If you remember my con report from New York Comic Con 09, you'll remember the amazing amount of help I received from Mike Ciccotello during that hectic time.

Mike has been working on a comic of his own called Schoolhouse Daze. Schoolhouse Daze is the story about a group of misfit animal children and an escaped lab-rat who attempts to educate them.

I get such a "young Berkeley Breathed" vibe from his linework. It's really a joy to watch the strip develop. I know he's planning to spend a little time hanging out at the Evil Inc table at Wizard World Philly this weekend. So, if you like his work, you can stop by and say so to his face.

Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #2
Creative team: Story by Ivan Brandon; art by Marco Rudi

When I attended Alma College, we had kind of a Saturday-night ritual. After coming home from the parties and the non-stop bacchanalia that was my social life, my friends and I would retire to my dorm room and flip on my small, black-and-white TV set. After adjusting the antenna, one of the three stations I'd be able to pick up came fuzzily into view.

By the way. I'm not that old. I graduated in 1991.

One of the TV shows that we'd keep running into was The Prisoner.

Now, in case you're not familiar, The Prisoner was a surreal series about a former secret agent who is held prisoner in a mysterious seaside village where his captors try to find out why he abruptly resigned from his job. It wasn't until the end of the series that anyone was able to make heads or tails out of anything.

My friends and I were seeing re-runs. Skipping episodes. Drunk.

Think of watching Lost out-of-order. Through a fish tank.

We hated that show with a white-hot passion.

Reading Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape has brought back that same feeling to me of being in my dorm room, watching The Prisoner, trying to figure out WTF is going on.

And now I know what people mean when they say that there's a fine line between love and hate.

There's no doubt that writer Ivan Brandon is conjuring a Prisoner vibe with this title. But I'm not drunk reading this comic. And I'm a little more mature. And maybe a bit smarter.

And I like it.

Almost makes me yearn for that old black-and-white TV set.

	16% (3)	Exactly right!
	61% (11)	No way! They're all horrible!
	22% (4)	There's a shining star, but it's not "Escape"...

Captain America #600
Creative team: Story by Ed Brubaker, Mark Waid, Roger Stern, and more. Art by Butch Guice, Alex Ross, Luke Ross, and more.

Comic Book Resources has a preview of Captain America #600. According to CBR:

As detailed this morning by ROBOT 6, news broke [yesterday] that Steve Rogers, the original Captain America who was murdered two years ago in "Captain America" #25, is confirmed to return in "Captain America: Reborn," a Marvel Comics miniseries by Ed Brubaker and Byran Hitch & Butch Guice that begins July 11. The story is preceded by "Captain America" #600, also written by Brubaker, which in a highly unusual move, went on sale [yesterday] -- as opposed to Wednesday, when comics traditionally ship to Direct Market retailers.

The news was made plain by Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada in a short piece in New York's Daily News, in which he said, "The original Captain America is finally coming back..."

For more on this story, CBR's Jonah Weiland and Kiel Phegley spoke with Quesada.

Check out the preview here.