We know New York can be a scary place for out-of-towners, many of whom are using today as a travel day to come in for the New York Comic Con starting tomorrow.  That’s one reason why some local comics folks will have all kinds of fun stuff for visitors to their booths during the weekend. 

For example, Kyle Baker will be drawing complimentary caricatures for children at Booth #953, where his 8-year-old daughter Lillian debut her book "The Dumb People Convention", as well as a few other funny mini-comics.  And Marion Vitus announces that she, hubby John Green, Raina Telgemeier and her hubby Dave Roman have given themselves the collective name The Comics Bakery (Dave’s idea), and will "be serving up minis, graphic novels, and T-Shirts among other delectable delights" in Artists Alley table A206 in the Galleria. 

Knowing the time these folks have put into staffing the Friends of Lulu booths in the past, we wouldn’t be surprised if some variation on the FoL booths’ ubiquitous Hershey’s Kisses winds up on the menu.

Someone gave the Garfield statue near downtown Marion, IN’s Riverwalk a little too much love.

Seems 23-year-old Joseph P. Savarino didn’t know his own strength.  Savarino said he panicked when the cartoon character’s head came off when he hugged it, so he made off with it and left it alongside a road where it later was found.  Perfectly understandable, we all do silly things when we panic upon squeezing off a comic strip character’s statuesque head.

The cops noticed the head was missing last December 15. On the 18th an employee with the Army Corps of Engineers found the fiberglass head and retrieved it from the side of a road near the Mississinewa Reservoir. The statue’s base has since been moved to the Grant County Parks and Recreation maintenance building to protect it from further overly-enthusiastic fans who just can’t get enough of Mark Evanier ‘s television cartoons.  No word on whether base and head have since been reunited, but we like to think they joined again sometime around Valentine’s Day and went out for a nice lasagna dinner.

Heidi McDonald’s already done the heavy lifting on where all the post-NYCC parties are going to be. A word to the wise: sleep is not an optional item. You need to rest sometime. On the other hand, if you’re used to pulling all-nighters to hit deadlines, go wild.

Even though some of us think that superhero stories would be swellerific if only it weren’t for those bad guys, that notion flies out the window when a villain — or a villain to be — is given such a consistently nuanced and rich portrayal.  The actor who does that for Lex Luthor on Smallville (and whom many consider one of the best aspects of that show), Michael Rosenbaum, has confirmed that he will be departing the series at the end of next year’s season. 

Even though that’s a long way away, viewers are doubtless already wondering who if anyone could take Rosenbaum’s place, and speculating that, if the show’s creators are wise, they’ll wrap up the entire series next year and go out with a bang.  Of course, it’s based on comics, so you could always have Lex die and be resurrected as another actor…