Whither November

Ah, the first day of November! You know what that means, don't you?

Me neither.

November is mostly just a post-Halloween/pre-Christmas* time period. You've given out a bunch of comics to the young'uns in costumes and now you need to load up on all the cool comics-are-a-legitimate-art-form comics to give out for Christmas.

What? You mean you don't give out comics as presents? What the heck kind of comic book fan are you? There are hundreds of comic-related gift ideas for everybody, regardless of whether or not the recipient is a regular comic reader. Granted, some of the better ideas might take a little time to track down, but that's why you start looking in November instead of waiting until December 20.

Setting aside just really well-done graphic novels, there's tons of books out there related to almost any interest. For the kid who loves dinosaurs and archeology, how about Jim Ottaviani's Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards? For your resident rock-n-roller, how about several issues of Rock 'N' Roll Comics from the late 1980s/early 1990s? Lost Girls for the family porn-addict (and I'm not really joking with that suggestion). Some of the collected Sin City books for those who really liked the movie. There's PLENTY of adaptations of prose classics, from the recent Treasure Island from marvel and Alice in Wonderland from Zenescope to the older Treasure Island from Classics Illustrated and Alice in Wonderland from Gold Key. You don't have to wait for IDW to start reprinting the old Dr. Who stories; those're collected in various volumes already (although many only in Great Britain, so order early). There's Kingdom Hearts and Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Trek and Labyrinth manga.

And, hey, that doesn't even begin to get into the relatively recent hardbound and/or slipcased collections of The Far Side, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes and the works of Don Martin!

Let me tell you, there is CRUDLOADS of material out there for anyone, whether or not they're an active comic fan. Honestly, I don't think it even takes that much thought. If you can't think of something appropriate off the top of your head, do a couple of quick searches on Comics.org or ComicBookDB.com and I'm sure you'll turn up more than a few items of interest.

* Christmas, as it is generally celebrated, is a secular holiday so don't give me any grief about not mentioning Kwanza or Chanukah or whatever. That whole Santa/fir tree/Frosty schtick has about bupkis to do with the birth of Jesus, as was ultimately decided legally by the U.S. Supreme Court. I'm not knocking folks who do use Christmas to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, but 96% of Americans celebrate Christmas while over 20% of Americans consider themselves decidedly non-Christians (i.e. Jewish, Muslim, Atheist).

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