If you had to choose two of the themes that most inspire our helmet designs, you’d hit on group sports and fantasy-fueled pop culture.

The Kapow! helmet, available in Spring 2016

So yes, of course we have to celebrate National Comic Book Day today.

And, as is our nutty habit, we start with a slice of history.

Traces of the comic book appear in Japan far back in the 1700s, while it took Europe until about the 1830s to make the panels of line-drawn art and speech-bubble narratives that we would recognize as comics.

Perhaps predictably, it was the Americans who first popularized the comic book, back in the 1930s. Cartoon and comic strips in the newspaper had appeared in the latter 19th century.

Gradually, popular characters got their own stories in cheaply printed, bright-colored, soft bound books. Famous Funnies is considered one of the first comic books.

Superheroes abounded, mostly males. Superman made his first appearance in 1938.

Finally, in 1941, Wonder Woman appeared. She wasn’t the first female comics superstar – the Black Widow and Bullet Girl got there first.

But Wonder Woman was the first feminist superheroine and she outlasted lots of others.

Little Monsters

Her creator William Moulton believed women were the future leaders of the human race, and the only ones capable of doing away with war and killing.

Gotcha

Comic books have lost a little of their luster in the present craze of virtual reality and video games.

But for many of us, a comic book is an easy way to escape into a world of fantasy and unrealistic fun that also allows for imaginative daydreaming.

Nutcase founder Michael Morrow, a self-confessed overgrown kid at heart, wanted to capture that comic book-spirit in the Kapow! helmet, one of the helmets in the coming 2016 Little Nutty line up.

Similar to all of the Little Nutty helmets, Kapow! has a quirky side but it’s designed to try and outlive trends and stay fun through a few years of biking, skating, or scootering.

Can’t wait or don’t want to? Little Monsters and Gotcha are two helmets that both have that sparky humor combined with good looking graphics.

So though summer’s almost over, take the time today on National Comic Book Day to kick back with a comic book or graphic novel and sink, if just for an instant, into some much-deserved fantasy.