I grew up in Baltimore, where I attended an all-Jewish parochial school. When I was in kindergarten, my Hebrew teacher Mr. Manischevitz taught us how to draw an Alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, by drawing a picture of Popeye on the board. One of Popeye's arms went straight up, and the other went straight down, just like an the two "arms" that stick out of the sides on an Alef. I think Mr. Manischevitz was trying to use cartoons to get his students hooked on Hebrew. And maybe for the other students, that was true. But as far as I was concerned, he'd used Hebrew to get me hooked on cartoons.

This weekend, I'll be doing a book signing at the Baltimore Comic Con. Yes, I'm going back to my hometown, where I'll see some old friends and reconnect with family. It'll be like a less depressing Garden State (and I put less product in my hair than Zach Braff). The cool thing about going to another city to do a promotional event for a comic -- or a book about comics -- is that people invariably come up and tell you about comic book creators who hail from that area. It genuinely seems to be a point of pride for them. For example, when I did a signing at the Detroit Jewish Book Fair two years ago, a woman told me that (years and years ago) she'd dated Al Milgrom, co-creator of the DC Comics superhero Firestorm. A bunch of other people remembered a Nice Jewish Boy named Sam Raimi who had a crazy idea that he and his friends would get together and make a no-budget splatterfest called Evil Dead. Wonder how that turned out. And a couple of weeks ago, in Ft. Myers, Florida, right after I gave a lecture, one of the people in the audience told me that he was the cousin of comic book writer/movie producer Michael Uslan (The Dark Knight). Ft. Myers is also the home of Firestorm artist Rafael Kayanan. (What's up with every town having a Firestorm connection? Are there any Firestorm artists in Baltimore? Idea for book: "The Firestorm Diaries." Premise: I go to every major city in America and research that city's Firestorm connection.) It's actually pretty surprising though, because comics really do seem like such a niche market these days. And the stereotype of the nerdy comic book geek is still pretty prevalent. For all the noise the media makes about comic book movies, there aren't nearly as many people who'd read a Spider-Man comic book as there are people who'd see a Spider-Man movie. Which...well, it is what it is. (And what it is is a topic for another time.) But in each of these cities, people -- mind you, not necessarily people who are themselves comic book fans -- are eager to share stories of the comics creators they know or have known. And it gives me a sense of the larger comics community out there. But it also makes me think that as much as people openly mock geeks, every city has a strong sense of geek pride. Every adult geek was once a kid geek, be it in Ft. Myers, Detroit, or wherever.

And maybe in Baltimore today, there's some five-year-old who just learned how to draw an "M", but all she cares about is how -- if you draw stripes on it -- the letter looks like Garfield's ears.