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. Did you see the name of the site? Or our regular articles about comics? Clearly, we’re familiar with the medium. Or who knows? Maybe we just pretend to be. James talks a lot about baseball… maybe we’re the jocks who beat you up in high school and we just like playing an elaborate ruse on you.

It could happen!

Or who knows, maybe we just like comics. But either way, you don’t have to only ask about them! You can ask us about anything! TV! Movies! Food! Sexual relations! An oddly specific, esoteric question about mid-90s music that will inspire James to write 1000 words on it! Literally anything.

You’re welcome, internet.

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Josh (@joshbazin) asks: What’s your favourite FCBD release? Any big surprises?

James: Well, the only real surprise I had was exactly how stereotypically DC-y DC’s Free Comic Book Day offering was. I mean, you can go down the list and basically just check off every New 52 cliché box there is. Heroes fighting heroes: check. Good guys pushed to moral ambiguity (this is the polite way of saying they’re villains, too) by harsh circumstances: check. Multiple limbs being cut off: check. An overriding belief that an overriding grittiness and thematic darkness is the key to success: check! It might actually have been the exact opposite of what I want from a DC comic, and honestly, I don’t know why I’m still surprised.

As for my favourite FCBD release, it was probably Dark Horse’s all ages offering. And while I liked the Itty Bitty Hellboy and Juice Squeezers stories inside it a lot, for me, the selling point of the issue is Gene Luen Yang and Faith Erin Hicks‘ Avatar: The Last Airbender story, which was funny, gorgeous and told a really important lesson. It was wonderful.

Brandon: There were a whole lot of surprises - companies put out books that matched their brand, which is smart. Usually the surprises come from new publishers hoping to make a splash, like Th3rd World did back in the day with Stuff of Legend. This year’s crop was… okay, but nothing really stood out for me. As for my favourite, that’s always the Atomic Robo offering, and this year wasn’t any different - although that specific Dark Horse effort James was talking about certainly wowed.

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Josh continues: What is the best use of $5 on ComiXology RIGHT NOW?

James: I’ll do you $2 better: the best THREE dollars you can spend on ComiXology right now is the Ink and Thunder series by Becky Cloonan. It’s not REALLY a series, more the banner for Cloonan’s three self-published minicomics Wolves, The Mire and Demeter, but each one is really poetic and astounding. They’re three of my favourite comics to come out in the last few years, period. Toss in the first couple of issues of Nextwave, on sale right now for $0.99 each, and that brings you up to five.

If you’re willing to spend SIX dollars, you could get the first volume of Grant Morrison‘s run on Batman, “Batman & Son”, as a digital deluxe edition.

Brandon: That volume includes the Club of Heroes story he did with J.H. Williams. Totally awesome.

James is spot on with those picks. I would also direct you towards almost anything Monkeybrain is putting out - maybe specifically… D4VE, which I think you’ll quite enjoy. It’s about a defense-bot-turned-desk-slave who sits at his desk and dreams about a return to his monster-punching past. It’s pretty great.

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Josh walks the line: How would it make you feel if someone changed their Twitter avatar and name to match yours?

James: Why Josh, if someone, maybe someone with a young family he should stick around for, did that, I don’t know what I might do. Maybe I’d lull him into a false sense of security before making a concerted effort to destroy his life. It could happen next week. It could happen next year. But maybe it would happen.

It’s a good thing nobody did that, right?

Brandon: I would smile, probably. Listen, there’s already a bro version of me out there, and I don’t seem to mind. That said, I have seemingly infinite amounts of patience, so there’s that.

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Josh wraps up: Why have I never seen yourself [James] and Brandon in the same room? Which one is Tyler Durden?

James: Brandon is a figment of our collective imaginations, the result of a social experiment of mine gone awry. I don’t know how to stop it at this point. Maybe I can’t. I guess we’re all just stuck pretending Brandon exists.

I assume his live-in girlfriend will be suitably disappointed with this news.

Brandon: As noted by times where I’ve told her that I’m actually a ghost, I can say she will not take the news well. But hey, as far as collective consciousness’ go, I’m pretty rad.

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Danica (@danicahere) asks: What are people not understanding about treating others with respect and kindness? Specifically, the comics industry.

James: It’s a gap in empathy, fundamentally. The good thing is that in time, a lot of people, when this is made clear to them, can change for the better. Usually, this is called growing up and not being a teenage boy anymore. But sometimes, it takes longer, and sometimes, entire industries and cultures defend that lack of empathy and support it. It’s tough to change those things, but I do feel like positive steps are being made; I’m gonna keep trying to encourage them.

Brandon: I’ve long equaited it to a weird Peter Pan’s disease where a person has stopped emotionally growing past high school, and is stuck guarding their “safe place” hungrily while others wish to do nothing more than enjoy awesome things that they are finally just discovering. Comics are particularly bad for it, unfortunately. I was always the dude with a handful of comics in his backpack, who always offered to share the books with others if they had nothing to read. Dudes, you have no idea how many people in Central Alberta started reading comics because of me. Turns out, sharing with others is productive. Who knew?

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Brittanie (@britl) asks: Why are you guys so rad? And what is your favourite thing about the other?

James: I was born this way, have good parents and try to always get better through a combination of introspection, listening to viewpoints from other lived experiences and an appropriately high amount of shame. Brandon, as an extension my subconscious (at least initially; see above) would theoretically be rad too, though clearly something went wrong along the way and I created history’s third greatest monster.

Now, as for the second part, since this is getting dangerously close to one of Brandon’s two allowed compliments per year (which he receives on the site’s anniversary and his birthday), let me just say that Brandon is passionate, dedicated to what he does (whether it’s destroying lives or helping me when I’m down and out) and has a level of intimacy and expertise regarding the comics industry that I just don’t have. As much as it pains me to say it, there is something Brandon knows more about than I do, and it’s not just how to make bathtub meth or slaughter a cow. So I’m glad he’s around, if only for purely selfish reasons.

For non-selfish reasons, you and he will have to wait for August 1st.

Brandon: I’m rad by design, I think. I make a concentrated effort to focus on the people and the things that I love, and that has worked out well for me. I try not to dwell to much on my shortcomings (despite my propensity to bring them up) and I try not to dwell too much on the destructive actions of others, prefering to counteract them as and while I can.

As for James, despite the persona he might put on, he is a wonderful guy, and fiercely loyal. If the chips are ever down, he’s there to offer help in whatever way he can. He’s also one of the smartest people I know, with a boundless passion for pop culture and media that I doubt could ever be sated, and I am blessed to be able to call him my best friend. You know, outside of Danica.

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Britney continues: Remember two years ago when I needed a new summer jam and you delivered “Call Me Maybe?” What’s this year’s jam?

James: As always, I take declaring a new summer jam very seriously. It’s gotta be light and bouncy. It’s gotta be singable. And it’s gotta sound great blaring from either a car stereo or a pair of speakers at a party. Ideally, it works both in the bright sunlight and as the sun goes down and you’re sitting around a fire. It has to, almost immediately, feel like summer. So I’m going to present three options:

• Iggy Azalea, “Fancy (feat. Charlie XCX)” - This is probably the car stereo song. Out of the three, this is the most boisterous and bass-heavy. It’s ridiculously fun to dance to. This is a summer party jam.
• Justin Timberlake, “Not A Bad Thing” - This is the end of the night slow jam song. It’s a come-on song with a killer groove. It’s a song that very clearly goes best with the final drinks of the night, a blanket and your arms around a great person as you sit in front of the fire. The problem, however, is that it might be too specialized.
• Paramore, “Ain’t It Fun” - Yes, it is. This is the closest to my outright pick for 2014 Summer Jam. It’s loud, fun to jump around to and sounds great blaring out of a speaker or a stereo. At the same time, you can turn it down low at the end of the night and it still works as the party is winding down. I’ve been a big fan of Hayley Williams’ knack for great vocal hooks, and here, she and her band bring in some interesting influences that weren’t there on their earliest, pre-lineup-change releases: funk and new jack swing. It works as a pop rock/punk song, but also just as a summer power pop anthem. It’s killer.

So there you have it: James’ official Summer Jam 2014 selection is Paramore’s “Ain’t It Fun,” with a couple of other selections for the playlist. Don’t get teen pregnant all at once, you crazy kids!

Brandon: There you go. The James has spoken. I honestly can’t argue since, I guess, my summer jam is “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and that’s old.

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That’s it for the one hundred and forty-first 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.