judgment at the time of purchase. For the most part, I’ve experienced profound joy at seeing these creations again, at holding the paper in my hands and admiring each pencil line, pen mark, and brush stroke. The scans you see here never reveal the complete extent of the artist’s mastery. Only when observing the physical artwork directly can you truly drink in all of the magic.

Yet, with all of the laughter and wonder I draw from this exercise, there’s a darker undercurrent. I ask myself whether the day will come when these images no longer impart any pleasure to me, and I will find myself with endless stacks of paper that afford no value, tangible or intangible. Will there come a time when my galleries lie empty, save for a sorrowful sampling of “Art I Used to Have”?

I thought I might have reached that point three years ago, when KJ died. (For the benefit of any newcomers in the crowd, my first wife — referred to herein as KJ — passed away in 2010 at the far-too-young age of 44, following a 10-year battle with breast cancer.) To say that KJ tolerated my art collection is to understate the mystery that said collection — and my obsession with it — presented for her. Never having been a comics reader, she felt neither attraction nor attachment to images of fictional characters in outlandish costumes, and never really comprehended why I felt both. She certainly distressed at times over the fiscal investment that fueled my predilection. Yet, she graciously (or at the very least, mostly silently) went along as I filled ever-increasing numbers of portfolios and frames with superheroes and superheroines, with little more than a head shake and heavy sigh.

Amid the crushing, debilitating sadness that accompanied KJ’s final months, and the aftermath of her passing, I often asked myself whether she was right.

Indeed, I contemplated at more than one juncture selling off the entire lot that would sell, and destroying the rest in a bonfire. I thought perhaps that would be a fitting tribute, given her disdain for all of it. I could not see, at times, that even I would ever find happiness in these admittedly temporal, juvenile pictures again.

But eventually, the darkness parted.

And I stepped back from the cliff.

I have always been, and fear that I always will be, an insular creature. That I have lived so much in the fields of my own imagination stems largely from childhood circumstances that I’ll sketch in the briefest terms — I grew up an adoptive child, and an only child, in a family that moved constantly (my dad was career Air Force) and loved sparingly. Always a highly intelligent (I could show you the test scores) yet socially awkward kid, my closest friends were often the characters in fantasy novels and stories I read, in science fiction films and TV shows I watched — and especially, in my omnipresent comic books.

These heroes and heroines became an essential, inextricable component of my inner self. They gave the childhood and adolescent me the power to soar, to strive, to subdue, and to survive.

I’m an infinitely more complete person as an adult. These days, I read precious little fantasy literature, even comics. (Most comics being published today aren’t being written for me, anyway.) But the images in my comic art collection are like talismans, of times when I treasured the company of superheroes. I still see my would-be self in these characters. Just as I now see my daughter in, say, Tesla Strong.

These days, I just enjoy the pictures. I feel a tickle of nostalgic happiness when I look at every drawing in my collection, especially the ones I’ve commissioned. So I guess I’ll keep looking, at least for the time being.

Sure, I know they’re just fantasy. But also I remember all the times when they kept me off the cliff.

And to some extent, they still do. Even now.

Thanks, superheroes.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

Until the 57th season of LearnedLeague concluded yesterday evening, it hadn’t occurred to me that I had completely neglected to update here, not only about the season just ended, but the outcome of the previous season as well. Permit me herewith to remedy these omissions.

In LL56 — my debut season as a LLama (that is, a member of LearnedLeague) — I managed to narrowly win my rookie Rundle (read: bracket) with a record of 21-3-1. By finishing in the top three, I earned advancement for the next season to a “B” level Rundle, the second highest division aside from Championship level. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that I had instead been bumped all the way up to Rundle A West, the top tier in my region. Apparently, a Rookie Rundle winner can qualify for a “battlefield promotion” to “A” level given an arcane combination of scoring and circumstances, and my first-season stats met the necessary criteria.

Thus, I was thrown into one of the toughest groupings in the entire League for LL57. To give you an idea of just how tough, this season’s A West competitors included at least six Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions veterans (including four of my colleagues from the Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005), a million-dollar winner from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, several high finishers in the World Quizzing Championships, and a guy who writes trivia questions for a living.

In a word… yikes.

Needless to say, I did not match sheer-beginner’s-luck success from the prior season. I spent most of the 25-game run languishing at or slightly below the middle of the pack — falling as far as 20th on Match Day 17 — before rallying to win my final three games to finish in 8th place. The last game of the season could easily have gone the other way, as my opponent and I both got four of the day’s six questions correct. I just happened to assign defensive points in a fortuitous (read: blindly lucky) manner, eking out a one-point victory. If I’d lost the match, I’d have ended up 14th. My final record: A far more down-to-earth 11-9-5.

Here were the questions from the concluding match of LL57.

Got your answers ready?

Are you sure?

Okay, then. Here come the correct responses.

Answer 1. As an actor, there’s no way I’d better miss this one. The talented people who create ambient sound effects in movies and television — everything from footsteps to rustling leaves and shattering glass — are known as Foley artists. FOLEY is the last name of the fellow who pioneered the art form. (For bonus points, his first name was Jack.)

Answer 2. I’d never heard of Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies, much less the Lightcrust Doughboys. Heck, I might have thought the latter was the house band at the Pillsbury Bake-Off. I did, however, know that Bob Wills is considered the father of WESTERN SWING. (Hey, the fact that I detest country music doesn’t mean I’ve never heard of it. I nearly ran an entire category about Willie Nelson on Jeopardy! back in the day.)

Answer 3. I had no clue on this one. The minutiae of European history has never been my strongest suit. And apparently, there was no such item as the Magna Huguenota, which is the facetious answer I submitted. My opponent, on the other hand, scored three huge points for knowing all about the EDICT OF NANTES.

Answer 4. This is one of those little science factoids that pops up in trivia quizzes fairly frequently. BROMINE is the lone member of the halogen group that’s liquid at normal room temperatures and pressures. If you can remember the five halogens in periodic table order from top to bottom, it helps: the top two (chlorine and fluorine) are gasses, so they rise; the bottom two (iodine and astatine) are solids, so they sink; bromine is liquid, so it floats in the middle. If that gets you points at your next pub quiz night, you’re welcome.

Answer 5. I thought about this long and hard, and still muffed it. As soon as I submitted my answers, I remembered the movie Gung Ho, about a Japanese company that takes over a vacated automobile plant in the U.S. Had I flashed on that sooner, I might have gotten my brain around to TOYOTA. Or I might have said Nissan or Mitsubishi, and still been wrong. For the record, I put down Sony — that was the Most Common Wrong Answer, so at least I wasn’t alone.

Answer 6. It probably helps if you know that hebephilia is the sexual fetish for children at the age of pubescence (say, 11 to 14 years old — as distinguished from pedophilia, the fetish for prepubescent children, or ephebophilia, the fetish for postpuberty adolescents). It would also help if you’d been in my English literature class at San Francisco State, in which we studied Vladimir Nabokov’s LOLITA. Or maybe you just like The Police.

LearnedLeague Season 58 begins on August 19. I’ll be back in A West for that one.

Let’s hope I survive.

I’ve commented a few times recently about the inventory I’m conducting. I’m roughly a third of the way through the process: Common Elements and the book dedicated to Supergirl art are completely done, as is the book in which I keep miscellaneous odd-sized pieces that don’t fit well into the 14″ x 17″ Itoya Profolios I use for storage. At the moment, I’m halfway into the Bombshells! theme group, and will probably work on the Wonder Woman portfolio next.

Two Fridays ago, we considered a piece I rediscovered as I delved through that miscellaneous stack. Here’s another I’d forgotten was in there.

It’s a preliminary sketch by Barry Kitson, the British superstar who first made his mark in the UK on Judge Dredd. On this side of the Pond, Kitson’s pencils have elevated numerous properties for both major comics publishers, including noteworthy runs on Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man and The Order, and DC’s Teen Titans, Legion of Super-Heroes, Batman: Shadow of the Bat, and Adventures of Superman.

When I bought this sketch a few years back — and still more recently, when I stumbled upon it again — I had no idea why Kitson had drawn it. Thanks to another collector who posts to Comic Art Fans, however, I now know that it was a preliminary study for a mini-poster Kitson created for the late, more-or-less-lamented Wizard Magazine to promote DC’s then-upcoming JLA: Year One series, which Barry penciled. I found this image of the finished piece online, so you can see how it turned out once fully penciled, inked, and colored.

I still don’t know who “Pete” is, to whom Kitson inscribed the prelim. Based only on the note, I’m guessing that “Pete” was a collector who bought some of Kitson’s JLA: Year One pages, and Kitson included the sketch as a bonus. Unfortunately, I didn’t record the identity of the person from whom I bought the piece, and given that I’ve slept several hundred times since then, I no longer remember. Somehow, I don’t think that person’s name was Pete, but I could be wrong.

On the other hand, I remember quite well why I wanted the item in the first place, aside from the obvious fact that I don’t own anything else by Barry Kitson. My favorite comic series have always been supergroup and team-up books. I always felt I was getting more for my money when multiple heroes and/or heroines appeared on the cover of a comic. Thus, I gravitated toward books offering that benefit.

Which leads me into a bit of Listology…

Uncle Swan’s Top 12 Favorite Superhero Teams of All Time

12. Metal Men. This unusual bunch consisted of six sentient robots invented by the brilliant scientist Will Magnus. Each robot was constructed primarily from a different chemical element, and manifested the unique properties of — and personality traits suggested by — his or her constituent metal. Gold, the team leader, was brave and noble, and could stretch his robot body into any imaginable shape. Iron was strong, both in physical power and in attitude. Lead was dense, literally and figuratively. Tin was weak and emotionally unstable. Mercury was — wait for it — mercurial. Platinum, usually called Tina, was a beautiful female robot with a passionate crush on her creator Dr. Magnus. (More recent reboots added a second female member, the sharp-tongued Copper.) The Metal Men’s adventures played as much for comedy as for drama, which was probably why I enjoyed them so much back in the day.

11. The Champions. Remember when you were a kid, and you had access to a self-service soda fountain? There was always the temptation to mix all the different flavors together in one cup, just to see what it tasted like. If you did that same thing with superheroes, you’d get the Champions. In the mid-1970s, Marvel writer Tony Isabella had the idea of putting together a bunch of second-tier characters who had nothing in common, just to see what would happen. Thus, we had Angel and Iceman from the original X-Men lineup, teamed with the demigod Hercules, the demonic motorcyclist Ghost Rider, and the Russian spy turned superheroine Black Widow. Yeah, that made no sense at all. And ultimately, it didn’t work — the Champions folded after just 17 issues. They were fun while they lasted, though.

10. New Warriors. Despite the name, there was never an “Old Warriors” or “Original Warriors” team. Which begs the question, Why not simply call this group “Warriors”? I dunno. Maybe they wanted to distinguish themselves from the street gang in Walter Hill’s classic movie, or from my favorite basketball team. And how long can you call yourselves “New Warriors” before you stop being “new”? Whatever the case, the New Warriors came together as a band of rebellious young heroes under the leadership of high-tech urban ninja Night Thrasher. Founding members included human rocket Nova, flame-wielding Firestar, aquatic Namorita, energetic Speedball, and Marvel Boy, who quickly realized how lame his code name sounded and started calling himself Justice instead. Today, the New Warriors are best known as the catalysts for Marvel’s epic Civil War crossover event.

9. Heroes for Hire. As is typical of Marvel’s superteams, the all-about-the-Benjamins Heroes for Hire have undergone more lineup changes than you can shake a no-prize at. Originally, the team consisted of Luke Cage, a.k.a. Power Man, and his martial artist pal Iron Fist. The Daughters of the Dragon — Misty Knight and Colleen Wing — often worked alongside the duo. Over the decades, the ever-shifting roster has mostly centered around Misty as de facto leader — sometimes in partnership with Colleen, but lately without — with support from a variety of morally ambiguous types, including most frequently the mercenary Paladin. Shang-Chi (Master of Kung Fu), the Black Cat, Silver Sable, and the Punisher are among the more prominent characters who’ve wandered onto and off the team at various times. Always an entertaining assemblage.

8. Suicide Squad. Similarly to Heroes for Hire, Suicide Squad has served as a focal point around which to gather some of DC’s more questionably heroic characters. As originally conceived, the Squad consisted mostly of former supervillains who agree to serve as covert government agents in exchange for clemency. At the head of the organization is the powerful and ambitious Amanda “The Wall” Waller, who manipulates the team to further her own shadowy objectives. In addition to out-and-out baddies as Deadshot and Captain Boomerang, the Squad also enlisted more typically heroic members, including Bronze Tiger, Nightshade, and Vixen. A noteworthy event in the Squad’s early history involved the death of its field leader, Rick Flag.

7. Legion of Super-Heroes. My comics-reading friends and I often referred to these far-future Superhero Scouts as “the Legion of Stupid Heroes,” for their propensity toward juvenile code names (male members were typically designated as “Boy,” “Lad,” or “Kid,” while females were “Girl,” “Lass,” or some similarly ridiculous feminine identifier) and ludicrous powers (illustrated most notoriously by Bouncing Boy, who was basically a human Spaldeen, and Matter-Eater Lad, who… well… I’m killing brain cells just thinking about him). But I loved the Legion in spite of their silliness, because their adventures were fun, their youthful enthusiasm and camaraderie were endearing, and you could tell that the writers didn’t take the whole business too seriously. Hey, remember that? When superheroes didn’t always have to be so depressingly serious? Man, I miss those days.

6. Justice League of America. DC’s all-star super-squad raised the bar for all who would follow their 1960 debut. I still like the expanded original lineup the best: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, the Flash, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, plus early additions Green Arrow, Hawkman, and the Atom. Basically, all the major superhero food groups are covered right there. (Don’t get me started on the proliferation of random spinoffs — Justice League International, Justice League Detroit, Justice League Dark, Justice League of Their Own… okay, I made that last one up. But you get the idea.) The JLA always seemed a bit superfluous — if you have Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, do you really need any of the others? — and its stories worked best when the Triumvirate were marginalized or absent altogether. Still, I have to give them credit for being the first superteam of the Silver Age and beyond. Which brings us to the original superhero conglomerate…

5. Justice Society of America. From the day I first discovered the JSA, I liked them better than their modern-day counterparts. For one thing, the original constituent characters are just so weird and loopy in that retro sort of way that you can’t help but dig them. I mean, come on — Hourman? A superhero whose powers run out in an hour? Who advertises that weakness to every villain he faces by making it HIS NAME? How do you not love that guy? Put him alongside the Spectre (a reanimated corpse who loves killing people in bizarre ways), the Sandman (“I’ll put you to sleep with my gas gun!”), the original Atom (who had no powers at all, aside from a heavy-duty case of Short Man Syndrome), and Doctor Fate (basically, Mandrake the Magician with a cool helmet), and you’ve got a recipe for comic greatness. The JSA’s present-day incarnation, with its ginormous cast featuring such stalwarts as Power Girl and the current Mister Terrific alongside holdover founders such as the original Flash and Green Lantern Alan Scott, has been fun too.

4. The Defenders. Billed as Marvel’s “non-team,” the defenders started with an unbeatable three-star core: the Hulk, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and Doctor Strange. The big three were soon joined by the cosmically powered Silver Surfer, plus a motley array of supporting players — most notably Valkyrie, Nighthawk, and Hellcat — who eventually came to dominate the stories. Unlike the aforementioned Champions, a cut-and-paste crew that never quite gelled, the Defenders’ nonsensical admixture of heroes pretty much always worked, even as the roster evolved to include such ill-fitting pieces as the Gargoyle and Damian Hellstrom, the Son of Satan. The former Justice League creative team of writers Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis and artist Kevin Maguire reconvened the first four Defenders for a hilarious seriocomic miniseries in the mid-2000s.

3. X-Men. I still have a soft spot for the original roster: Angel, Cyclops, Beast (pre-blue fur), Iceman, and Marvel Girl (the not-yet-Phoenix Jean Grey), plus the wheelchair-bound Professor Charles Xavier. The first tears I ever shed over a comic book came with “The Death of Professor X” in Uncanny X-Men #42 (March 1968). I remember how sad I was when Marvel relegated the team to reprint stories for several years in the early 1970s. However, I remember with equal vividness seeing the cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 on the comic rack at Subic Bay Naval Base in 1975, and being introduced to the second-generation team starring Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and former villain Banshee alongside returnee Cyclops. The early issues of the revived run, written by Chris Claremont and drawn first by Dave Cockrum, then by John Byrne, remain among my favorite comics of all time. (I’ve enjoyed the various animated series and live-action films, too, though not as much as those amazing comics.)

2. The Fantastic Four. A squabbling family of superheroes — super-intelligent, emotionally distant dad; romantic but exasperated mom; brash kid brother; and gruff-but-lovable uncle — unlike anything that preceded them. The first comic book I can recall reading was a hand-me-down copy of Fantastic Four Annual #3. I was immediately addicted, as though the ink on the pages was suffused with crack cocaine. And it was the FF (quickly followed by Spider-Man) who sealed that addiction. They seemed so much like real people — unlike most heroes in juvenile fiction of the time, they fought and argued and teased and lovingly poked fun at each other, all while saving the world from galactic menaces. I wanted to be Reed Richards more than I wanted to be any other comic book hero until the arrival of the Black Panther: he was a super-genius with an insufferable ego and an answer for everything (hmm… know thyself?), who saddled himself with the lamest code name in comics (“Mister Fantastic”? Really?) and got stuck with the least useful superpower on the team.

1. The Avengers. For me, the Avengers really came to life once the founding lineup — Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man (who soon changed code names to the more impressive Giant-Man), and the Wasp, plus the Hulk, who took off after the first issue — dissolved. Captain America, thawed from his icy suspended animation in Avengers #4 and granted “founding member” status in the Hulk’s stead, was tasked with rebuilding the team from scratch, and made what seemed like incomprehensible choices for “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”: Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch, all reformed villains. The new mix of quirky, often conflicting personalities gave the stories more emotional heft. With the return of ex-Ant/Giant-Man Hank Pym (now called Goliath, and eventually Yellowjacket) and the Wasp, and the additions of Hercules, the android Vision (who married the Scarlet Witch) and the Black Panther, the Avengers developed into a premier team. The roster would change almost constantly from then on — I think practically every hero and heroine in the Marvel Universe has been an Avenger at some point or other — but the tradition was now firmly established.

And that, superteam members, is your Comic Art Friday.

The Great Comic Art Inventory of 2013 is finished.

When I say “finished,” that’s a slight overstatement. Not every entry in the database is 100% complete. There’s a small group of pieces — mostly items I bought via eBay between late 2007-early 2008 and mid-2010 — for which I still need to research and input purchase prices. (That information resides on my current PC’s immediate predecessor, so I’ll have to go to that computer to look it up.)

Aside from that, though, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. There’s a unique entry for every piece of comic art in my collection (with the exception of 20 published pages from Millennium Comics’ Doc Savage, Man of Bronze: The Monarch of Armageddon #1, which I considered a single item). I’ve recorded the artist(s) and character(s) pertaining to each piece, as well as the item’s size, medium, purchase price or commission fee, and other pertinent details. For the first time in several years, I can tell at a glance exactly how many artworks I own, and can easily access all of the information about each work that I’d ever care to know. In many cases, more than I’ll ever care to know.

This inventory proved far more than a mere data-compiling exercise. To do the project justice, I required myself to connect, visually and physically, with every single item. I handled each piece — touched it, measured it (even those whose dimensions seemed obvious at first glance), looked at it up close and in person — often, for the first time in years. I saw each piece with fresh eyes. I was stunned by how emotional the experience was. It’s ineffably different holding an artwork in your hands — or at least, seeing the physical work — than observing a digital image on a screen. When you can really examine every pencil or pen line or brush stroke, you climb into the mind of the artist in a way that is otherwise impossible.

It’s a humbling reminder of why art is such an essential element of humanity.

Not long ago, the Pirate Queen and I went to San Francisco’s DeYoung Museum to see Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, currently touring the U.S. and Japan. I’ve seen this painting dozens of times in photographs. I’ve even watched the film that presents a fictional account of its creation. But viewing Vermeer’s actual canvas in person was altogether different, and powerful. Tears welled in my eyes as I stood before it, and saw the nuances that no reproduction can fully capture. In a gallery crowded with strangers, I felt for a moment utterly alone with the artist’s creative force, preserved in a painting nearly 350 years old.

I don’t own anything that approaches that Vermeer; no offense intended to any of the artists whose work I do possess. But as I paged through and pondered the hundreds of drawings in my collection, mostly late at night in the quiet of my living room, I felt many reactions equally potent. At times, I found myself enveloped in magical rapture. At others, I laughed out loud. In still other moments, my mind raced into the panel to invent an entire story based on the single scene that my eyes took in.

And then, there were memories, and personal connections. More than half my collection consists of artworks I commissioned — pieces that exist only because I hired artists to draw them. Each of these carries a back story of how it came to be — correspondence, dialogue, and in a few cases, lasting friendships made. I’ve been fortunate, in that most of my commission experiences have been positive. I’ve not, unlike many of my collecting compatriots, had scenarios where an artist took money for a commission and never delivered the art, or had to be hounded for years before finally coming through. (I’ve had to chase a commission here and there, but rarely for more than a few months.) I’ve rarely had a commission result in a piece of art that I actively disliked. (There have been a couple, but looking at them again after the initial disappointment has faded into history, in most cases I appreciate them better now.)

I thought quite a bit about artists who’ve passed on since I commissioned them, or since I purchased their art. I’m grateful for the several pieces I own by Dan Adkins. I’m grateful for the many works — some commissioned, others not — by the amazingly talented Al Rio, and wish I had commissioned him even more. I’m glad I commissioned so many pieces from Ernie Chan and Tony DeZuniga, and I dearly miss chatting with them both at conventions. I discovered a lovely handwritten note that Jim Mooney — whose career as a comic book artist spanned more than a half-century — sent me when I bought a drawing from him. There’s a nice image by the once-ubiquitous George Tuska in one portfolio. I’m still sad that Dave Simons, a delightful man, never had a chance to complete the commission he started for me, though I love the Common Elements that Dave’s longtime collaborator Bob Budiansky created in his memory. And I still wish I had back the other drawing by Mike Wieringo that I sold mere months before his sudden, untimely death, to go with the one Ringo original I’ve held onto.

More than a few pieces in my collection were impulse buys — things I saw (usually on eBay) and thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have that?” Some of these purchases, in retrospect, might not have been wise investments. But there are others that, years down the road, make me ecstatic that I pulled that trigger. And the fact of the matter is that every preexisting piece I’ve bought somehow resonated with me in the moment — something about the image motivated me to spend money on it. It’s interesting to reflect upon what that resonance was, and to consider whether it still exists, or has faded with time.

Equally intriguing, there’s the realization that my art collection is uniquely reflective of me. No one else would have commissioned all the works I’ve commissioned, or purchased the exact combination of other pieces that I’ve compiled. There’s no other theme collection quite like Common Elements. Although there are any number of nose art-inspired pinups, no one else has an aggregation of them referencing Golden Age superheroines, certainly not in the specific manner that Bombshells! does. No other collector, to my knowledge, collects images of both Taarna, the silent avenger from the film Heavy Metal, and Isis, from the ’70s Saturday morning TV series. Other collections of Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Storm, Mary Marvel, and the Scarlet Witch exist, but I don’t know of another collection with a focus on all five. And none combine the above with a Black Panther gallery, or a group of images of male-female couples or teams.

No one else would have done this — built this specific collection, exactly this way. No one else could.

Therefore, when you look into my portfolios or online galleries, you look into me.

That’s amazing — and more than a little frightening — to think about.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

I’ve written on other occasions about how my philosophy as a comic art collector — and specifically, a collector of commissions and other unpublished drawings, as opposed to pages from published comics — differs from many others. I tend not to sweat the details.

For example, most of the time, I’m not persnickety about whether an artist gets a character’s “look” exactly right, so long as it’s recognizable. That approach isn’t all that different from the prevailing wisdom at the Big Two these days, where artists are given much greater license to tweak characters’ appearance to suit their own creative sensibilities. No one much cares these days how large the eye holes in Spider-Man’s mask are, or whether Captain America’s shirt is made of chain mail, scale mail, or just plain fabric. We’ve come a long way from the days when house styles were so rigid that when Jack Kirby — the man who pretty much defined how superhero comics should be drawn — switched from Marvel to DC, the DC editorial staff would have another artist (usually Al Plastino) redraw the heads on Kirby’s Superman figures, because Kirby’s Kal-El veered too far off-model.

So I don’t mind too much when an artist decides to take a fresh approach to a character. I’m certain that in the comics, Storm has never worn an outfit precisely like the one Christopher Foulkes designed here. But you know what? I’m okay with that. Maybe it’s her day off.

In fact, I like the idea of superheroes taking a break from the daily grind of world-saving now and again. They’re only human — or mutant, or android, or refugees from other planets — right?

I had that very notion in mind when I commissioned this drawing of Mary Marvel from artist Charles Hall. I thought it would be interesting to see what Mary would do when she arrived home after a long, strenuous day of beating up villains. Wouldn’t it make sense that she’d want to kick those boots off and collapse on the floor?

Perhaps my favorite image of a superhero at rest is this Wonder Woman scene by Peter Krause, who’s probably best known for his work on DC’s Power of Shazam. Here, mighty Diana sheds her confining bustier (seriously, how comfortable can that thing be?) and boots for the comfort of a tank top and bare feet, as she dangles her toes in the cool water of a lake on a warm summer day.

Tomorrow, she’ll be back duking it out with the forces of evil. Today, she’s all about the R&R.

I hope your weekend affords you a bit of the same.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.

I just flew in from Las Vegas, and boy, is my brain tired.

Actually, the Pirate Queen and I flew back from Bright Light City two days ago, and I’m mostly not tired any more. I’d headed to Vegas last weekend for the third annual Trivia Championships of North America — henceforth, TCONA, or I’ll be typing all day. The Pirate Queen joined me on Sunday following the festivities, and we spent a blissful three days checking out the sights and sounds of one of my favorite vacation destinations.

But let’s talk TCONA.

What began two summers ago as a largely informal gathering of game show champions, Quiz Bowl veterans, and pub quiz mavens has ballooned in this third installment into a real live media event. Not only were crews from two nationally televised game shows — NBC’s Million Second Quiz, and The Chase, GSN’s new Stateside version of the UK hit — on site to conduct in-person auditions, but the stars of both the US and UK editions of The Chase also participated in several of the weekend’s competitions. The Experts, easily the best weekly quiz program on YouTube, taped four episodes before a live audience. And of course, there was in attendance the usual assortment of trivia geeks from all over the continent, and beyond. (I met at least one fellow who’d come all the way from Sweden. Or maybe Norway. Somewhere in Scandinavia, anyway.)

A summary of one attendee’s highlights follows.

The weekend commenced on Friday morning with a multi-part written quiz. This opening salvo serves not only to start the neurons firing, but also to provide an initial gauge of one’s level among the competitors. My first thought after completing the test was that I should have ingested more coffee before we began. I was relatively pleased, once the scores were published later that day, to discover that I hadn’t fared as poorly as I feared, and in fact, I’d outpointed several folks whose names are far better known in the trivia world than my own. With another triple latte in my system, I might have performed even better.

One of TCONA’s primary individual events is 5×5, a buzzer battle whose gameplay bears distant similarity to a certain television quiz program with which I am intimately acquainted. Despite the aforementioned acquaintance, I never seem to do very well at 5×5, and this year’s contest was no exception. I lost my first match thanks to a foolishly aggressive final wager — I was leading up to that point — on a question about Celebrity Apprentice, a program with which I am clearly not as intimately acquainted as I thought. I was never a factor in my second game, and thus lost any hope of advancing to further rounds.

I had high expectations for myself in another individual event, LearnedLeague Live. At TCONA 1, I won my first round against seven other competitors, despite never having played the game before. Last year, I held my own at an eight-player table that included several seasoned LearnedLeague veterans; I didn’t win the table, but I felt that I acquitted myself decently. This year, I made the critical error of playing at a table featuring two of the greatest (and two of my favorite) players in Jeopardy! history, Jerome Vered and Dan Melia. Note to self: Next year, instead of sitting with people you like, sit with people you might stand a chance of beating. Assuming there are any.

For the main team event, Quiz Bowl, I reconnected with two other members of last TCONA’s silver-medal-winning squad for a run at fresh hardware. Our team captain, Dave Legler, who once bagged $1.7 million on the game show Twenty-One, recruited as our fourth player a trivia host from Chicago, Jeremy Cahnmann. Combine that with our not-so-secret weapon, Jonathan Hess, a soft-spoken grad student from South Carolina who knows more arcane information than I’ve forgotten — and I’ve forgotten a lot over the years — and little old me (you remember that I’ve won eight games on that TV quiz show with the Canadian ex-pat, right?), and we liked our chances going in. We galloped off to a tremendous start, going undefeated in our first three games and winning our four-team bracket. Then, in our first elimination match, we ran into a tough crew led by Anne Hegerty, one of the “chasers” on the original British version of The Chase. As coincidence would have it, the game commenced with a battery of Anglocentric material that Anne leaped all over like a wolf attacking a Porterhouse. Our side rallied, though, making up ground furiously as the game progressed, only to lose in the end by the value of a single question. It was a hard loss to stomach… but there’s always next year.

Luckily for me, redemption came in the other team event, the Pub Quiz Mashup. Another Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions veteran, Dr. Shane Whitlock, invited me to team up with him and his charming bride. We added three other players to fill our roster, which Shane dubbed (in the time-honored pub quiz tradition of quirky team names) “Natalie Portmanteau.” After seven often-hilarious rounds of play, we walked away with the silver medal. Except… well… we didn’t exactly. An apparent scoring error, uncovered between the end of the event and the medal presentation the following day, resulted in our being bumped from second place to third. So we got the bronze medal instead of the silver. I don’t care — it started out silver, and I’m sticking to that. It’ll always be silver to me.

Having the two hottest new game shows in television making their first TCONA appearances generated considerable buzz. Both Mark “The Beast” Labbett, the “chaser” on the US version of The Chase, and the show’s producer came in for Q&A sessions. (Not only is Mark a smart fellow, he’s also ginormous. They don’t call him The Beast for nothing.) Quite a few folks auditioned for Million Second Quiz; it’ll be interesting to watch the show and see how many people I know who made the final cut.

Speaking of game shows, if you aren’t already watching The Experts every Monday (or whenever you choose — it’s on YouTube, so tune in when it suits you, but the new eps post on Mondays), you should be, doggone it. Produced by my Jeopardy! colleague Alan Bailey, it’s consistently as entertaining a 20 minutes as you’ll spend. Alan and his crew shot four new games on Saturday night, including an all-star slugfest between The Chase‘s Anne Hegerty (whose subject specialty was Terry Pratchett’s Discworld) and Jeopardy! superstars Brad Rutter and Roger Craig (experts on Mad Men and Prince, respectively). All four games offered action, suspense, brain-shredding trivia superiority by the contestants, and abundant joviality for all. I won’t spoil the outcomes for you — you’ll just have to hie yourself over to YouTube when the new shows post, and check them out for yourself.

There were, as usual, plenty of ancillary events in and around all of the above. Quiz hosts and trivia producers from all over North America bring their favorite material and stage impromptu games throughout the weekend, which anyone can drop into and play. TCONA is also the home of the World Championship of Kno’dgeball, an amusing yet bizarre hybrid of trivia and dodgeball. (Your Uncle Swan declines participation in the latter, preferring not to combine mental challenge with risk of bodily injury. But the Kno’dgeballers do seem to enjoy themselves.)

Of course, TCONA’s most memorable highlights are always the connections and reconnections with my fellow trivia mavens. TCONA is the one place each year where I run into some of the many amazing people I’ve met via Jeopardy! — Bob Harris, Roger Craig, Brad Rutter, Steve Chernicoff, Dan Melia, Shane Whitlock, Alan Bailey, Jerome Vered, and I’m probably forgetting others, for which I’ll apologize in advance. (Yes, all of those people are as intelligent as they appear on TV. More, even.) It’s also a chance to meet up again with my Quiz Bowl teammates Dave and Jonathan, as well as many other new acquaintances I’ve made over these past three events, including such quiz show stars as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire winners Ed Toutant and Joe Trela, whose exploits I’ve admired from the other side of the tube. It was fun to put faces to many of the names with whom I compete in LearnedLeague — I think at least half of Rundle A West, my current LL bracket, was in attendance this year, several of whom I met for the first time.

Kudos to the TCONA team for lining up an infinitely superior venue this time out. The Tropicana met the event’s needs as well as anyone could have hoped after the horrors of Circus Circus last year. The Trop’s not perfect — in particular, its dining options are limited, especially in the budget-friendly/quick-service areas (there’s neither a buffet nor a true food court). Still, it’s an easy stroll across the street to the MGM Grand, New York New York, or the tram-connected Excalibur/Luxor/Mandalay Bay trio, so ample eating choices are right nearby. On the positive side, the conference center is easily accessible, and eminently convenient if you’re staying in the Trop’s Club Tower — basically, step off the elevator and you’re there. I couldn’t have been more satisfied with my room, which was large, well-appointed, clean, and comfortable. The in-room high-speed wifi worked splendidly. (Don’t get me started about the execrable Internet access situation I encountered when I moved over to Excalibur after the convention ended.) And, if you like to while away your free time and dollars in the casino, I found the Trop’s blackjack dealers as friendly and helpful as any I’ve encountered anywhere in Vegas.

Speaking of the Trop, TCONA shared the hotel’s weekend hospitality with another niche convention: the National Pole Dancing Championships. (Yes, that’s a thing. I kid you not.) I can assure you that, for the most part, you’d have had scant difficulty determining which guests were there for the trivia, and which for the pole dancing. Let’s just say that, were you to draw a Venn diagram depicting quiz nerds and pole dancers, there would be precious little overlap between the two sets. Maybe none.

Before I departed, I registered in advance for TCONA 4. You could join me in Vegas (probably at the Trop, but that’s yet to be negotiated) next August 8-10. But I’ll warn you: You’d better bring your A game.

This past Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Thinking about that historic event put me in mind of a classic song, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.” Written in 1954 by jazz pianist Billy Taylor, the song was first recorded by Taylor in November 1963, just three months after Dr. King’s speech. Although dozens of artists have covered it since then — including a version by British pop singer Sharlene Hector that appeared in a Coca-Cola commercial a few years back — the best-known rendition of “I Wish I Knew” is the 1967 recording by the legendary Nina Simone.

As I sit here with Ms. Simone’s magnificent, inimitable voice resounding through my headphones, kindly take a moment to read and reflect on these lyrics, composed by Taylor and songwriting partner Dick Dallas.

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.
I wish I could break all the chains holding me.
I wish I could say all the things that I should say –
Say ‘em loud, say ‘em clear, for the whole round world to hear.

I wish I could share all the love that’s in my heart –
Remove all the bars that keep us apart.
I wish you could know what it means to be me.
Then you’d see and agree that everyone should be free.

I wish I could give all I’m longing to give.
I wish I could live like I’m longing to live.
I wish that I could do all the things that I can do –
Though I’m way overdue, I’d be starting anew.

I wish I could be like a bird in the sky –
How sweet it would be if I found I could fly!
Oh, I’d soar to the sun and look down at the sea
And I’d sing ’cause I’d know how it feels to be free.

Like Dr. King — and like Billy Taylor, and Nina Simone — I long for the day when every person on earth can truly be free… free to be themselves, free to enjoy the wonders and blessings of life, free from hunger and want and pain and fear, free to be loved and accepted and embraced for their own individual uniqueness without reservation or qualification.

I don’t know that that dream will be fulfilled in my lifetime, or The Daughter’s lifetime, or even in this old round world’s lifetime.

But it sure would be sweet, wouldn’t it?

The Common Elements entry pictured above is entitled “Breaking Free,” mostly because it features Mister Miracle (whose real name is Scott Free) and Free Spirit, who was Captain America’s sidekick for a brief time in the mid-1990s. (Her real name is Cathy Webster, in case you’re keeping track.) Artist Geof Isherwood masterfully expresses the character’s feelings of liberation and joy in this gorgeous drawing. Every time I look at it, I feel just a little bit more as though I might know what it’s like to be free. That makes me smile.

And that’s your Comic Art Friday.