Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett gives us a potpourri of observations and comments.

Sometimes when writing these things I make edits to keep them roughly eight hundred words, leaving me with little (hopefully) interesting bits that won't fit to a column that has a specific subject.  So, on a serious of completely unrelated notes…

I ask for more freebies from the publishers and DC announces they'll be giving us Flash and Green Lantern rings, which is great and all and not to be greedy, but with a new Legion of Siperheros series about to launch I think they're forgetting something…

For years I've 'humorously' been using "Barnes & Borders" as generic term for the big box book stores and now there are rumors of a merger.  Me being me I blame myself.  On the other hand a couple of weeks ago I went into a Borders and given the foot traffic I could have easily taken a nap right in the middle of the discount books section without inconveniencing anyone.

I got an external hard drive for Christmas; I wasn't expecting one and given the economy wasn't planning to get one for myself.  But a good friend surprised me with one and I was finally able to create a library for all the comic books I've been downloading over the years.  It took days of inserting discs and dragging files and while it remains very much a work in progress I now have well over 10,000 comics on it and let me tell you, it's pretty sweet having them in alphabetic and numerical order that way, instantly available for reading.

I tell you all of this not because I wanted to put into evidence still further proof I've turned my back on print and I'm certainly not bragging.  But when you're my age it's really hard not use technology that makes your life substantially easier, especially when it's easy to use.  And if I can do it, anyone can, and if I am doing it I certainly can't be the only one, so I suppose my point is whether we like it or not this is what the comic book collection of the future might look like.

Recently I've been advocating bringing some of the more obscure characters that Disney recently acquired when they bought Marvel, but this week's choice surprised even me.  In 1972 they published a bimonthly reprint title called L'il Kids that featured a hodge-podge of little kid humor strips that went back as far as the 1940's with names like Little Aspirin, Frankie Fuddle and Patti Pin-Head (you have to wonder if Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead, knows about this one).

But issues #10-12 featured original material in the form of the adventures of Calvin, a little black kid credited to a Kevin Banks, who from the self caricature that frequently appears at the top of the pages was also black.  Obviously Marvel had some confidence in Calvin as he's cover-featured in all three comics so it's a shame it isn't very good; Banks draws it in a style that's primitive even by the standards of Peanuts.  Still, Marvel has to be commended for giving a black character, especially one from an unknown black creator, a chance--something that still doesn't happen nearly often enough.

It's surprising how often Batman: The Brave and the Bold, what's essentially a kid's show, makes direct appeals to guys like me.  Not only does it manage to give valuable screen time to some of the most obscure characters of the DC Universe* like previous DC animated series it frequently fixes what's wrong with the characters in the comics.  For instance The Challengers of the Unknown made a cameo in the January 1st episode "Revenge of the Reach;" I've loved them for decades but it took this show to make me realize the obvious; you know, regular humans that fight monsters and aliens really should definitely have ray guns and jetpacks.

And last week's "A Bat Divided" managed to create a "split the difference" version of Firestorm; his primary identity is still African-American student Jason Rusch but filling in as the invisible head hovering over his shoulder is Ronnie Raymond.  It took me a minute to accept the idea of Ronnie as a coach but he was a baseball player so it's plausible; let's hope DC begins using this version of the character, double quick.

* Also in this episode, standing between Catman and Cluemaster during the super-villain bar fight, is a green robot looking guy with a propeller on his head which almost certainly has to be Bozo the Iron Man, the 'robot' (more of a proto-mobile battle suit really) from the pages of the Golden Age Smash Comics.  It's nice to see him again but a shame to see him turn bad this way.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely  those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.