Free Comic Book Day is receiving one of its largest public relations boosts, thanks to the conjunction of Wolverine in theaters and Hugh Jackman's promotional video. Jackman didn't do it by himself, of course, but he has consistently been a terrific advocate, not only for comic books, but also for comics' creators!

And, speaking of creators, a number of forces clearly had to come together to make that video and provide it circulation. Thanks to all!

As delivered this morning, when my United Airlines check-in was refused, and I was sent to work things out with USAir, which had arranged the flight:

1 "Don't give me attitude." (This was in response to my pointing out that, yes, as I'd said, I'd already done what she was telling me to do.)

2 "Good thing you got here early." Which I always try to do but am often mocked for. It took about half an hour to disabuse the computer of the notion that I had somehow canceled my return flight home or not made a connecting flight days earlier. (And I should say that the ticket agent did, indeed, solve the problem with the patience required to hang on hold with whoever necessary to resolve things.)

So lessons learned.

Every New Year's Day in recent years has brought a special fonts sale from "The World's Greatest Comic Book Fonts!" aka Richard Starkings' Comicraft service.

The deal is simple enough: On New Year's Day 2000, for example, every font was priced at $20.00. Inflation being what it is, the price has gone up, now that it's New Year's Day 2009: $20.09.

But it was still a pleasure to browse the fonts and pick new favorites. For $20.09 each today, I bought SpillProof, CutthroatLower-Intl, and SignLanguage. You may find others that tickle your fancy. (If you don't already have ComicCrazy, for example, I recommend it for starters.)

But the offer's only good today.

Check it out! You, too, can pretend you're a comic-book letterer!