"It's Merkel. Something about a giant bat. Chicken will keep."

Guess what I found waiting for me on the porch when I got home . . . a package from Amazon. I love packages from Amazon! And guess what was inside. No guess? Okay, it was two copies of this:

Now that I have enough copies of Understanding Comics, I have turned my attention to accumulating copies of Batman Year One. The Cincinnati Public Library system can only get me 5 or 6 copies. This weekend I'm going to visit some used bookstores to see if I can turn any up. Now I have a start, though, thanks to this mysterious benefactor (you may not have intended to be mysterious, but your name was not included). Thank you benefactor! Also, let me know who you are.

If you haven't read Year One, check it out. You may have heard that this Frank Miller fellow is crazy and that his writing is nearly incoherent, and that's true, but back in the eighties he was very, very good.

In other news we had our first test today. I haven't graded them, so for now I'm going to assume that it went well.