92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

tough break, sure, but it’s not like nobody saw it coming. He always worked hard, but he always played hard, too. Lotsa red meat, vodka, and cigarettes were the order of his day, so it wasn’t exactly a shock when a coupla months after he turned 62 he gets the news his days are numbered. Well, due to a new diet, or his good genes, or modern medicine, or the love of a good woman, ol’ Dad beat back the looming spectre. Nobody uses the word “remission” yet, because the magic number for that one is five years, but as you may well imagine there’s a bigger sigh of relief and less walk ing on eggshells around the Young Family Homestead nowadays than there was this time back in 1997. So, after having a dead-serious Brush With and a subsequent long time to himself to Contemplate His Own Mortality, Dad gets it into his head that it’s going to be a good idea to go to Hawaii. Have a big Blow-out and cross off one of those last things on the great To-Do List of his life. But not just Ma and Pa are to go, but me and the missus, too, and my sister and her husband and their two kids, as well. The whole clan. And so it is through the miracle of modern technology that I’m sitting here on the beach at Ka’anapali next to my old grizzled Dad who’s looking pret ty much in the pink of things, both of us watching the pretty girls walk by and nursing our margaritas (one with tequila, and one without), and beam ing back these few meager thoughts about funny books to Jonah at the Comic Book Resources Command Center. “Let’s go in see if they’ve got a contract with Image to distribute, because Double Image #2 is out, and I wanna see how it looks,” I said. So we stroll in, and I was sure happy to see the comic book carousel not only prominently displayed up front, but also nicely placed in conjunction next to the over-large Harry Potter display. A nice bit of cross-marketing there, I think. So we give the rack a spin, but it’s only the work of a few quick looks to see that it’s only Marvel, DC, and Archies available. Whether this means Waldenbooks only carries these companies’ books, I have no idea; this is only an anecdotal observation. At this place, at this time, that’s all they had. So I picked a few things to read on the beach, including a dog-eared and lonely-looking copy of Transmetropolitan #44 and Deadpool #51. I don’t normally read Deadpool , but this one’s drawn by my pal Darick Robertson, The second night we were here, Mimi and I went into Lahaina for supplies, and on the way in, I spotted a Waldenbooks.

43