A little background: My great guy-you’d-use-your-one-call-from-prison-to-phone friend Ross moved to Los Angeles immediately after graduating from the University of Texas in 1992 with an eye toward breaking into the film industry. While zillions of people embark upon this particular adventure, the capricious streets of that city are enough to send most of them home, tail between their legs, within a few years.

Not Ross, however. Through a combination of doggedness and smarts (not to mention his dashing good looks), he has managed to carve out a pretty darn good life for himself out there. His latest venture is Boom Studios, a comic book publishing enterprise that is turning out some superb work.

I’m no expert on the funnybooks, but I’ve really taken a shine to Hero Squared, a fledgling series written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis and drawn by Joe Abraham. The premise of the story is that Captain Valor, a superhero from an alternate universe, gets tossed into our world, where he discovers that his analogue in this world is Milo, an unmotivated, cynical Gen-X slacker whose help he has to enlist. Milo’s girlfriend Stephie also has an alter-ego, who turns out to be Captain Valor’s arch-nemesis, Caliginous, who laid waste to their dimension before banishing Valor to ours.

While the alternate-timeline plot doesn’t break a whole lot of new new ground, the writing turns a somewhat pedestrian setup into a great series of gags and exchanges that are enormous fun to read. Captain Valor’s straight-laced-to-the-point-of-nerdy brand of heroism causes him considerable frustration when he encounters Milo’s lack of motivation and indifference to many of the issues that face them. Milo is baffled by Valor at first, thinking he’s pulling some sort of elaborate practical joke, but eventually begins to work alongside him (out of necessity) without ever losing his cynical edge or really granting Valor much respect. My favorite character by far, however, is Sloat, Caliginous’ sidekick. Sloat attempts to improve himself by reading a word a day from the dictionary and working his new vocabulary into exchanges with his boss at the most inopportune moments, resulting in some delightful absurdity as they pursue their nefarious agenda. His exchanges with his mentor in evil are priceless.

The books themselves are high quality, printed on glossy paper with rich, saturated colors, and look superb. (Silly putty won’t be transferring images from these comics!) The artwork is very nicely done, with lots of detail that complements the action in the story well. The quality of the character design is especially apparent where we see Milo and Captain Valor next to each other — it’s obvious that these are essentially the same person, but bearing the marks of very different lives.

So, get thee to your friendly neighborhood comic retailer and buy a copy of Hero Squared. (If you lack a nearby comic shop, you can order here as well. But seriously, if you’ve got a local outlet, use it! They need your business!) For more on Ross and his plans for Boom! Studios, see Comic Books Resources’ Interview with him.

When school is in session, I generally make a habit of walking Liam and Abigail to school right before heading off to work. This morning, as we rounded the corner into Liam’s hallway, he pulled an index card, carefully folded in half, from his pocket.

“Here you go, Dad!”

“What is it, buddy?”

“It’s for you,” he said, obviously pleased with the planning and execution that had allowed him to present this unexpected boon to me as we parted.

I carefully unfolded the index card to reveal the text of his farewell: “BI DAD”

While I thanked him profusely for his thoughtfulness, I don’t think I’ll be displaying this one proudly above my desk at work.

It’s been a very busy time since we’ve been home; I’m trying to get caught up on everything, but I’m afraid posting here has fallen behind a bit. A few pertinent items:

• Today was the first day of school for the kids. Emily, Abigail, and Liam, with varying degrees of excitement at the prospect, all made their ways off to their respective classrooms today. I think it should be a good year for all of them. Emily and Abby are very much looking forward to seeing their friends again, and I think Liam will enjoy school more now that he’ll be in the Gifted/Talented program and will be a bit more challenged academically. More details to come in a week or two, I expect.
• We celebrated Abby’s birthday officially this past weekend. She had a few of her girl friends over on Friday night, followed by a lunch with some of the extended family on Sunday. Everyone seemed to have a good time and to enjoy my latest chili concoction (this batch included cocoa, coffee, and Guiness on the ingredient list).
• A number of other things, including a wedding at which we helped and a work friend’s birthday party, soaked up our Saturday in worthwhile ways.
• I helped out a bit with the kids’ classes at church on Sunday. The director of the program was working to teach them Bach’s “Dona Nobis Pacem,” which is Latin for “Give us Peace.” My suspicions that this might be a bit ambitious for the 8 and under set were confirmed when I noticed that Liam was belting out what could hardly be considered a blessing — “Dona Nobis Possum.”
• Christina reports on Daniel and Fanny’s wedding. One of my favorite bits — Darth Vader with a fiddle. This way lies the Dark Side.

Today Daniel and Fanny are getting married up in Canada. I wish like the dickens that we could be there, but it just wasn’t possible to pull off so closely on the heels of the England trip. Congratulations, you guys! Hope the day is an unmitigated joy. We’ll raise a Shiner in your honor.

Today is also Abigail’s ninth birthday. (How is it possible?) Happy Birthday, my dear. We love you very much, and are thrilled to be able to celebrate this occasion with you!

We’re all home, safe and sound, after a seemingly interminable series of flights, security checks, bag checks, customs, bag rechecks, pressure-induced earaches, sleepy kids, and mediocre in-flight movies. Very glad to be back. Everyone’s winding down now — it’s 2:30am according to our biological clocks!

Kathy’s still feeling pretty rotten, and Maggie occassionally cuts loose with some pretty awful sounding coughs, though aside from when she’s sleeping, she seems in pretty good spirits. We head for home tomorrow, leaving London at 11:00am (5:00am San Marcos time), and landing back in Texas around 6:40pm. It’s been a great trip, but we’re looking forward to being back in the land of cactus and 100° afternoons.

Kathy is still battling a sinus infection today, so we had another fairly low-key day, with only two outings, both with subsets of the family.

Outing the first: All the kids but Maggie and I hiked 20 minutes down to The Odeon, a nearby movie theater, to see Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was a wonderfully quirky effort, very much in the same vein as Burton’s earlier Edward Scissorhands, a personal favorite of mine. (In fact, I was amused to see that the first time we really get a good look at Johnny Depp’s version of Wonka, he in fact has a large pair of scissors clutched in his hands.) The English movie theater experience was an interesting one as well. At the Odeon, they’ve preserved a bit of the spectacle of the old movie theaters, with impressively large theaters and a very spacious lobby — all the more striking, given what a premium space is at in central London. I was further delighted to see that among the usual candy and popcorn at the snack bar, there was also beer for sale.

Outing the Second: Abigail and I went to Harrods, a giant department store in downtown London, to purchase some tea towels Mom McMains had promised to pick up for a friend, but lacked the time before her departure. We elbowed our way through the crowds and found the towels with a minimum of difficulty. It is, by the way, a treat to talk to the various people behind the counters at London businesses, not only because they’re usually quite helpful, but also because one never quite knows what accent one will encounter. In addition to the variety of UK accents, the city boasts an enormous number of immigrants, flavoring their English with French, German, Eastern European, African, Caribbean, and Asian languages. After procuring the towels, we wandered a bit through the rest of the store, enjoying the somewhat inexplicably themed Egyptian escalators and the toy section, and then returning home via the Underground once more.

Note: I’ve added a few photos from the last week that I like.

Today was kept low key by illness. Both Kathy and Maggie were feeling pretty rotten throughout the day. Details to fill in later: Visit with the Newleyweds, Treasure Island show on the Thames.

Today was a relatively low-key day. Liam was feeling a good deal better after 12 hours of sleep and letting his fever run its course, but other family members were beginning to show signs of illness. We spent a good deal of the day pottering about the house, laying low and resting. On towards afternoon, however, I decided that we desperately needed to do something London specific, so I dragged Emily and Liam off to nearby Hampstead Heath for a hike.

Hampstead Heath is one of the larger parks in London, which means it’s huge. While there are a number of nice foot and bicycle trails through it, it’s not cultivated to the degree that some of the other parks are, giving it a nice “walk through the woods” feel. We started on the west side of the park, near the tube station, and walked generally east, mostly along the bicycle trail that bisects the green space. We passed a variety of people, the usual assortment of large and extremely friendly dogs, and a number of cyclists as we wended our way through the leafy expanse. While there are no wild cactus to speak of here in England, due presumably to the cold winters, there are a variety of other plants to be careful of — berry bushes with thorns, pointy holly leaves, and my personal nemesis, stinging nettle.

After about 30 minutes of meandering vaguely eastward, we saw a large which we decided to climb. This turned out to be Parliament Hill, the heart of the Heath, from which one is afforded a smashing panorama of the city. I was a bit baffled by the abundance of park benches that topped the hill and were scattered extremely liberally throughout the rest of the park until I noticed that each of them bore a dedication, and had apparently been sponsored by someone to whom the Heath had been meaningful — rather a nifty way to give something back to others who enjoy it.

From the top of the hill, we saw “The Writer” — a huge, orange sculpture of a table and chair that towered 60 feet or so in the air, dwarfing the people who wandered about below it. Some rain had accumulated on the tabletop during the night, and as the wind picked up as we passed, the water blew off the edge and doused a gaggle of preadolescents who were playing below, eliciting bafflement and then hilarious shrieks. From there we sauntered over to a cafe (the parks here seem rife with them), and brought our sandwiches over to the public bowling green to watch a group of six septuagenarians demonstrate the finer points of lawn bowling. After 20 minutes of munching and watching, we caught a bus and headed back to the house.

Supermarket note: One thing I find absolutely wonderful about shopping for food here is that all the produce has listed on its label not only the usual weight and price, but also what part of England it was “Grown In” and whom it was “Grown By.” Though it may not actually reflect business realities, it makes one feel much closer to the farmer and as if someone has a personal stake in the food you buy — much more so than does buying from Agrico’s Worldwide Lettuce Consortium back in the States.

Day 15: Mom left for the US today, so I started off the morning with a trip to Gatwick Airport, both so that we could make use of our BritRail group pass, and to give her a hand hauling stuff around. We had a welcome opportunity to talk at some length on the train (a luxury seldom practical amid the challenges of moving a large group from place to place), which we made the most of. After seeing Mom safely to the check-in gate, I headed back into London and joined the family for lunch at the house.

After a brisk afternoon’s loaf, we all headed into central London to meet up with Bill, Becky’s brother, for dinner and a visit to his church. We ate at Wagamama, a funky noodle place of Bill’s choosing which, while a bit loud, had good food and took great care of our group. Each of the kids emerged with a Wagamama T-Shirt, and we all came out with full, satisfied bellies.

We then proceeded on to St. Mary’s, the church Bill attends in London. While it was housed in a lovely old building with abundant stained glass and a balcony with well-worn pews, the service itself was quite progressive, with leaders in their 20’s and 30’s, contemporary worship music, and some downright silly skits. It was interesting to find that much of the music was the same that our church back home uses. While liturgical traditions in Christianity have long had a standard framework to hang services on (and even, before Vatican II, a standard language), it would seem that the music is becoming the unifying element in more progressive circles. (I find this fact a bit alarming, given the fact that the theology in a fair bit of modern worship music seems somewhat suspect.)

We found the people of St. Mary’s to be warm and welcoming, and would have enjoying sticking around longer to visit, but had to get the kids home so that they could get to sleep at a decent hour. Bill accompanied us, and joined us for a glass of wine and a long conversation about the state of the church and the concept of “having a calling.” Since he had to work in the morning, we finally parted company reluctantly and toddled off to bed for the night.

Day 16: Today was Nerd Day! We decided to make a pilgrimage to Hamley’s Toy Store, which I’d read about before heading over to the UK and which we’d briefly spotted from a double-decker bus a few days previous. While I’d expected Hamley’s to be a good destination, it was more than I’d hoped for: 7 floors stuffed with toys of every kind, complete with enthusiastic demonstraters. There were computer games, outdoor games, slot racers, model trains, Robosapiens, Radio Controlled Flying Saucers, machines that made bubbles that burst into clouds of smoke when popped, drawing toys, and big latex bubble-blowing kits all on display. Additionally, the basement featured life-size Lego figures — Hagrid and Harry Potter, huge dinosaurs, and Star Destroyers, to name a few.

The kids had just received their allowance for the week, so had a great time charging among the floors figuring out how best to spend five pounds. (Our entreaties to save some for the rest of the week fell on deaf ears.) Predictably, the majority of it went to the candy shop, which was immense and well-stocked. I gave in and stocked up on a few of my favorite Jelly Belly flavors (Cherry Cola, Vanilla Bean, Cream Soda, and the incomparable Buttered Popcorn), and also picked up a small model London Underground Train Car for my office.

We finally staggered out of Hamley’s, squinting at the sunlight, and wandered a bit further down Regent Street. I was surprised to see a Gizmondo store along the way, and ducked in to ogle. (Gizmondo is a handheld gaming machine, like the GameBoy or PSP, but with GPS and a camera built in.) We continued our tour de geek by dropping in the Apple Store long enough to poke around, admire the Great Glass Stairway, and use the restrooms.

Liam had started feeling poorly an hour or so previous, and was showing no signs of getting better, so we decided to split up at this point. Kathy and Emily went off to do a bit more wandering and shopping and have some girl time, while the other kids and I went home to have some dinner and to put the sick folk to bed.