Planning on doing some online shopping this Black Friday? Why not take a look at my fantasy novels?

You can purchase both paperback and Kindle eBooks at Amazon.com. Until Sunday, you can get the Kindle edition of The Wizards of Ranaloy for free.

Thank you for your support.

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DC is being generous to Booster Gold fans in 2018. The company released February solicitation earlier this week, and it looks like the "Booster Shot" story teaming Superman and Booster Gold in Action Comics will be running for at least three more months. Via Newsarama.com):

ACTION COMICS #997
Written by DAN JURGENS
Art by WILL CONRAD
Cover by BRETT BOOTH and NORM RAPMUND
Variant cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
"BOOSTER SHOT" part five! Superman and Booster Gold are stranded in time on a world ruled by not one but two Generals Zod! As Lor-Zod asserts himself as rightful heir to the military dictatorship of their adopted homeworld, Old Man Zod turns his attention to the interlopers from the past. Our heroes' only hope of survival is to repair their craft and get home—but to do that, they'll need to travel into the belly of beast!
On sale FEBRUARY 14 • $2.99 US

ACTION COMICS #998
Written by DAN JURGENS
Art by BRETT BOOTH and NORM RAPMUND
Cover by WILL CONRAD
Variant cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
"BOOSTER SHOT" part six! Escape from Planet Zod! Superman and Booster Gold must escape to travel back to the present, where the life of the captured Sam Lane hangs in the balance! On sale FEBRUARY 28 • $2.99 US

(Point of grammar: "Zod" is his name, not his title. Therefore, if there are multiple Zods, they should be pluralized as such. Unless maybe they follow different rules of grammar on Krypton. Dictators do whatever they want to.)

I admit, six issues of "Booster Shot" is much more than I thought we would get, especially in the run up to the big Action Comics #1000. Russ Burlingame recently interviewed Dan Jurgens for ComicBook.com, and he got the story why Booster is getting such a spotlight:

"[Geoff Johns and I] had plotted out the end of the Oz storyline and wanted to do a couple of things after that," at the start of the Rebirth era, Jurgens told ComicBook.com. "One of which was 'The Oz Effect.' It's pretty heavy stuff. We wanted to lighten it up a bit and at the same time have it be a logical progression from Oz to this. So, bringing Booster into it was going to accomplish both goals and so far it's working out quite well."

"Booster Shot" sure sounds like a story everyone should be reading. And it's starting early.

Today's issue of Action Comics #992, though not technically part of the "Booster Shot" storyline, concludes with a tease of the Booster Gold story to come. So take note, Booster boosters. If you want in on the ground floor of "Booster Shot," hustle to your Local Comic Shop before indulging in tomorrow's turkey feast!

(Thanks to SuperPat for that tip.)

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, everybody.

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Last Monday, I guessed that Francis Manapul was teasing his cover for the upcoming Action Comics issues featuring Booster Gold. This weekend, he proved me right.

Said Manapul on Instagram: "I'm taking over the variant cover art duties for #ActionComics and I couldn't be more excited! Here's the first cover of my run, #Superman along with time travelling #BoosterGold"

Presumably, that's the alternate cover for Action Comics #993, due December 13. DC has already released an image by Dan Jurgens presumed to be the standard cover. Neil Edwards and Jay Leistin were originally announced as the variant cover artists; I assume at this point that was an error.

(A quick note for new collectors about DC's "variant" covers. Traditionally, "variant" covers have been used as retailer incentives: "for every 2 of cover A, you can purchase 1 cover B," etc. This led to cover B being more expensive than cover A because retailers passed along the cost of acquisition. However, these days DC offers each issue in two covers to be ordered independently by retailers. Since the two covers exist in equal numbers, it's entirely arbitrary which is the "variant" as in practice they are both "regular" covers. So buy the one you like, or both, as neither inherently has more value or is rarer than the other.)

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I don't have words to describe how awesome this is, so let me just show you.

That's the X-Men's Kitty Pryde (aka Shadowcat) and her sidekick Lockheed mashed-up with Booster Gold and his sidekick Skeets as imagined and drawn by artist Todd Nauck (via Twitter). He calls them "Booster Pryde & LockSkeet."

Todd has also recently imagined combos of Blue Beetle/Nightcrawler, Captain Marvel/Colossus, and Guy Gardner/Cyclops among others.

Hell, yes, I'd read that comic.

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In case you missed it, the movie Justice League is opening this week. In cross promotion of the event, Entertainment Weekly's Darren Franich interviewed Justice League International co-creator J.M. DeMatteis.

EW: How did the specific tone of Justice League International develop?

JMD: No one ever said to me when we started, "Oh, we're doing Funny Justice League." It just evolved naturally. The more we went along, the more we realized that what we had on our hands was a superhero sitcom. But we never set out to do that. The minute you sit down and think, "I'm going to be funny," you're probably screwed.

Around the same time, I was writing "Kraven's Last Hunt," which is as dark a Spider-Man story as has ever been written. I wasn't thinking, "Now I'm doing this in clever contrast, we are answering the grim and gritty stories with our version of light and happy!" We just followed the characters. Keith [Giffen] would write the plots and set up these situations, I would start writing the dialogue, and the characters would start talking to each other. Beetle and Booster really created that team, not us.

Shh! Don't let Booster hear you say that. He'll get a big head!

You can read the whole interview at EW.com. (And you can see Justice League in theaters Friday.)

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