Everyone who's ever read a DC comic knows Booster Gold's best friend is Ted Kord, aka the Blue Beetle.

But Booster has another best friend, someone who has been there for him since the beginning: his sidekick Skeets!

Yet somehow we almost never see the three of them, Booster, Beetle, and Sheets together.

After a stray comment made last month by Booster booster Cort, I decided to pull from the Boosterrific database a list of all the times that Ted Kord and Skeets have appeared in the same comic with Booster Gold.

Here's that list:

1. Booster Gold #22

November 1987

2. Justice League America #71

February 1993

3. Justice League America #87

April 1994

4. Extreme Justice #1

February 1995

5. Extreme Justice #2

March 1995

6. Extreme Justice #3

April 1995

7. Extreme Justice #4

May 1995

8. Extreme Justice #14

March 1996

9. Extreme Justice #15

April 1996

10. Extreme Justice #16

May 1996

11. Extreme Justice #17

June 1996

12. Extreme Justice #18

July 1996

13. Justice League America #112

July 1996

14. Justice League Task Force #37

August 1996

15. Total Justice #1

October 1996

16. Total Justice #2

Early November 1996

17. Final Night #1

November 1996

18. Final Night #3

November 1996

19. Green Lantern #81

December 1996

20. Superboy and the Ravers #8

April 1997

21. JLA #38

February 2000

22. JLA: Our Worlds At War #1

September 2001

23. Superman: Day of Doom #1

January 2003

24. 52 #52

May 2007

25. Booster Gold #6

March 2008

26. Booster Gold #0

April 2008

27. Booster Gold #10

August 2008

28. Booster Gold #26

January 2010

29. Booster Gold #27

February 2010

30. Booster Gold #34

September 2010

31. Booster Gold #35

October 2010

32. Booster Gold #36

November 2010

33. Booster Gold #37

December 2010

34. Booster Gold #38

January 2011

35. DC Universe: Legacies #9

March 2011

Only 35 issues over 35 years! And Skeets and Beetle don't always appear in the same scenes in those 35 issues! Heck, Skeets doesn't meet with either of the other 2 in the first few issues of Extreme Justice! It's almost like Skeets and Blue Beetle only cross paths at the annual Justice League Christmas party.

As for the issues where all 3 do appear together, you might remember that for a while around the turn of the millennium, Skeets was incorporated into Booster's armor, which means Skeets literally came between Blue and Gold!

I'm not exactly saying there's any animosity between Booster's two BFFs. I'm just saying that it's pretty clear that Skeets prefers the company of Rip Hunter to Ted Kord.

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First things first: 26 Down in today's LA Times crossword puzzle (by Winston Emmons, edited by Rich Norris) is "Robot companion of superhero Booster Gold."

Hundreds of thousands of people work daily crosswords puzzles, so this is great exposure for Booster Gold. If you are one of them, and you are dropping by Boosterrific.com for the first time today, hello. The answer is "Skeets."

Elsewhere, those of us who read Booster Gold comic books will find slim pickings on the ol' periodical rack this week. To the best of my current knowledge, the only place you'll find our hero in the latest releases from DC Comics is in the pages of Superman Volume 4: Mythology, reprinting Superman #20-28, including this panel from Superman #23:

I like that panel — artist Kevin Maguire's take on Blue and Gold *and* the Wonder Twins? Yes, please! — but I'm not sure it's worth $20 for an entire reprint collection.

Instead I'd encourage you to go out and pick up the single back issue from your Local Comic Shop where it's probably selling for... *looks it up on eBay* ... $25?!? Because it's the "1st appearance of Xanadoth"? Xanadoth? You've got to be kidding me. Xanadoth has been in exactly *two* comic books. Fat chance of seeing him as an answer in a crossword puzzle.

Ahem. As I was saying, $20 is a pretty good deal. Buy this issue and make Skeets (and cruciverbalists everywhere) happy.

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Illustrator Dean Beattie revealed a recent commission on Twitter last week. See if you recognize these guys:

Judging by that high collar, you can probably guess that this was commissioned by Cort. Kudos to both the artist and patron.

By the way, seeing Skeets here reminds me that Blue Beetle and Skeets have never spent much time together. It's kind of like Booster has two best friends that he keeps apart from each other. I assume he doesn't want them gossiping about him behind his back. It's okay; Skeets can be your friend, too, Ted.

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Spotted on Twitter: a new Blue and Gold commission by artist Dean Kotz:

Always so much fun whenever these two are together. Fun for me, that is. They don't look like they're having such a great time — even if they do look great doing whatever it is they're doing. That's one radical flared collar, Booster.

Great work, Dean.

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I've lost track of the number of stories I've seen on the Internet repeating the news of the upcoming Blue and Gold series. But I've already seen exactly one person calling for the not-yet-announced-but-should-be pairing of the Gold and Blue.

I agree with George. I am ready to give DC Comics money to read that, too. (And judging by the number of people who think I should be tracking Gold Beetle appearances, I'm not the only one.)

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