First of all - let's get the good news out front. They got the guy.
Also, it's not in the St. Louis news article, but I believe the police got their first good lead on scumbag -- all right, alleged scumbag -- Gerry Armbruster from a comics fan who recognized the description and M.O. and bird-dogged the guy's Facebook page early last week.
The fan that tipped the cops used the whole name on Facebook then, but I didn't want to use that name when I wrote last week's article; seeing the global mob already forming, I didn't want every angry Superman fan with an internet connection to land on maybe the wrong guy. But I did correct it from "Gary" to "Gerry," and I can tell you now that it is in fact that same Gerry Armbruster who the police took into custody.
Mike's collection was completely recovered. He now has, thanks to an unprecedented wave of comics internet niceness, almost double what he lost, with more packages coming every day. (The family requests that you please not send any more stuff, if you haven't already done so.) Already the amount of comics and books and toys that have been arriving just over the last few days has been overwhelming. Mike says the replacement collection will probably go to a local children's hospital... his way of paying that generosity forward.
So for this week's column, I give you the final version of the Superman gallery that I have been getting submitted to me. These are scans of the cards and art that comics fans all over the world have been sending to Mike Meyer. I decided it was big enough to rate its own post. Here you go. This is the last update.
Also, I put in links to each artist's own site in the names, when I could find gallery or webcomic sites for them. Do check them out. Lots of good stuff there.
And again, you all are amazing. In fact, one might even say-- yeah, I'm going there-- SUPER.
Steven Vasquez sent these two:
Celina Hernandez:
Christine Smith:
Claude Parish:
Yannick:
Mike Hales:
Steven Wells:
Toby Allen:
Ray Wegner:
Dock James:
Louis Bright-Raven:
Nabetse's Drawing Room:
Jande Rowe:
Edo Bosnar sent this from Croatia:
Dennis Kanenwisher:
Worth Dayley:
Roberto Torres:
Elaine Bogan:
Josh Heusinkveld:
Todd Tevlin:
Joshua Swanagon:
Marieke Valstar:
TamTu Bui:
Antoine Gagnon:
Lucky:
Jakob Burgos:
Jon Bogdanove:
Mike Casteel is sending these two custom pillows with Superman art by himself and his girlfriend:
And to go with those pillows, here's a quilted sofa throw
Tarabu Arts made especially for Mike.
Tyra White drew Mike himself as Superman:
"Jenny Everywhere" webcomic for Mike:
a whole gallery of drawings from the folks at Dreamworks.
And my favorite so far can be found
here, from Desmond Reddick and his son Cade.
Check them out, click on the link. It will make you smile. In fact, click on ALL those artist links, because there's some great stuff at each of them.
And finally, here is some video of
Mike reading your mail.
Can't top that, so.... I'll see you next week.