I wouldn’t necessarily characterize myself as a comic fan.

Besides the time I found a few “X-Men” and “Conan the Barbarian” copies in the old bedroom my uncles used to share at my grandfather’s home during their youth, I hardly even think of comics.

Yet, when I go to a shop like the new Comics and Friends in Great Lakes Mall, I tend to get a little wide-eyed. It wasn’t unlike my experiences at the NBA Store in Orlando, or the recently closed Virgin Megastore in New York’s Union Square.

It's a smaller scale, for sure, but the only difference for me is that music and the NBA are passions of mine. So why, then, did I suddenly feel like this was the most fun I’ve had on an assignment in quite some time?

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-- Brandon C. Baker

Photo: DC Comics

I was in the office Tuesday night when the substation caught fire in Willoughby -- and for some of the next three hours while we sat around in the dark, waiting for the power to return. But the whole "no electricity" situation didn't keep us from working.

When the power went out, everyone in the office sat for a few moments, waiting for it to return. That's usually the case when the power goes out. But the lights didn't come back on. A co-worker on the copy desk, Robin Palmer, suggested that maybe a car hit a pole on Mentor Avenue, so she and I went out the front door to see if there was anything happening outside.

We walked into the visitor parking lot and to the driveway, but it didn't seem like anything was going on outside. I turned around to walk back toward the building when I noticed smoke over the treeline toward the northwest. I pointed it out to Robin, and then we heard popping noises.

Read more of my experience here

-- Cheryl Sadler
CSadler@News-Herald.com