From: [m--oa--e] at [bgsuvax.bgsu.edu] (Coale - M)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: MWAID's 1988 Christmas Editorial (kinda long)
Date: 23 Dec 94 17:56:40 GMT

Well, since Mark said it was okay to post, here is his Christmas "editorial"
from DC's "Christmas with the Super-Heroes" from 1988.

(any typos are, of course, mine and not Mark's <: )

  So it's a few years ago and it's Christmas Eve Day and I'm in CA, which, for
all its wonderfulness every other time of the year, has got to be one of 
the most dismal places to spend Christmas. It's 84 degrees outside, just as
sunny as can be, no Christmas in the air at all, and I'm about as jolly as a
reindeer with mange. The only snow within 300 miles was the snow job I
buried my friends in last when I insisted that no, I'd be JUST FINE, don't
worry about ME, which is what I whined as I drove them to the airport so they 
could run off to spend the holiday with THEIR loved ones while I sat at home.
  Too poor to even afford a Christmas tree, I'd jury-rigged one by stringing
lights and balls around a wire comic-book spinner rack. 'Hey Kids, Christmas.'
In retrospect, it looked pretty pathetic and it's a minor Christmas miracle in
itself that I didn't send 120 AC volts thru myself when I plugged the thing
in--but one does what one can in a pinch.
  At the time, in my pre-credit card days, my place looked like Gandhi's
first apartment after college. I had a chair, a radio, a night stand and 
12,000 comic books. And some forks. I had some forks. And an electrified
Christmas tree. Which was a real crime, and I don't mean to go on about it, but
Christmas is REALLY cool and my FAVORITE time of the year and here I'm standing
in an apartment that looked like the set from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas.'
  So I decided to read and get my mind off things. I dug and I dug thru
12,000 comics and against my better judgement pulled a fistful of holiday
stories featuring Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, the Spirit and so forth and
so on. I spent most of the night going over Christmas comics, some I hadn't
looked at for years.
  I really didn't know what I was expecting...but I came away feeling a
little bit better. Sure it was all cheap melodrama, but I'm a soft touch
for Capraesque schmaltz in the first place, and reading simple stories about
Superman and his compatriots teaching kids the true meaning of Christmas just
somehow hit all the buttons i needed hit that night.
  To this day I'm puzzled and a bit embarassed that a grown-up Mark Waid
managed to somehow find comfort in a man who dresses up like a bat every
night...but, for what it was worth, it was a Christmas that was slighty less
empty, and regardless of how ludicrous the reason, I remain grateful.
  From all of us to all of you-DC Comics wished you the happiest of holidays.