I realized last week that I am not enjoying comics as much as I once did, as I have for most of my life. I'm not sure it's comics' fault. Twenty-twenty has been a rough year for everyone, and it's still far from over. Maybe I'm just having a mid-year crisis.

The last time I felt this way about comics was in 2011 when the New 52 initiative steamrolled over the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe. I got over that (forgiven, not forgotten). Maybe I'll get over this. But there is another, bigger problem that's cropped up since 2011: I don't enjoy going to the comic shop anymore.

A couple of years ago, ownership of my Local Comic Shop changed hands, and the people I used to know who worked and shopped there are long gone. You really don't know what a difference it makes to have a great relationship with your Local Comic Shop until it's gone. Even before the pandemic started, the new management with its new business philosophy began cutting orders to reduce stock beyond pull requests, and I'm starting to discover that they often don't have books I want after final order cutoff. (Not that I want a ton these days. I could complain about so many things, but let's say no monthly ongoing featuring Booster Gold is the tip of that iceberg.)

Comics have gotten expensive enough that I was already watching the proverbial purse strings. Now, in addition to exorbitant cover prices, will I have to add the time cost traveling an hour or more to find the few books I want? Or worse, will I need to add the price of shipping to any future acquisitions? If I didn't already have a basement full of long boxes holding decades of stories, I might consider going digital, but the publishers charge the same price for paper as they do for DRM rentals. After decades of being told that by publishers we have to pay more for the good paper, there's no way I'm paying the same price for a comic "printed" on virtual pixels. (I assume the publishers do that to appease the direct marketeers. I, however, am not one of those, and I feel very unappeased.)

That's all to say that it's starting to become a hassle for me to get my hands on the comics that I'm not even sure I want to read anymore, and I'm frustrated that I don't have any good solutions for those problems right now. Maybe I will later.

Can 2020 please end soon?

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Propjosh dropped me a line to let me know he is preparing to unleash the final season of his long-running Blue and Gold fan series. Here's what he had to say about what you'll see when you visit his YouTube channel:

Without giving away too much, this season will be very closely related to the Booster Gold comics. Five years passed since Ted Kord was killed and Booster is trying to cope while working alongside Rip Hunter. There will definitely be some episodes straight from the comics. There will also be an episode where they will be completely animated with possibly a guest star.

Here's a link to my trailer for the season.

I will have new episodes every Saturday starting Sept 5th until the end of the year.

September 5? That's tomorrow! Finally something to watch other than the constant stream of political advertisements on my television. Thanks, Josh!

And if you're looking for something else to entertain you this long Labor Day weekend, know that Blue and Gold -- A Superman and Booster Gold Podcast released a new episode earlier this week. You can find it via blueandgoldpodcast.blogspot.com.

Youtube videos and podcasts? Sometimes the Internet is pretty great.

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When I walked into my Local Comic Shop and asked for Booster Gold: Future Lost, the guy behind the counter said, "No offense to Booster Gold, but who's going to pay $40 for that?" I would hope a lot of people.

Since I didn't manage to get a copy myself yet — not the fault of the guy behind the counter; his DC distributor has been shipping late — here instead I present a couple of pics of the book (beside last year's first volume, Booster Gold: The Big Fall) shared on Twitter.com by Cort Carpenter:

Oh, I've never been so eager to part with $40!

When you make your trip to a fine comics retailer near you for your copy, you may also want to take a look at Strange Adventures #5. Booster doesn't show up in person, but he does get a name drop from series star Adam Strange:

Art by Mitch Gerads, fightin' words by Tom King

Golly, that Tom King really doesn't care much for Booster Gold, does he?

Buy Booster Gold: Future Lost and make Skeets happy.

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The weirdest bit of Booster Gold news I've bumped into lately comes by way of Twitter.com:

Wait, who's the dad?

(Over at ComicBook.com, Russ Burlingame managed to turn this alpaca news into a 500 word article that also promotes Friday's Bill & Ted Face the Music in a clever bit of cross marketing. I tell you, that guy can work Booster Gold into anything, and I mean that as the highest possible praise.)

While we're on the subject of animals named after our favorite super hero, you may recall that last October I told you about a thoroughbred racehorse who lost every race he ran last year.

Well, according to Equibase.com, he's raced 4 more times in 2020, and these are the results:

June 27, Laurel Park, MD, Race 1; "BOOSTER GOLD, wide on the turn, weakened." Finished 6 in a field of 10.

July 30, Laurel Park, MD, Race 3; "BOOSTER GOLD was outrun." Finished 10 in a field of 10.

August 15, Laurel Park, MD, Race 6; "BOOSTER GOLD, in a bit tight at the break, raced wide and failed to menace." Finished 8 in a field of 11.

August 27, Laurel Park, MD, Race 9; "BOOSTER GOLD was outrun." Finished 11 in a field of 12.

Seven races, never finishing in the top half. At least he's a safe bet... not to win. Perhaps our boy should consider retiring to an alpaca farm.

UPDATE 2020-09-18: September 11, Charles Town, WV, Race 3; "BOOSTER GOLD rated close to the early pace three wide, gave chase from the three eights pole then weakened into the far turn." Finished 4 in a field of 6. This is the first time that a bet on Booster Gold could have paid off. A $1 Superfecta bet — a bet on the horses to place in first, second, third, and fourth position in the correct order — would have returned a $914.70 payout. Is it possible that Booster Gold has been sandbagging all this time just to run up his odds for a bigger payment? No one would put that past him.

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If I write "Deathmetal" and "Bloodspot," you'd be forgiven for thinking I was just a bad typist.

One of the biggest talking points to emerge from last week's FanDome has been the upcoming Suicide Squad movie. Because its central tenant — belied by its title — requires the eradication of its members, the Suicide Squad has always been populated by lesser known villains from the fringe of the DC Universe. As Booster boosters have known for nearly a year, one of the characters in the upcoming film will be Blackguard, the villain Booster Gold fights on the cover of his very first appearance. Blackguard will be played by comedian Pete Davidson.

Another barely known Suicide Squad character who has been creating ripples in the fan press is Bloodsport. That's probably because Bloodsport is being played by Idris Elba. Like Blackguard, Bloodsport made his first appearance on the cover of a comic (Superman volume 2 #4, 1987). Also like Blackguard, he hasn't had a very illustrious career. Think of him as a deranged version of Rambo First Blood Part II who kills innocent people to protest how the American government treated Vietnam vets. It's not creator John Bryne's best work, and there's really not a lot of reason you should remember him.

Unless you have a head for Booster Gold trivia and remember the extremely Boosterrific JLA Incarnations #6, in which Booster Gold parodied the excessively violent, heavily muscled, tank-top and bandanna wearing Bloodsport. About the biggest change Booster made to Bloodsport's shtick was dropping the "r."

Blue Beetle and Booster Gold will always be the real Deathmetal and Bloodspot to me.

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