Actually, I’m quite proud of my nerdy Australian brethren for stopping a criminal on Free Comic Book Day, although I have to assume that store owner Michael Baulderstone is being facetious when he talks about his “spider-sense” alerting him to the theft (which is obviously probable, but not at all guaranteed). But what I want to know about is the dipshit who decided to steal an X-Men Omnibus from a comic store on Free Comic Book Day. C’mon, dude. You don’t have to be the fucking Kingpin to figure out that’s a poor plan all the way around. Thanks to the million or so of you who sent in the tip.
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.