Eyz dropped by late last week to share with us a Booster Gold/Blue Beetle drawing he didn't do. I'm sure you'll agree he did the right thing.

Artist Kaitlyn Van Dorn, aka "the unbrilliant," titles her piece "blue and gold hipsters." Van Dorn is clearly a huge Ted Kord fan, and this is just one of a bunch of Blue Beetle- and Justice League International-inspired pieces on her Tumblr and DeviantArt.com sites. Go take a look, I mean, if you want.

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For the past 5 weeks (since November 5th!), no one has left a comment on a post here at Boosterrific.com. I had decided not to panic. There hasn't been a Booster Gold comic in months, so why should anyone have anything to say around here? Turns out it wasn't you, it was me.

Longtime Booster booster Eyz sent me an email early this morning with a particular complaint:

For a while (a month? perhaps a bit longer..) I haven't been able to comment on Boosterrific. Every time I write a comment and I press the submit button, instead of being prompted to a confirmation code ("write below the characters you see above..") a second submit button pops up. And if I press it, it reloads the page losing my comment in the process...

I looked into it, and he was absolutely right. Google had migrated their reCAPTHCA processing scripts, and I was still using the old Carnegie Mellon University links (outdated since 2010). This error was eating comments. Shame on me.

I've fixed the error and you should all be able to comment again (though you may need to force a browser refresh to clear the old scripts). It was never my intention to deactivate commenting, and I apologize if I discouraged anyone from dropping a line. In the future, should you ever find anything on this site you consider to be a bug, please let me know on the Forum or via email (webmaster at Boosterrific.com). If you think it would help for me to build a contact form page, I could do that too.

My eternal thanks, Eyz, for pointing out the malfunction.

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To celebrate the release of Scribblenauts Unmasked, DeviantArt.com hosted a contest featuring DC Comics characters. There were hundreds of submissions, many of which featured Booster Gold!

Click on any of the images above (by kirbyhead, eyzmaster, and stuartmday, respectively) to visit DeviantArt.com and see larger images.

You can see more Booster Gold-inspired pieces here. You'll find the well-deserved contest winners here.

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First of all, today's feature isn't exactly a new release; it was published 3 weeks ago. But given that Booster Gold doesn't seem to exist in the DCnU right now, we'll have to take what we can get. Lucky for us, what we can get is a delightful easy reader for second graders that is at least as entertaining as anything DC Comics has published in the DCnU to date.

The Man of Gold by Paul Weissburg and accomplished Batman: Gotham Adventures artist Tim Levins is not a comic, but a 5-inch by 7-inch book with illustrations. There's a lot to like in the book's simple, direct prose narrative of how Booster Gold's drive for fame and glory soon threatens both Superman and the safety of the Metropolis itself. While Booster's origin herein may not be exactly what Dan Jurgens wrote, this Booster's personality isn't too far afield from what we saw in his earliest comic book appearances. This Booster is a jerk with a heart of gold.

Booster's primary antagonist in this adventure is the Jack Kirby-created Stompa, a member of Granny Goodness' Female Furies of Apokolips. Despite both characters having decades-long careers in comic books, this is the first encounter between the pair. Their refreshing face-off results in a battle which sees Booster's force field creatively used as an offensive weapon.

Because this book was designed to encourage children to read via the Advanced Reader system in the classroom, it ends with Discussion Questions. Question 3 encourages readers to explain which of the book's 10 illustrations is their favorite. Tim Levin's JLU-inspired art deserves the attention. Detail-oriented readers may spot that Booster wears the collar-less version of his classic power suit in the published book, but Tim Levins' original art online at his Deviant Art page has the more familiar collared powersuit that Booster has worn in all of Justice League Unlimited appearances. The book doesn't have any Discussion Questions encouraging thoughts about the motivation for this change.

This book is just one in a series of similar books published under the DC Super Heroes license by Capstone Publications (who also re-publish DC Comics with "durable hardcover" bindings for grade school libraries). While your Local Comic Shop may not carry "real" books, you can find a copy of this book at Amazon.com. I'd like to see DC publish 81 pages of story for $5.95! Thanks to Eyz for bringing this book to my attention.

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Today's entry of "Booster Gold International" is brought to you by Switzerland's own Eyz, better known as the artist behind heroes-comix.blogspot.com and G33k Life:

Switzerland isn't quite well known for its superheroes. Besides "real" figures like William Tell and a couple of other national legends. Would a Swiss Booster Gold be that different from its American counterpart?

First to put things into perspective, a bit of cultural background. The "Helvetic Confederation" is divided into three distinct regional parts. There's a bigger German-speaking region which is closer to Germany in terms of mentality and culture, a French-speaking region with a rich mix of people and ethnicities and finally a smaller Italian-speaking region full of old Swiss traditions. Well, I'm from the Romandy personally, aka the French Swiss part so I'll talk from that point of view.

Switzerland doesn't have a lot of superheroes around, but we have our share of classic comic book figures thanks to a comic culture shared with France and Belgium. But could we have a superhero like Booster around nevertheless?

Actually, I'd say yes! To be precise, Booster Gold could be one of those rare American superheroes that would just as easily be "translated" over here.

In terms of attitude, people and government, Switzerland is in fact closer to the United States than most of its European neighbors. To stereotype, yes we're totally corporate capitalist and strongly competitive here as well. I'm using these clichés to point out a Swiss Booster Gold from his early Dan Jurgens run would be totally relatable to people! The same could be said for the modern secret protector of history Time Master-Booster. Who wouldn't dream to be this unknown force of good, even without getting any appraise to help out others? (I'm appealing to what people here aspire, I mean Red Cross, United Nations? we got those in Geneva for a reason!)

Regarding Booster Gold's shiny looks, logo, design, etc.? He wouldn't need to wear traditional Red and White colors on his costume, or have changes to look like a stereotypical Helvetian from an old parody. I mean, he isn't actually wearing an USA flag to begin with, right?

To summarize: Booster Gold could work as an actual Swiss superhero! (why don't we have any of those already?) Could we at least start by having actual reprints of his series translated here? Booster would be a hit so easily with old and young readers alike!

Thank you for that perspective, Eyz. If I haven't covered your country yet, drop me an email at webmaster at Boosterrific.com so you can tell us how Booster Gold relates to your culture.

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