THE HEMBECK CHALLENGE!

Hey, SeeBelow readers!

I recently picked up (and highly recommend) "The Near Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus", a massive (900+ pages!) collection of the work of one of my all-time favorite people in comics. Long before there was a SeeBelow, or comics blogs, or even the internet, there was "Funny Freddy Hemby" (as Stan Lee calls him), dredging up the then-not-easily-available past of funnybooks for our edification. Hembeck had a great memory, a finely honed sense of the absurd, and a weakness for the goofiest characters around. It was through him that I learned about Brother Power the Geek, Ironjaw (both Ironjaws, actually), and Jimmy Olsen's stint as the "Red-Headed Beatle of 1000 B.C.". Hembeck inspired everything from Ambush Bug to Gone and Forgotten, and if you don't know who he is, or if you already know him and love him, get this book ASAP.

Another thing about Hembeck is that, much like all of us here, he both loved and hated comics. He was the first to lash out at the lame, the venal, the sexist, and (worst of all) the boring, but he also was unashamed at his deep love of comics and how completely they changed his life. One of my favorite strips in the collection is one entitled "100 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT COMICS" -- a series of 100 panels of Fred's famous self-caricature, each with a word balloon sporting a short, couple'-'o'-words description of something he loved about his favorite funnybooks.

So, I figured, since we have 10 COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS YOU HATE week, why not tip the karmic scale with this? To preserve our jobs and sanity, I decided to halve it, and you don't have to accompany your lists with repeated identical self-portraits if you don't want. But here's the game: everybody posts, between now and Friday, their list of 50 THINGS YOU LOVE ABOUT COMICS. Share the love, you freaks!