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Local Talent:
Important Links:
Origin of Baroness & Duke: The Comic Book
Event Pictures:
SPOTLIGHT ON LOCAL TALENT
There are a few folks in our area that have been published. Follow their links for more details on the individuals listed here.
Local Artist Signing Event Photos - Featuring David Dumeer, Charles Shell, Kevin Sharpe, and Josh Ginter!
Ben's first trip to the comic store!!!
A milestone in any fan's life!
Grace makes a wonderful
Wonder Woman!
Godzilla raided our public library!
All figures courtesy of Mike Givens.
Spider-Sydney!
Supergirl paid us a visit on
Halloween... thanks Valerie!
A long time ago, in a dimension far, far away, there lived a pair of cousins, (just cousins!) born into royal nobility. Such was the importance of their position that they never had given names, only titles. They were the Baroness and the Duke. Possessing neither exceptional strength nor other prowess on their own home world, they were nonetheless important (if not more than a little bored) in their kingdom. Friends with the forgetful and klutzy wizard Malachi, they often visited his tower in search of something different to do. On a particularly boring day, the wizard was showing off his new discovery, "the four magic windows." Even though he was blind when he looked in either pair of the apertures, the cousins found it was like looking through the eyes of someone else in a place that was so much different from their own, yet achingly familiar at the same time. The two cousins vied with each other for a better view and wound up being pulled in by their own likenesses from the other side! They landed next to their mirror images on the rooftop of 3514 Williamson Road, a comic shop in our world of Roanoke, Virginia. Wearing their uniforms of state as a matter of routine (which included scarves woven of a mysterious material the royal family had handed
down since their reign began) they discovered they had strange and wonderful powers in this new and very “unboring” land. Inventory Vision, Super Stocking Strength, Sale-ing through the air and the ability to count the amount of money in a passer-by's pocket were but a few things the pair were capable of. They decided they liked it here much better than at home and have been here ever since. Dormant for over 10 years, they lie sleeping as images in the signs on either side of the door of the current location of the same comic shop that they landed on, now located at 802 Elm Avenue in old Southwest. The owners (now owner) have never known of the power that resides in said images, but have benefited on many occasions from their surreptitious aid. This secret is only known to the comic shop's first employee, Todd, and they remain in slumber until needed. For details on their arrival and their early adventures on this side of the veil, please see their only published tales in THE BARONESS AND THE DUKE #1, from 1984.
The characters of the Baroness and the Duke came about when we asked Lynchburg artist, Danny Grigsby, to draw a store mascot. Using the initials of the store, B&D (for Terry Baucom and Phil Davis) he presented a single male figure and I asked him to do a female character as well. Wearing a B and a D respectively on a diamond shield, we ran a contest for customers to come up with appropriate names. After throwing out such suggestions as the B*t*h and the Devil, Mike Freshwater named the characters Baroness and Duke and they went on to star in their own self-published comic mentioned above. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and we had fun doing it. (But keep in mind the standards were a lot lower then!) Copies were for sale in the shop for $1.50 each but we have none left. If you already own one, we highly recommend reading it with a MST3K attitude!
