You may be able to get free comics on Comic Book Day, but you won’t run across superheroes as ridiculously delightful as “Son of Satan” and “Squirrel Girl.”
Saturday, May 2, is Comic Book Day, when participating comic book shops across the United States give away comics (while supplies last) to those who visit. Some of the titles this year include 2015 Avengers (naturally) and Transformers.
And yet today’s comic saviors of the world can’t hope to outshine some of those showcased in Jon Morris’ forthcoming book, “The League of Regrettable Superheroes.”
Morris, a cartoonist and graphic designer, started his blog Gone & Forgotten in the 1990s to pay homage to some of the strangest, most unique — and just plain bad — superheroes the world has ever known.
Take characters like “Skateman,” aka Bill Moon, a martial artist who returns from the Vietnam War to fight crime, and who Morris said is one of the hardest to fathom in the superhero realm.
“He literally dresses in tiny white shorts and a bandanna and skates criminals into submission,” Morris says of the character who debuted in the 1980s. “It’s inspired in a way.”
Growing up in Arizona, Morris was surrounded by comics dating back to the 1940s. His parents were fans, he said, and his father taught himself English by reading comic books after immigrating to the United States at age 8.
Morris said he began his site after he realized that “no one was really celebrating the forgotten (superheroes) … the weirdos and the cockadoos.”
His book is due out in June. These days, Morris has somehow whittled his former collection of 15,000 comic books down to 300.
And his favorite “can you believe it” superhero?
That would be “The Red Bee,” who debuted in the 1940s and whose arsenal against wickedness included striped tights and a collection of pet bees.
“Very few have done so much with so little,” Morris said.