No, DC Comics isn't publishing anything including Booster Gold today. Based on solicitations for October released earlier this week, we won't be seeing Booster Gold at all in October, either. Solicitations tease that there will be "many other heroes and villains from the DC Universe" in Animal Man #13, but that's none to encouraging for those of us already in Booster Gold withdrawal.

In the meantime, we'll take what we can get. The above photo of Guy Gardner, Booster Gold, and Blue Beetle cosplayers, taken at the 2011 New York Comic Con by Kendall Whitehouse, proves that so long as Booster Gold has fans, we'll be seeing him somewhere. Perhaps even at this week's Comic-Con International 2012, hmm?

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Hey, Booster Gold, no more JLI? Back to the basics!

David Branstetter, creator of Strawman Comics, posted his image of "classic" Booster Gold drawn for Bouserthedog on his Deviant Art site. In his words:

The joke here is that Bouserthedog asked for the 80's version of Booster Gold. Seeing how Booster Gold is aware of future events I thought it would be funny if he was commenting on his own costume change.

As bad as they were, some of Booster's terrible 1990s costumes were still better than his current DCnU costume. *shudder*

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On Friday, DC announced via their blog that Justice League International Annual #1 will be shipping August 29, 2012. DC promises that "the ramifications of this [issue] will be felt across the board," but the best part of this news is that Geoff Johns will be co-writing the book.

Johns is probably on-board for this one-shot because the issue will tie-in with his regular gig as writer of Justice League (issue #12, specifically). For his part, co-writer DiDio is probably on-board to tie-off some loose ends dangling from the his recently-canceled gig as writer of OMAC. Fans of either series should be excited about the crossover potential here, especially since Johns and DiDio are Chief Creative Officer and Co-Publisher of DC Comics, respectively, and therefore are in a position to see that what happens in their issue of JLI is relevant to events throughout the company.

If the solicitation cover is any indication, it looks like the first thing that the powerful pair has done is ensure that Booster Gold no longer has any gold on his cowl. That's already a change for the better.

Join the discussion of this news in the Boosterrific Forum.

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In addition to being a good source for publisher news and great deals on comics and art, comic book conventions are a great place for fans to get together with other fans and creators and celebrate their heroes. Sometimes, fans go so far as to dress as those heroes. This can lead to awkward situations.

Click pic to see a larger version of this and other great work at ericafailsatlife.tumblr.com.

The above autobiographical strip by artist and last week's Boston Comic Convention attendee Erica Henderson illustrates a significant reason why many of us can't, won't, or shouldn't dress like our favorite super heroes in our daily lives. There is a lot of truth in this cartoon.

One of these things is not like the other. The Booster Gold cosplayer on the left won the award for "Best Comic Book Hero Costume Honorable Mention" at BCC 2012. It's a great costume, even if it does suffer from a case of the unmentionables. If nothing else, it reminds us why Booster Gold must look different on television than he does in the comics. That is, unless they can find an actor who is really willing to sacrifice a part of himself for the role.

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Skeets as JLI administrator? Don't think of Skeets as the new L-Ron. Think of L-Ron as the old Skeets.

Last week's poll question: What role should Skeets be playing in the Justice League International? (37 votes)

All things being equal, Booster Gold fans were pretty fortunate in the post-Flashpoint reboot. Booster Gold is still the same character he was before. Other characters were not as lucky, sacrificing familiarity in the hopes of breathing new life into a tired concept.

Take, for example, Firestorm. Like Booster, Firestorm was a spotlight member of a top-selling, pre-reboot series in Brightest Day. But the powers-that-be at DC decided (probably justly, right, Shag?) that Firestorm didn't have what it took to generate and maintain a "modern" audience. So in the DCnU, Firestorm is now essentially two brand-new characters. Goodbye, character development; hello, artificial teen-aged angst and "fury."

Sure, that's frustrating to existing fans, but the point of comic book characters is to turn a profit. Characters must be popular to sell books, the more popular the better. Unpopular characters disappear, sometimes forever. Therefore, we Booster Gold fans should ask ourselves what risks we are willing to take to keep Booster Gold around.

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