As I collect a few years here and there under my hat I'm beginning to notice not a lot of people have a best friend. I'm not talking about the person you frequent the clubs with, gossip with, and just as soon find someone else to talk to on the phone kind of friend. I'm talking the real deal. The pal that will let you crash on their couch....no matter what. The one that doesn't just encourage you to find trouble, but finds it with you! The kind that will stick through the muck and shit with you no matter the circumstances.

Not only that, but I'm beginning to notice not a lot of people will even have this kind of best friend....and it be a lifelong friend! I'm beginning to see how lucky I am.

I don't even recall the time I first met my best friend. I do know our parents frequented the same Midwestern, God-fearing church together. I do know our parents would take turns babysitting each others' kids. I do know my best friend used to play with my older brother, until he figured out I was a little more willing to traverse the ends of imagination and adventure. And that was somewhat the beginning.I cannot even begin to measure the limits of magic, meanderings, shenanigans, mischief, horseplay, tomfoolery,  and even fortune we have encountered since.

When we were but dorky small-town brats, we thought that we were going to make it big! We planned to someday move to New York, knock on the door of Marvel and/or DC Comics, and change the entire state of worldly events (or so we believed). Who knows if we'll still have a chance to pitch our awesomeness to some aged and disgruntled comic book creator, waiting for the next great idea? Regardless, our New Vision, to me, was an entire world away from reality; our own little backyard nobody could touch....no badness from the real world could reach it! It was ours, and that was enough!

So, without further ado (and seeing as how I have no money currently for a real gift this year) I give you a glimpse of what this imaginary world of New Vision Comics may or may not have been (honoring, of course the gaudiness of the Liefeldian '90s....otherwise known in comicdom as "The Dark Ages"). A little bit of that trio of good-natured boys on a road trip, baking their own little piece of the Akashic pie . . .