Booster booster J writes in to say:

I'm writing with additional information about the house ad memorial for Keith Giffen. This ad also appears in the issue DC's 'Twas The 'Mite Before Christmas #1.

The ad J is talking about is this one which ran in books released a year ago this week:

J's tips are usually pretty reliable, but as it happens, I have the issue open in font of me right now, and it most definitely does not have the ad in it.

But I'm not calling J a liar.

What I suspect happened, and I am unable to communicate with J directly to confirm this because J never sends a reply address, but what I suspect happened is that J was looking at a digital release of the issue. DC has often had different house ads in digital releases than what they print in their books. I'm sure this is largely because they have to print physical books far in advance of publication, but digital assets can be manipulated up to the moment of release (and often after).

Because I do not trust that digital files have not been manipulated, I resist listing digital-only Booster Gold appearances in the Boosterrific Database, and I'm going to resist it in this case, too.

This is not the first time J has pointed me towards digital assets that the Boosterrific Database willfully ignores. See also: "A Thing I Do Not Know What To Do With," posted on Sept 18, 2023.

Thanks for the notes, J. Keep those corrections coming.

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To make Google happy, I've been tinkering under the hood here at Boosterrific.com to change how news items are retrieved and archived. If all goes well, this should only result in some changed URLs, and the average site visitor will never notice any difference. If anyone finds anything broken, please let me know, but "I'm not expecting any trouble" are some pretty good last words. (Just ask CrowdStrike.)

Meanwhile, as a good test case for new blog posts going forward, Booster booster J has found a new "Booster Gold" appearance in a comic that isn't already in the Boosterrific Database.

I'm currently reading Volume 2 of The Flash, from 1987. I just wanted to point out that on the very last page of The Flash, Vol. 2 #2, Booster's name (together with the DC Comics logo) is advertised (in-universe!) on the side of a truck.

Here is that panel in particular, taken from The Flash: Savage Velocity collected edition:

written by Mike Baron; art by Jackson Guice, Larry Mahlstedt, Carl Gafford, Steve Haynie; edited by Mike Gold

The reason this book does not appear in the Boosterrific Database is because the character of Booster Gold himself does not appear in this issue. But cases like this are a key reason why the Boosterrific Blog exists. I even have a banner and tag for it:

I do not think I had posted about this before, but that's one of the reasons I'm trying to make the news archive more Google-friendly. Sometimes it's hard for even the archivist to find information buried in the dusty virtual bookshelves in Booster Cave! In any case, I have definitely blogged about it now, thanks to J.

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An assortment of small news items about recent events here at Boosterrific.com:

1. Thanks once again to Jake J for pointing out that the Boosterrific Database was missing several reprint collections, most recently Elseworlds: Justice League Volumes One, Two, and Three. Thanks for all your help, Jake J (who has emailed reminds me that he is NOT Jake. Sorry!).

2. While trying to make sense of the timeline in "Roses Are Red, Androids Are Blue" in DC's How to Lose a Guy Gardner in 10 Days, I stumbled across a previously undocumented one-panel Booster Gold appearance in JLA #119. Every time I think I've found them all, another appearance turns up. I love it!

3. If you didn't know it, a new, 2nd edition of the 2019 25th Anniversary Zero Hour: Crisis in Time Omnibus was released this week. I haven't seen it yet, but it is advertised as collecting "every chapter in the groundbreaking saga in chronological order." Does this 2nd edition include Booster Gold #0? (To the best of my knowledge, the 2019 edition did not.) If anyone can confirm or deny, please let me know.

4. Last week DC announced that their comics will once again be released on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays beginning in July. When that happens, I'll be moving New Release updates to Wednesdays more consistently, just as I used to do. So don't say I didn't warn you.

5. To whomever reached out via the Boosterrific Contact form and asked "is it possible to anonymously submit in this contact": I cannot respond to your request because you didn't include a reply-to address, but the answer is mostly "yes." I do get to see the IP address that generated the request (which is necessary as an anti-spam measure), so if I look into that, I can approximate where you were in the world when you sent it. But otherwise, yeah, pretty vague.

6. If you haven't noticed, I created some more ads for the top of the pages during some recent downtime. You can see all of them on the Boosterrific Ads page. (I do tag them all internally as ads, so if you have an ad-blocker running, you may need to disable it to see them.)

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For your weekend entertainment: https://www.boosterrific.com/ask-skeets/.

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Spoiler Alert: Do not let Booster Gold touch your computer!

In honor of Booster showing up for a whole page in this week's Blue Beetle #2, I *finally* bit the bullet and bought an SSL Certificate for Boosterrific.com, as Google has been urging me to do for a decade, so that Booster boosters can feel secure when they... um, leave comments.

I didn't really think that this site needed an SSL Certificate yesterday, and I'm not convinced that today is any different. But I had the money, and... well, you know what they say about fools and money.

Quick aside here about buyer's remorse: in the year 1997, I impulsively spent all my savings on a used '95 Jeep Wrangler with 47,000 miles on it. That could be considered a dumb decision, and I berated myself quite a bit about it for a while. Fast forward to 2023: I still have that Jeep, and I am very, very attached to it. Which goes to show that not all decisions that seem in the moment to be a waste of money are.

(Although, it should be noted that not 30 minutes after I pressed the button to commit to purchasing the SSL certificate, the Jeep overheated and shut down in the middle of the road; it's now sitting in the mechanic's lot waiting for parts. Isn't that always the case? Just when you think you have enough money to upgrade a hobby website, you have to take out a loan for the mechanic.)

I still can't say as I see much value in an SSL certificate for Boosterrific.com given the kind of content I deliver — should I start charging ya'll for something? — but if it makes even one person more comfortable contributing to our community and celebrating Booster Gold, it's probably worth it.

Anyway, it's now installed, and I think everything is working correctly. Please let me know if you see anything that seems to be malfunctioning.

I'm sure it'll be fine.

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