Howefitz Blog

Yesterday was my fifth wedding anniversary. I used the day to pamper my wife, but I also reflected on how my life is today, and how I got here. But first, I need to go back to before I met my beautiful wife…

I’ve never been shy about sharing the fact that I favor the funnybooks. I guess of any vice one could have, reading comics isn’t all that bad. When I was small, my parents would bring home whatever they saw at the grocery store newsstand (Yeah, newsstands still had comics then!) that they thought I would like. These mainly consisted of comic book versions of my favorite cartoons: Looney Tunes, Popeye, Tom and Jerry, Donald Duck, essentially, kids’ stuff…

This post is brought to you courtesy of Dad-Blogs‘ FatherHood Friday. The theme this week is ‘TV Dads’. Click on the image to the left to read other great daddy and mommy bloggers talk about their favorite TV dads. Some of the bloggers may have gone rogue and written about something else that was on their minds. Friggin’ rebels…

My favorite TV dad has been ‘dead’ for three seasons. ‘Dead’ in quotes because: a) The actor that portrayed him his very much alive, and b) It’s a show based on a comic book, and who stays dead in a comic book?

Let's go, Squaddies!

Before my wife and I started having kids, I imagined some day in the distant future, bouncing my son or daughter (or both!) on my knee and trying to figure out how to introduce them to the wonderful comic book characters I knew as a child. The movies are too adult and the cartoons I watched as a kid are just plain old.

I started buying toys. Then, there was a line from Marvel called ‘Spiderman and Friends‘. These featured little kid versions of my favorite Marvel heroes. I snatched up everything from teethers to board books to action figures and vehicles, anticipating the demise of the current Super Hero trend.

Popularity: 4% [?]

The air smelled of stale pages and small children. The teenagers jostling in to the room reminded me of the wildebeasts that make short work of Mufasa, leaving Simba fatherless. I shed a tear for my daughter Calli and my unborn son. They will never know what it is like to have a father. My oldest, Kat, had betrayed them. She had led me to this pack of wolves, this den of geeky jockularity. I stood before them, notes quivering in my hand.

I was going to teach comic books to teenagers.

Kirby help me.

The smell of stale gym socks infused my nostrils with testoterone and bravado. I had just finished swimming at the rec center and was changing into my dry clothes when a young muscular man struck up a conversation with me.

“Hey how’s it goin’?” he asked.

“Good, you?” I answered. All the fears of high school locker rooms flooded irrationally back. Does this guy want to kick my ass? Why is he talking to me?

“Great!” he answered. “So do you have kids in here?”

Recently, through the magic of social networking, I came across an organization called the Comicbook Artist’s Guild. They are an organization of comic book professionals and beginners that get together for the sheer love of comics.

Their first anthology comic: Iconic, will be formally released at the MoCCA fest in New York City, being held June 6 and 7, but they were nice enough to let me peer inside it’s pages beforehand so that I can tell you a little bit about it.

Click here to buy your very own copy of Iconic!

Monday, we went for an ultrasound at 24 weeks. As long as everything goes well, this will be the last pictures we see of the little tyke until he is born. It got me to thinking about all the preparation that occurs when one is having a baby.

The latest image of the latest Howelett. Isn't he cuuuute?

The sisters relate to each other...

As a Daddy Blogger, I find myself in a unique situation: I have a 15 year old step-daughter and a two year old daughter. I feel that this gives me a different perspective. I came into Kat’s life when she was four years old, so I missed the diapers and the slow development of her language skills. I’ve watched her grow up and marveled at her dreams and the decisions that she’s made. Even though I’ve had those eleven years of being a Daddy, with Calli it feels like I’m a brand new Daddy. Now I get the diapers and laugh at the way she reasons out words. Bunnies are ‘hoppies’ for instance. Doggies are ‘goggies’. With a new baby boy on the way in August, that’ll be a whole new world, as now I’m so used to girls, what do I do?

Recently, while perusing the graphic novel collection at my local public library, I happened across a charming book called ‘Amelia Rules!‘. I instantly fell in love with the spunky 4th grader. I also became a huge fan of the creator.

Jimmy Gownley is a cartoonist who cares. With ‘Amelia Rules!’ he set out to create a comic with classic comic strip sensibilities that did not talk down to kids. His success at this is overwhelming. Jimmy is a co-founder of Kids Love Comics!, an organization that promotes literacy through comics. Something I can certainly relate to and support.