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That’s right good people. Even Canadians can win chances to read Captain Freedom, although it was neither translated into French, French-Canadian, Acadian, or Saskatchewan.
How to win:
Go to the Book Lady’s Blog. You should go there anyway, because she’s a nice lady who reads. On this page you will read a lovely review of Captain Freedom. This is not required, but it will help you.
Then enter a comment at the bottom. About what sort of super power you’d like. Keep it clean. Any comments about Dr. Manhattan’s Supersize Cerulean Sausage will be banned.
Then pray to any god or gods you know. Book Lady will give away5 (five/cinq) copies of the book, to random Canadians and Americans who love freedom. And Freedom.
Once the book is in Canadian hands we can execute my secret plan to infiltrate the country and steal all of its sacred moose drool.
Listen to Excerpts of G. Xavier Robillard read from Captain Freedom at McNally Jackson. Aside from his reading he talks about giving up comics in a desperate attempt to get girls. Which we believe was a total failure.
From the NPR introduction:
A native of Long Island, Robillard is a long-suffering Mets fan, a musician and a software expert with a keen sense of the absurd and an abiding love for a good acronym: the Criminal Abatement Preparatory Exam or C.A.P.E., to name just one.
Robillard says he owes a debt of gratitude to Arnold Schwarzenegger, action-hero-turned-governor, who was something of an inspiration for the first version of Captain Freedom. Robillard later turned his hero’s story into a short humor piece for his local public radio station in Oregon. And from there, it grew into the novel, an outrageous satire of our celebrity-obsessed pop culture.
Listen to the live performance on NPR. also known as National Peoples Republic(SocialistRadio).
The Good People at curled up with a good book want to curl up with me! Or at least, my book:
Fans of superhero parody movies like The Incredibles will get a chuckle out of this book, but just about anyone will find much to smile and laugh at through this story of a superhero’s desire to bring his glory days back.
There is a new unspeakable evil out there, and if I weren’t all set with a nemesis I’d consider taking up this group. I mean, I’m not exactly all set with a nemesis. I’m mostly seeing one, maybe two nemeses. It’s ComplicatedTM. Mostly I don’t want to lead these villains on. Because that’s not what I do. That’s what villains do.
The unspeakable evil of which I speak (confound this occasionally awkward English language) is not the ISS, pictured in full flesh-lacking head attire at left, although they used this implement of noisome filth to impugn my character. The loathsome, fearful beast of which I speak comes served up especially in 140 character increments, served over warm hell juice. It is called Twitter.
You might think that hardworking, occasionally employed Superheroes don’t have the time for Twitter. To Tweet. To be Twits. But an oft-employed Superhero is exactly the kind who might be found on Twitter, because let’s face it: I am a famous entity and if I write a 140 character screed to alert you that someone installed the office toilet paper in the ‘under’, as opposed to the ‘over’ position, you will care. You will be grateful. You will reTweet it as if you were providing some sort of community service. You will essentially be the internet barnacle that cleans my salty bottom because that is how this insane symbiotic relationship works.
You can follow me, or at least my ghostwriter, @gxrobillard, who is lonely and desperate enough that for any amount of attention he will Show You His Twits.
Rely on the incompetence of his crew
Your enemy will likely hire a gang with sub-par talents. The labor pool for henchmen is of notoriously poor quality, as people with any drive or talent quickly move up the crime ladder. If the henchmen were supposed to tie you up, they were likely to use a slipknot instead of a square knot. They will argue about whether the vat of boiling oil they were planning on putting you in is hot enough, and there will be a long discussion of how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius as you make your hasty egress. Plus, and this is a dirty little secret, Your Enemies frequently hire illegal immigrants, who as often as not do not have the best grasp of the English language.
Make sure that when you let them tie you up after you’ve been knocked unconscious you end up in a location close to many sharp objects on the floor (but not so close you suffer injury).
This is easier if Your Enemy has you in an unused warehouse, or in the back part of her lair which she hasn’t cleaned out in months because she’s been too busy planning this current crime spree and she isn’t about to hire a cleaning person because of the obvious security risks and the henchmen are really pretty messy. Lots of objects are sharp: broken glass, knives, video game blister packs, old soda cans that you shred with your teeth. Perhaps you have a false tooth that’s concealing a small dagger which you can flick out of your mouth with your super strong tongue. That would be thinking ahead. Warning: don’t mistakenly crush the false tooth containing the cyanide, unless you’ve also got a false tooth containing cyanide antidote right next to it.
In which I’m compared to an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I’ll take it.
Not only is it consistently funny throughout, but it is packed with so many gags, riffs and rimshots that even if one bit doesn’t make you chuckle, chances are the next one will.
This is exactly what satire is supposed to be: cutting, yet light.Robillard is a guy who looks at the world around him, really understands what motivates people and then completely skewers it. Nearly every paragraph is a punchline, and if it isn’t funny yet, it will be by the end of the chapter.
You can read the rest of the review in today’s Baltimore Sun.
Listen to Excerpts of G. Xavier Robillard read from Captain Freedom at McNally Jackson. Aside from his reading he talks about giving up comics in a desperate attempt to get girls. Which we believe was a total failure.
The Good People at curled up with a good book want to curl up with me! Or at least, my book:
There is a new unspeakable evil out there, and if I weren’t all set with a nemesis I’d consider taking up this group. I mean, I’m not exactly all set with a nemesis. I’m mostly seeing one, maybe two nemeses. It’s ComplicatedTM. Mostly I don’t want to lead these villains on. Because that’s not what I do. That’s what villains do.
That’s right. At 
(at left, invisible pitbull)
Buy the book at