My favorite columns, though, venture into the ever-entertaining world of comics fans and creators: a world Evanier captures with a storyteller's assurance. His tales of the Los Angeles Comic Book Club are told with a telling eye for comic detail, especially when he catches young boy rationalization - as practiced by young kids "kyping" comics (a term used by the writer's California crowd to specifically describe swiping comic books, though back in the day around Vernon, Connecticut, it was used to connote more generic shoplifting) or by putative adults trying to talk around the fact that they've been selling unauthorized model kits.

Mark gets 'em down: the young boy versed at weaseling free art out of comic pros, the penny pinching collector who walks out on a dinner date and stiffs her on the check, the hapless convention volunteer who dreams of becoming a comic book writer but whose sole plot idea consists of variations on Batman-and-Catwoman-Get-It-On-and-Have-A-Kid (shades of TV's upcoming Birds of Prey!) Choice material, well told.

The third big block of articles is more serious: historical pieces and appreciations of various well-known and unsung comic book artists. Evanier even manages to provide a fresh look at one of the most over-discussed moments in comic book history - the Kefauver committee investigation in the 50's that led to massive industry self-censorship - by including material about that journalist/fraud Walter Winchell and his feud with Lyle Stuart as well as a clear-eyed analysis of Mad/Tales from the Crypt publisher William Gaines' disastrous testimony before the Senate committee.

His takes on comic book greats are primarily formed around the connections he's made with 'em throughout the course of his career (a potentially limiting approach that isn't in Evanier's hands). Many of these are memorial pieces, not surprising since so many of the writer's influences had their career peaks from the forties through the seventies. He ends the book with a heartfelt eulogy for Roz Kirby, wife of his late mentor Jack Kirby. Jack and Roz spent their lives in the world of comic books - Depression kids whose lives would be forever changed by these garishly colored fantasies.

Reading Mark's words on this tough-minded woman and her connection to one of comics' greatest artists, his book's full title doesn't seem so ironic, after all. . .

(Reprinted from Pop Culture Gadabout)