from Brave and the Bold #36 (1961)

I knew marriage was a trap!

Is it any wonder that when you let little boys read comic book stories like this they grow up to be lifelong bachelors? (That's not a rhetorical question. I'm asking for a friend.)

For the record, Mavis' determination that Hawkman should leave his wife and marry her instead would one day lead her to be incinerated by aliens. I guess there's a moral in that. Somewhere.

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Today was a UGA home game. The Bulldogs played Samford in Sanford Stadium at 7:30pm. However, I wasn't there to see it. Instead, I had to spend the day on Tybee Island with Mom.

Don't get me wrong. I love Tybee. (And I love Mom.) Tybee is a charming coastal town with some fantastic scenery. (And Mom is Mom.) I'm happy to report that most of the island survived Hurricane Irma just fine, though plenty of scars from last week's storm were still visible everywhere. But it wasn't Tybee's beauty or Irma's wrath (or Mom's Momness) that brought us to the Georgia coast. No, we were here to attend friend Brian's beach wedding in the shadow of Tybee's historic lighthouse.

Mom rented a wonderful house at 117 Cedarwood Drive, and she, Audrey, July, and I used it as a base of operations for our weekend stay. Mom frequently visited the beach (just a few hundred yards to our north) to collect shells, each time leaving Audrey behind to rue Tybee's draconian "no pets on the beach" policy.

Sadly, I somehow managed not to take any pictures of the groom or bride, Veronika. For that matter, I don't have any pictures of groomsmen friends Ken, Keith, or Michael, either. The wedding party didn't show up on the beach until after the wedding officiant warned the attendees not to take pictures because that was the wedding photographer's job. Instead, you'll just have to be satisfied with this screen grab from the lovebird's official wedding website.

In fact, the only picture I have of the wedding was taken by friend James. (James was one of my few friends in attendance who wasn't actually in the wedding party. Matt was the other. Why was I not in the wedding party? I'm sure it had no small part to do with my vowing to Brian after Keith's wedding that I would never wear anything dressier than jeans to a wedding again. "Except mine?" Brian asked. "Even yours," I answered. That's what I like about Brian. He listens.) James couldn't resist disobeying the order not to take any pics, but he somehow still managed not to get the wedding party. (Reminder: "Never do what James does.")

I haven't attended a lot of weddings. I don't like them. Yet I found this one left an especially bittersweet taste for many reasons, not the least of which was that Brian was the last of my single friends likely to get married. From this point forward, we're all more likely to reunite at a funeral than another wedding. That's an uncomfortable thought, though it's better than imagining the possibility that I may have to sit through yet another wedding ceremony.

Good luck, Brian and Veronika. Do me a favor and be so happy together that we don't have to do this all over again, ok? Thanks.

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Tomorrow will be the 70th anniversary of my grandparents' wedding. (Happy anniversary, Dink and Buddy!) They're both dead now, but that doesn't stop anniversaries. Time keeps marching on whether we do or not.

I can't say as I regularly read wedding announcements. In 2016, do they still report on what type of flower the bride wore with her alligator accessories?

(And for the record, yes, "J.W." stood for "James Walter." I think it's a pretty good name.)

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I've been sick for the past few days (the first time I've been ill in 2014 — it had been a good run!), and I can tell I must have a fever because last night I dreamed that I attended comedian Seth Meyers' wedding.

I was in charge of the coat check, which was strange because 1) it was a summer wedding and 2) even in my dream I didn't personally know Seth Meyers. Of course, I was probably the logical choice for the position, seeing as how the wedding was being held in my grandmother's house.

I have to say that Dream-Seth isn't quite the fun-loving jokester you see on TV, but in his defense he was very stressed out by his wedding. He was particularly concerned that the caterers had screwed up the reception desert, something he called "crown cakes," which looked and tasted like Moon Pies. (Also in Seth's defense, I've been to more than one wedding that served Moon Pies at the reception.)

The weirdest part of all of this was that I never saw the bride's face. Perhaps this is because although Meyers mentions her frequently, he has never had her on his show. In my dream, she kept her wedding veil down. I should say that even without a face, she was much nicer than Seth.

I do hope that I feel better soon. I don't enjoy weddings in real life. I don't want to be dreaming about them anymore, even if the groom promises to make me a guest on his late night talk show if I'll just hurry up and retrieve the car keys he left in his coat.

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The latest "scandal" among comic book fanboys was last week's announcement that the creators of the Batwoman comic were resigning over DC's editorial decision that the title character cannot get married. The question at hand is whether the character's sexuality has anything to do with the decision. For the record, Batwoman is gay.

DC Comics made headlines a few years ago when they debuted this reimagined Batwoman (not to be confused with any of the Batgirls). Therefore, many people assumed that DC's decision not to allow Batwoman to marry was an editorial comment about the moral permissibility of gay marriage. Personally, I don't think that's the case. Why create and hype a lesbian character if you are opposed to lesbian marriage?

Of course, DC isn't a person but a company. It's possible that the decision makers in charge have been replaced (or changed their minds) since the introducing the character in 2006. However, this editorial decision sounds more like a side-effect of the growing influence of the marketing department than any moral/political stance.

Once upon a time, DC told stories in which the characters were allowed to grow. Superman could fall in love. Robin could grow up. Green Lantern could become a villain. However, now the licensing revenue for the characters' costumes are more important than the stories that spawned them. Marketing worries that kids who grew up reading that Barry Allen is the secret identity of the Flash might not buy their children Flash action figures modeled on the Flash's successor, Wally West. So goodbye character development, hello creative stagnation.

DC co-publisher Dan DiDio has tried to justify the decision by saying that all DC characters are required to focus on heroics at the cost of their personal lives. Apparently, so far as DC is concerned, you can't be a hero and enjoy it. These days there's no enjoyment in reading a DC comic book, either.

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Saturday, I attended the wedding of another "old" friend. Ken is yet another fellow who I first met via the Comic Company in about 1996 when he was self-publishing his comic, Steviebear. Eventually Ken would become my manager at the Comic Company. Together we attempted to keep the store alive the owners decided to sell their stock and property, but that never quite worked out.

Anyway, it seems like he finally found the right girl in Robin. Ken is a champion procrastinator, leaving Robin to plan everything for the wedding. (Which, honestly, is probably the way that Robin likes it. She knew what she was getting into when she decided to marry the guy.) To everyone's great surprise, that led to this:

Yes, those are their actual wedding rings. And, yes, they do reference dialogue from the love scene in The Empire Strikes Back. I don't know if that is true love, but it certainly is something unusual.

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I heard via someone who saw it on Facebook that my brother got married. Apparently Facebook has some value after all.

If you would have told me in November that my brother would get married before the end of the year without telling me or anyone else in our family, I would have called you fucking crazy. Shows what I know.

Congratulations, Trey and Melissa. I hope that the two of you will live happily ever after.

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This past weekend I attended another wedding. More than attended, actually, as I was in the wedding party. The older I get, the more I wonder what's the point of having friends if they are going to keep dragging me into their rituals?

Chad and Meagan were married in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Chattahoochee National Forest. The wedding itself was held at an elevation of about 2100 feet on Snake Mountain. (The name made my brother nervous, as he was frequently looking over his shoulder for an appearance by Skeletor.) This is the second time I attended a mountain wedding, once in the Sierra Nevada and now on the southern end of the Appalachian. I suppose everyone I know wants to start their marriage with their head literally in the clouds.

Blue Ridge, GA is a strange place, more Tennessee than Georgia country. It seems that everyone calls their home a "cabin" and maintains a gravel road in order that they might still drive during frequent winter freezings. At least the people seemed nice enough, especially when compared to their neighbors in Tennessee.

Trey and I had a good time on the drive up, especially after we spotted that bear statue that looked very unhappy to be chained to an American flag. (There's an allegory in that, somewhere.) And everyone had a great time at the bachelor party I organized. We drank Coke and played video games until the groom hurt his elbow playing Foosball. Never tell me I don't know how to party!

Thank goodness it's all over. Here's hoping no one else I know ever ties the knot; I'm getting too old for this shit.

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Wedding accomplished. I think I attended the wedding without embarrassing myself or my brother or my friends too much. There were a lot of comments to the effect of "that's Walter for you" and "Walter never changes," but fortunately no "arrrrgh, not Walter!" (At least none that I overheard.) Most of my foibles were politely ignored, though at one point my brother joked that "there's medicine now for your condition." (At least I think he was joking.) I suspect that there's a reason that I'm always invited to weddings, but never asked to participate in the bachelor or wedding parties. Like weddings themselves, I'm sure that Walter is much more tolerable in small doses, few and far between.

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Tomorrow I will attend the wedding of a fellow I've known for more than a few years. In fact, I owe him for getting me a job at a comic book store in the 1990s. I sure did love that job.

For the record, my first day on the job was Keith's last. I guess he was supposed to be training me, but instead he only taught me that running a comic book shop was so easy, you could spend the whole day playing Star Wars: Rebellion on the store computer. His "work" was interrupted when he decided that a stereotypically ethnic customer was shoplifting packs of collectible card games. When confronted, the suspect put his hand in his coat, as though going for a gun. Keith kept his head -- which is not Keith's defining personality trait -- and thanks to the timely intervention of customer Cliff Krapp, who employed an unusual strategy of "respect"-ing potential shoplifters, was able to recover the merchandise and remove the potential offender with no further incident. (Where was I? I was on the phone with the police crouching safely behind the largest, heaviest piece of furniture in the building. Safety first!)

Anyway, so now Keith is joining a different, much more exclusive club. While it won't offer him the same great discount on comic books, I presume it offers other benefits. There's no way those benefits are as great as cheap comic books, but I figure I owe him the benefit of the doubt. Best of luck, buddy.

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