Nothing says Christmas like a strip club and Daredevil! — TV has A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Christmas Story — reruns that are holiday traditions. At 13th Dimension, we’ve got this piece that we’ve reprinted every December since it was first published in 2014. Here’s one of our favorite folks, Annie Nocenti, with a classic tale of Christmas with the Devil… — Dan — By ANN NOCENTI Sometimes I do stupid things that turn out OK. One year I broke-up with my boyfriend a few days before Christmas, and when that festive day came, I had nowhere to go. I was living in Chelsea in New York City, not far from Billy’s Topless, a pub known for its strippers and knife fights. On Christmas Day, I watched the world pass by my window, everyone loaded down with food and presents to bring to Christmas dinners. What an alienating feeling, to have nowhere to go! I was going to hide all day, pretend Christmas never happened that year, but there was no food in the fridge. Or rather, there was the usual dregs of what consisted of my idea of cooking in my early 20s – six packs and cold pizza. So, I took a walk. Nothing was open but Billy’s. What the hell, I thought. Why not go in? They had some pathetic tinsel hung in the window that looked downright festive, as compared to the black lump of coal in my heart that day. I had one of the best Christmases of my life in that pub. I met other unfortunate souls like myself that had nowhere to go on Christmas. A lovely elegant woman who kept lying to us all, claiming a limo was about to arrive with her gentleman date, like Blanche DuBois. Two brothers that fought bitterly about the implosion of their family. A few blind men from School for the Blind housing around the corner. As I drank rounds with these strangers, I thought of the comic I was currently writing, Daredevil. I was planning a story arc that was going to blow up Matt Murdock’s life. I thought, damn, he could end up here at the end of that arc. So, in the spirit of the camaraderie of that day, I wrote a little tale for a Daredevil...
A Christmas Eve tradition saluting the greatest Christmas comic-book story of them all… — UPDATED 12/24/25: Every year on Christmas Eve we run a tribute to Mike Friedrich and Neal Adams’ 1969 classic The Silent Night of the Batman — the greatest Christmas comic-book story of them all. This particular column, by Neal’s son-in-law, Pete Stone, first appeared in 2023. Enjoy. — Dan — By PETER STONE Neal Adams was one of the worst people to buy for at Christmas. Literally, he wanted nothing. He didn’t collect toys or any sort of collectibles. He bought himself everything he wanted. He didn’t search the internet for things he wanted or needed or had never seen. He didn’t want any clothes because he tended to wear the same clothes all the time. Jeans, sneakers and the famous “Blue Shirt”! The only thing he ever wanted or loved were his cartoon ties, the ones with the characters or superheroes on them. Some of them were simply characters hidden in paisley shapes and some were subtly repeated logos. He liked the ones that you wouldn’t notice at first. (Like the one in that banner above.) So, the family would search out the most unique ties for him, but if you couldn’t find a good one you were stuck. My daughter found him a Sasquatch tie one year. Sasquatch was hiding behind a fir tree, and he thought that was great. If you couldn’t find him a new one or a funny one, you had to buy him a real present. An Art of Jack Davis book. Drew Struzen: Oeuvre, a collection of Alphonse Mucha’s art, or an anthology of exceptional comic stories. Those were so hard to find and usually expensive. So, what could you buy the man who wants nothing for Christmas? I found the answer. Neal Adams loved Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant. He had gotten hardcover editions of Prince Valiant from Fantagraphics. I remember him looking through those editions, studying how much information Hal Foster put into every single panel… the ships, the construction of buildings, the castles and so much more. He loved Hal Foster’s drawing ability and how much he knew about the world in general. So, wouldn’t he like the oversize Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant Fantagraphics Studio Edition? Every single Sunday strip by Hal Foster, mostly in black...
13 COVERS in anticipation of Thunderbolts*…
A kinda-sorta epilogue to JOKER WEEK (and CATWOMAN WEEK)…
