Imagine a world where four courageous yet completely ornery older people—Granny, Frank the Fixer, Madge the Merciless, and Emile the Organizer—take on the evils of today's society, battling nefarious financial planners and knocking out health insurance company representatives. This is the inspired, much-needed idea behind Coot Avengers, a comic book now being funded on Kickstarter. (Technically, the project has already reached its $2,500 goal, but we advise donating anyway—just for the free-with-donation gift comic entitled Everything I Know About Wall Street, I Learned From My Cat.)

The geniuses behind the mature, laugh-lined superheroes are Kay Wood (age 60), Michael Silverstein (age 70) and Doris Lane Grey (age 72) who got together one afternoon for pastries, only to begin discussing getting older and dealing with various bureaucratic agencies. Silverstein in particular was in the middle of a nasty battle with an insurance agent over who was going to pay for a colonoscopy. "People our age are in a daily fight with government agencies, city hall, and even private employers who don't want to hire anybody over 50," says Wood.

Soon the three had pooled their artistic resources to try something new for all of them—a comic, populated with characters who are "feisty, wise, and when circumstances demand, intimidating."