Feeling a little down about the state of the world today? Need some evidence at the end of the work week that not every member of the human race is a slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, self-absorbed bastard who couldn’t care less about his or her neighbors so long as They Got Theirs? Then I’ve got just the thing for you: a story about the random kindness of some comic-book fans trying to help out one of their own who lost it all in Katrina.

Here’s the Cliff-Notes version: Leo McGovern is the 26-year-old publisher of a local alternative culture magazine based in New Orleans. He’s also a long-time comic fan who had a collection numbering in the thousands of issues before the hurricane. Needless to say, all that paper did not survive the flooding after the levees broke. Leo blogged about his loss a few weeks ago, word got around the ‘net, and now, as Leo tries to rebuild his life and his magazine, random strangers are helping him rebuild his lost comic collection as well. People are just sending him issues and asking for nothing in return. Someone even sent him an autographed poster from the creator of his favorite series, Transmetropolitan. To Leo’s credit, he never asked anyone to do this and he seems genuinely humbled by the gesture. I would be, too. Hell, I’m humbled to hear people are doing it for someone else. I find it genuinely touching that folks care so much about someone they’ve never met simply because he shares the same hobby, and I think it’s fascinating that the Internet — which I’ve often derided as the greatest time-waster ever invented, even as I click my way through another day — has made it so convenient, so possible, to empathize with another human being and do things like this that are just plain nice.

My interest in Leo’s experience probably comes from having a basement full of the same kinds of stuff that he lost: comics, posters, toys, videos, movie programs, books, ephemera of every description, and nearly all of it is painfully vulnerable to moisture. I’ve often imagined what it would be like if the house burned down or flooded or if the Big Earthquake finally comes and buries it all. I know that collectibles are pretty worthless, comparatively speaking, and that losing even my favorite items couldn’t possibly compare to losing my entire home. For that matter, nothing that a person can own is equivalent to the life of another human being or even to the life of a beloved pet, and Katrina brutally proved that point to far too many people. But things like collectibles do have some value, nevertheless, at least to those of us who keep collections. It doesn’t matter what we actually choose to hold on to — my father, for example, has a yard full of junk cars and associated parts, but it’s really no different than my basement full of paper — we use these objects to define ourselves and express ourselves, to give tangibility to our daydreams. They remind us of better times and provide a pleasant escape at the end of a rough day, something to think about beyond the mundane requirements of life. To have them forcibly taken away must be wrenching, even if we have bigger things to worry about, and to have someone you don’t know but who nevertheless understands offer to replace even one of those treasures, just out of kindness… well, as Yoda might say, it brings good feelings to my heart. Giving someone a comic book may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but the small gestures sometimes carry the most weight.