"Hey, true believers!" he said. "The Marvel Entertainment Group is in booth six thirty!"

Doug gave a hesitant thumbs-up. "Thanks."

"Thank you, Spider-Man," said Jay.

Spider-Man leaped away and delivered his line again to a group of Japanese girls.

The two boys tunneled through the feedlot of warm bodies to visit every table and booth in turn. They got writers and artists to sign comics and a model dressed as Punching Judy to sign Doug’s arm. It would have been a good opportunity to say one of the funny comic-book lines he’d thought up ("You’re making me horny. You wouldn’t like me when I’m horny."), but he couldn’t quite manage it. Punching Judy was getting dirty looks from the writer/illustrator of SuperBitch, who was talking to a local news crew from her adjoining booth.

"Superhero secret identities are like virginity," she told the camera. "All these sweaty boys want to see the day when she gives it up, the day everyone knows her, but then after it’s gone, they’re disappointed. They want her to have a secret identity again."

Doug supposed that was true. It was always this big euphoric event in a comic when the hero’s girlfriend or whoever learned his secret. Everybody wanted to read that story, but a year later the writers would probably give the girlfriend amnesia. You always wanted to put the cat back in the bag.

He’d blown his cover last night at that party, but Doug was going to be more careful from now on. He sort of wished he hadn’t even told Jay.

They watched the world premiere of a new movie trailer and then attended a ten thirty panel discussion with DC comics editors, where there was a prize: a light-up resin Green Lantern ring, one of only five thousand produced.

"Cool," said Jay.

"Green Lantern’s gay," said Doug.

The panel moderator flashed it off and on a couple of times. "Is that not awesome?" he said. "And the ring goes…to the audience member who has traveled the farthest to be here!"