Cheers to Andy Mansell, who has led and moderated the Heroes Discussion Group through 41 different books over the past four years.  We’ve tackled a wide gamut of books during this time, but rest assured, we’ve saved some of the biggest guns for this year as we approach our 50th Discussion Group Meeting.  With that in mind, we’ve put our heads together and come up with a rough outline for the rest of 2012’s book selections.  I’ll leave it to our fearless Group leader to further elaborate on our plans. – Seth

SATURDAY, MARCH 24: Daredevil: Born Again collecting Daredevil # 227-233. In this collection Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli destroy Matt Murdock’s life!  This will be the third Mazzucchelli-illustrated book we’ve discussed.  If you haven’t read Born Again— you are in for a treat.  I mean just take a stare at the cover!!!

April:  Donald Duck Lost in the Andes.  Even if you’ve never read any of his books, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Carl Barks.  He is regarded as one of the all-time great cartoonists and this recent reprint from Fantagraphics is a perfect place for you to dive in and get your feathers wet.  This also marks the Discussion Group’s first foray into classic funny animals.  You won’t be disappointed!

May:  We need to do something really big–really major– before the convention.  What is bigger (and better?) than Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel Maus.  This truly belongs on the short list of must-read comics.  Read it (or read it again), join the discussion and brace yourself.

June:  We hope to have at least three Discussion Groups throughout the HeroesCon weekend.  Our goal is to discuss the particular books with the creators joining in.  Last year, the Darwyn Cooke-The Outfit Discussion and the Wednesday Comics Panel  were major highlights.  We promise we will do our level best to top them in 2012.  Watch this space!

And what about the next six months? Glad you asked.  Although these are tentative selections (based on whether the books remain in print), we hope to present: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Cages by Dave McKean, Habibi by Craig Thompson and book-length works by Gilbert Hernandez and Canadian Cartooning Legend Seth (but which ones????)

Plan to join us– it’s fun, it’s no pressure, it’s a great way to spend part of a Saturday afternoon.  We’ll announce the specific dates for each discussion right here, so stay tuned, and we hope to see you there!