(Yes, the Outhousers were correct…)
Valentines and St. Patrick’s Days are in the middle of the month, so don’t work too well for “30 Days”. We could do 40 days of Lent, but it only gets good the last week or so. So, to fill the void between Christmas and summer con season, we introduce…
Thirty Days of Arbor Day™ !!!!
Script: Alan Moore, Pencils: Stan Woch, Inks: Ron Randall, Colors: Tatjana Wood, Letters: John Costanza
Sure, it’s a lesser-known holiday, recently eclipsed by Earth Day. But did you know that every state celebrates it? (Although on different days, and months even!) Every state has an official tree, and where would comics be without wood pulp? It’s politically correct (save the environment), it’s creative (plant whatever you like), and hipsters love adopting crazy and obscure cultural phenomena! (There have even been Google Doodles for Arbor Day!)
How crazy is it? Well, a Nebraskan came up with the idea (after he moved there from New York, years before Nebraska became a territory). The first Arbor Day, in 1872, two million trees were planted in Nebraska! When there were only 122,993 people in the entire state!
If that’s not crazy enough, another Nebraskan (originally from Ohio) theorized that treeless western Nebraska could support a forest, resulting in a 20,000 acre National Forest, planted by hand!
And to add an extra level of geeky nerdiness to all this, J. Sterling Morton has his own botanical author abbreviation, and Charles E. Bessey created a taxonomy for flowering plants which serves as the foundation for modern classification of plants!
So join us as we celebrate trees and other plants all month long! There will be a “24 Hours of Earth Day” series as well, so please send your recommendations!
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