Nothing I love more than something I wrote inspiring art.

So your pal Mike sells comics for a living, or at least attempts to (this past Sunday was bit of a wash, ugh), and as part of that living, he…or, rather, I price a lot of back issues. Boy, I do love back issues. If I could just price and sell ’em all day, I would, but I have to do other things, like “break down the new comic shipments” and “help customers” — you know, distractions like that. But blessed are the days when I can just park at the counter with a big ol’ stack of old comics on one side of me, an Overstreet Price Guide on the other, and I’m able to just go to town, a’gradin’ and a’pricin’. And when I do, I often come across a comic that’ll get me thinking about it, and those thoughts have to go somewhere, and thus, a blog is born. Like right now, as I want to talk about this particular cover for a moment: That’s Alpha Flight #3 from 1983, cover by John Byrne, featuring our hero Aurora trapped in a room with crisscrossing rods, in a high-contrast black and white. It’s quite…