Welcome, dear readers, to our regular letter column; a series of missives from and to the internet, delivered by a series of tubes. We welcome your comments and questions. About anything! We’ll answer it, and at least one of us will take you seriously. Maybe.

Your questions can be about comics. I mean, “Comics!” is right there in the title of this site. There’s even an exclamation mark. That sounds emphatic, doesn’t it? I feel like it does. So that probably means we shouldn’t only invite questions about fine cuisine and bees. Don’t get me wrong, you can ask about those too, and we’ll happily answer them, but we’re also answer questions about our namesake, I guess.

You can still ask us about bees, though. We always love talking about bees.

You’re welcome, internet.

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Jay (@jayrunham) asks: If the superhero comic character that best represents James is Doom, what is the best superhero comic character that represents Brandon? What is the best superhero comic character that best represents me?

James: True story: I was ready to think up who would be the worst character to call Brandon - just the worst character imaginable. Like Dr. Light in Identity Crisis. Or Kick-Ass. And Jay, you would of course be Toad, the frequent lackey or whipping boy of the X-Men and their villains alike. Oh, how close I came. But then I realized:

That is giving you all too much credit.

Since, obviously, you all exist inasmuch as you orbit me, as long as deign you to, it’s clear. You’re both Doombots. But, like, those bum ones that are always breaking down as soon as someone breaths on them. I should really retire you two.

All is Leask.

Brandon: Man, I dunno. I’d love to say I’d be Spider-Man, but I know I’m probably way too selfish to be that selfless. No, if I were a superhero, I’d probably be a less dead, less homeless D-Man. Jay, you would probably be Multiplex - the villain who named himself after a theatre with multiple screens, matching his ability to duplicate himself.

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Sarah (@sjleask) asked: Which show was better- Clarissa Explains It All or Blossom? Please provide examples as to why.

James: This is a difficult one, because I genuinely really enjoyed both shows. The problem is, though, despite being family-friendly multi-camera sitcoms with teenage female leads, they were very different in tone and execution, part of which comes down to the networks they were on. Clarissa Explains It All was a Nickelodeon show, with all that entails. It was bright, multi-coloured and thematically very light. There was bad stuff that happened, but overall it was like later season Eric Matthews on Prozac. Clarissa’s brother gets bullied, but the bully turns out to be a nice guy who Clarissa ends up dating. The show broke the fourth wall frequently, and it was in a fun way, like Zack in Saved by the Bell or the weird cartoon Hilaries Duff in Lizzie McGuire. The series basically existed to make people feel good, which is why it’s often considered a precursor of other weird, basic cable teen sitcoms like iCarly.

But Blossom? That show was dark. Which is weird, considering it had bizarre celebrity cameo sequences and a comic relief idiot, much like later season Eric Matthews. Hell, it had two comic relief idiots in Joey and Six. It was funny, because, well, it was a sitcom. The entire show, however, was infused with a darkness right from the start, and all you have to do with the pilot. First off, the plot of the pilot was Blossom confiding in her best friend about her parents’ fighting and her emotional struggles to come to term with it. The episode climaxes with their announcement that they’re getting divorced. And that best friend, Six? You know how that name was explained, before it was retooled? Six was named after the number of beers it took her dad to get her mom to drink before he could have sex with her. That’s right: the goofy, flighty “alternative” best friend was named after her mother’s date rape.

This was a show on NBC in the early 1990s, featuring an original theme song (“My Prerogative”) by a man who would later be best known for spousal abuse.

And while they’d retool Six’s name and Blossom’s family structure (retaining the divorce while presenting a more stable home life), Blossom still retained that fundamental darkness. Blossom’s oldest brother, Tony, was a recovering alcoholic and addict who can’t remember four years of his life. After fighting for his sobriety, he later falls off the wagon, on-air, and has to deal with the consequences. Six herself would struggle with alcoholism, inappropriate sexual relationships and a pregnancy scare. For all the fun dancing in the title sequence and the cool dad and the floppy hats, Blossom was a show that was fundamentally, in a way, about the issues that other shows of its era, like Saved by the Bell, Full House or Family Matters, would treat as Very Special Episodes. Kimmy Gibbler or Shawn Hunter can struggle with drinking for one episode. Zack Morris can learn a lesson at Christmas when he dates a homeless girl, but he comes back from break and she’s never seen or heard from again. Everybody on Blossom is perpetually living in the wake of tragedy and the show is built around their coping mechanisms and the lessons they learn along the way.

Here’s the thing: I respect the hell out of that. I appreciate that it was a show that wore that focus on its sleeve, instead of shuffling it off into episode-length PSAs that were forgotten the moment the next episode started. It was probably the better-written and better-made show. It was almost definitely smarter and more emotionally mature. By almost any objective standard, it is the better show. The problem is that as a result of the show basically being one non-stop chronic episode of PTSD, it’s not a show I actually really want to watch again that often. Clarissa, while emotionally slight, is the kind of show I want to watch more often. It’s very much a forbear of iCarly, which I still semi-regularly watch from 2-3 on YTV, and so while it might not be as good of a show, it’s probably my favourite out of the two.

Brandon: You rich kids with your cable television and your access to Clarissa Explains It All. I’ve only watched Blossom - which is to say, I’ve witnessed exactly three episodes of Clarissa - and I remember enjoying it. My parent, however, didn’t like me watching it, I’m assuming because of the “issues”. Ah well.

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Scott (@scottowilliams) asks: Is there any franchise less in need of a gritty reboot than the Fantastic Four? (Besides Superman, I guess)

Brandon: Mmmmm, Spider-Man probably? Dirty up that Parker life. His story wasn’t sad enough anyway, right? If we’re talking movies in general, I’d go with Jem.

James: Basically, any superhero at all, except maybe the ones who aren’t really heroes, like the Punisher, Lobo or Spawn. Those dudes are pretty gritty by default, and while it’s certainly possible in some situations to give them brighter, more all-ages-friendly demeanors (see: Lobo in Tiny Titans), it’s always gonna be hard to take a guy who wears a skull so that the people murders can be extra afraid of him and then make him a hero. But heroes like Spider-Man, Ben Grimm or Batgirl? They should almost always, without fail, present a certain level of brightness and heroism. They don’t need to be gritty. They were created to oppose that sentiment, to provide something aspirational. Antiheroes aren’t aspirational; they’re compromises, and I’m getting more and more tired of that.

Come to the Metro Cinema in Edmonton, AB on Tuesday, May 20th at 7pm to hear me talk more about this while introducing The Incredibles! Brandon will be there too, I guess.

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Scott continues: What is the most justified, righteous internet argument you ever had? Which was the worst, most frustrating or pointless?

Brandon: Same answer for both. The arguement would be “my final days as an editor at that one comic book site”, which included me posting a fake article about Marvel and DC holding internet nerd elections in order to determine the future direction of their product lines (which a fellow editor and the majority of the readers took as real), being told that I didn’t understand what grief was when I wrote an article about the sheer ridiculousness of JMS’ run on Superman, and featured daily bouts with one of the site runners about how the site could be changed into a force for good. Like CBR just did.

Now I’m not saying it was a pointless arguement - I still feel as though I was in the right about all of that, and I’m going to allow myself a brief moment of disgusting self-importance and say that the present push for a more positive comics community is proving me historically correct. I’m just saying it was pointless to argue with that dick.

James: To answer your first question, I think it’s basically been any time I’ve spoken up on issues of gender, sexuality or race. We tend to keep politics pretty separate from our writing here, but in short, I try to be a good ally, from listening to speaking up in support. This is far more justified or important than arguing about James Bond (i.e. that Roger Moore is an abomination) or any other Nerd/Continuity Argument, which is basically the most pointless kind of argument. I mean, I’ve had legit shouting matches over Roger Moore. A friend of a friend once screamed at me for like an hour because I said I don’t really like “Stairway to Heaven” as much as I do other Led Zeppelin songs. I didn’t really come out of these feeling like I’d spent my time well, you know?

That said, the most frustrating arguments are definitely the political ones on Twitter. It’s a medium dedicated to brevity, and as a result it can be difficult to have nuanced discussions there. I’ve gotten frustrated a lot of times when I hear people I know - people who I had thought were reasonable, kind individuals - talk about how sometimes a woman really did kind of “ask for it.” In those situations, I get so angry I have to take a break and cool off, whereas there’s nothing but my ego keeping me arguing about Roger Moore.

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Scott finishes with a plea to be killed: How great are lenticular covers? Shouldn’t we have all lenticular everything?

Brandon: For the second time in my life, I’m happy you have AIDS. For the first time in my life, I’m upset I didn’t give it to you.

Fellas.

James: Let’s point out that I started this column by being a straight-up supervillain and talking about how Brandon is equivalent to a comic book rapist, and I still didn’t say the most awful thing here. For shame, Brandon.

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That’s it for the one hundred and fortieth instalment of Um, Actually. Check in every Monday and Thursday for a brand new column. If you have anything you’d like answered, hit up our contact page! If you submit anything via Twitter – to @blogaboutcomics, @Leask, or @soupytoasterson – remember to include the hashtag #UMACTUALLY so that we don’t lose it. Remember: you can ask us anything. Seriously, anything.