Last meeting thanks to Tony, Dan and Nick with Giant Gnome Productions (http://www.giantgnome.com/) we learned that audio dramas are still going strong. Once they got our little crowd going it ended up being a very interesting and informative presentation. I was pleased to see that we had members who were excited to learn that Audio Dramas were still an active entertainment format.

We should start rubbing it in to the absentee members about all they miss out on when they miss the monthly meetings.

The big geek event for Denver in June is of course the Denver Comic Con, which takes place the week before our June meeting, but several weeks after I write this. I am looking forwards to it myself. It is bigger than last year and there is just an incredible guest list that they seem to be trying to update until the last minute. It really is shaping up to be a massive event. I am sure my experiences will take up most of my next month’s musings.

Following that I will announce our July guests: Comic Book Classroom (http://www.comicbookclassroom.org/). This is the group that actually puts on Denver Comic Con. Their mission is to promote literacy through school programs that have the student create their own comic books. It is a program that sounds truly inspired and I am looking forwards to learning more about what they do. Illya Kowalchuk, their Director of Education has expressed a desire for feedback from us on ideas methods they might use to engage students through science fiction.

I do not have a June guest lined up as of yet. Life doesn’t always allow for things to happen in linear order. As soon as I get something lined up I will make sure to post it on our facebook and meet up pages.

Now I shall start to reminisce about childhood memories in an attempt to show that I am one of those parents.

I have started to go through my old comic books. I have a good sized collection. I've been collecting most of my life. I started in the mid-80s and had to cut down a few years ago, picking up a few here and there since then. Right now I am enjoying the Mile High Comics dollar bin to pick up some old issues to fill in the gaps. Reading them has been a highly reminiscent experience. Odd thing is I mainly remember the ads.

Now this is where I will start to sound like an old man.

Comic ads today just are not as interesting and unique as what they were when I was growing up. It is hard to explain the personality of comic book ads to those unfamiliar with them. The most famous of those ads is most likely the old Hostess snack ads where known heroes from both Marvel and DC would use tasty Hostess snacks to distract the villains and save the day. They really were classic ads that stand out.

You also had ads in the comics every year promoting the Saturday morning cartoon line ups. Yes, there was a time when it was big deal to watch cartoon on Saturday morning. The ads from the 80s show cartoon show I remember well, most of which I watched. Looking my comics I ran across one that I am unsure as to how it got into my collection, Captain Savage and His Battlefield Raiders. It is from 1969. I has a Saturday Morning Cartoon ad in it for cartoons that I had never heard of before. I actually did not know they had done a Smoky Bear cartoon show. There was something titles The Cattanooga Cats, which looks extremely 60s.

If you look through comics from decade to decade you do see an interesting evolution of comic book personality that so reflects the time in which they came out. It is in essence a form of time travel and there is something lost when they get converted into graphic novels or e-comics and the ads get discarded.

Okay, that is my geeky quota for this month’s ramblings.