Thank You, Rich Johnston

Today is the day I publicly thank Rich Johnston, founder of and frequent columnist on Bleeding Cool.

I am a dilettante. This blog is not my job. I do it when I want, as I want.  I can make fun of a seventy-year old story in excruciating detail for seven days straight and ignore whatever giant multiverse-shattering crossover DC is demanding I pay attention to.  I'm an American!

And with my Pointy Toes of Justice I can defy the Petty Tyrants and Would-be Cultural Hegemonists of the World, like freckled football Archie Andrews.

So I can not-read Batman.  There was a time when I didn't exercise this American freedom.

A freedom Batman himself shot people to protect for me.  Thanks, Bruce!

When I was much younger, before Brainiac 5 invented the internet, I used to travel (and this is pre-Time Bubble, mind you) to comic book conventions to scour the boxes to find missing back issues of Batman and Detective for my "collection".  SO I COULD KNOW IT ALL FIRST HAND.  And those sellers could smell my desperation a mile away.

That changed.

At some point, I realized there were things I'd rather NOT know. Like what stupidity was being wrought upon Batman by the Favored Hack of the Month.  

Some people's work (like Tom King's) is like an atomic bomb; you really don't need (or want) to be at ground zero to get a sense of what a disaster it is.

Which is why I haven't been reading Chip Zdarsky's Batman.

And, therefore, today, I thank Rich Johnston.

Because he has been reading Chip Zdarsky's Batman so that the rest of us don't have to.