Comic-con in Houston

It would seem that we have a budding comic book fan on our hands in Jamie. For some time now, starting I guess with his interest in the scary dinosaurs in spite of his stated preference for the peaceful Triceratops, Jamie has been more able to handle more grown-up material. things have escalated quickly over the past month and a half or so. It started, by chance, with Jaime spotting a Yu-Gi-Oh book at the library. This is some manner of Japanimation series for younger kids, about duelling with monsters and spirits of some kind. Jamie was utterly utterly fascinated and it seemed to open an an sbsolute new world to his imagination. We read this short book over and over and Jamie treated it like a sort of foundational document. He memorized all the characters and the monsters, and referred to this little paperback simply as: "The Exciting Book."

The Exciting Book being almost intolerable for adults we managed to bring it back to the library where he found a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book, which was similarly wondrous. Then in Frederick, at the library there with Nonni, he hit the jackpot: Spiderman and Batman comic books. His excitement at these was beyond adorable. According to Nonni, he couldn't wait to get back and show me his discovery, which is in his words, "Awesome." He can sit with one of these for half and hour at a time totally absorbed while leafing through the pictures. Some of it, he tells us, is scary, but he's not scared he says. "It's not real-life, Dad, just pretend."