Inside today’s edition you will find the Demopolis Times’ annual installment of Gridiron — the area’s guide to local high school football.

This year’s edition represents a departure from the norm. Themed in the style of comic book heroes, we hope you find the artwork entertaining and the stories and breakdowns informative.

The edition precedes the kickoff of the season for most local schools, but just barely.

Marengo Academy got off to an early start last week. John Essex and AL Johnson go head-to-head tomorrow. The remainder of our local youth hit the turf Friday night.

We hope all parents and students enjoy themselves through this 10-plus-game season.

We also hope our local coaches and players – and in many cases, parents — remember their roots in sportsmanship.

Many football games will be hosted in our county this season. For many of those students and their parents, that one game will be their sole exposure to our great county.

We want to send them away with good thoughts about our county and a loss from stepping on the field of play.

As do most of you, we look forward to Friday night under the lights. Telling the stories of our student-athletes and our coaches is a large part of what makes this job fun.

Here’s to a good season, and we wish nothing but the best of luck to all our area schools.