First a few things, so some of you can decide if you even want to bother with this. For the longest time, I've been a Marvel Zombie. I mean that with all the love that's possible. When my brother introduced me to comics, almost everything he read was Marvel. So, it was only natural that I would to. The first comic I ever read was Daredevil #182.
The way the guy looked so utterly devastated and desperate really spoke to me. I had to know who's grave that was and who the man was. I still remember thinking, this is totally different from those Archie comics I saw at Meijers (the first place I saw comics before I discovered my first comic shop). I soon discovered X-Men, Iron Man and Power Fist and Wolverine. I especially liked the X-Men, because they were outcasts who just wanted to be accepted. I could relate to them. I mean, who hasn't felt like an outsider at some time in their lives especially in their pre-teen, teen years. Comics became my escape. I could pretend I was one of these heroic people with these cool powers. When I was having a bad day, I'd pick up a comic. When I was having a good day, I'd pick up a comic to make it that much better.
In the late 90's I stopped collecting and reading comics. Most of the time the story was shit, but the art was pretty good or the story was good and the art was shit. Plus, I was going to college and I coudn't afford to get all the stuff I was use to reading. There's an issue of X-Men where Storm was the main focus and the art was so fucking bad I actually through it away without finishing it.
It was anime that actually got me back into comics. I was looking for an video tape of Vampire Huter D and I remembered one of my comic shops carried them. I walked in and noticed Ultimate Spiderman on the shelf. I wondered what it was all about and bought it. I loved the art and the story was entertaining and just fun to read. I went back to the shop and picked up some fo the titles I had grown up on and the characters I loved. I was exstatic to find that the stories were really good and the art complimented everything so nicely.
In the last two years friends from message boards have suggested other comics to me and I'm really glad they did. I started reading Y:The Last Man, Ex Machina, Green Lantern, Fables, Walking Dead, Invincible, Kabuki and Atomic Robo. It's been so much fun to discover these new stories and mythoses, I feel like a kid discovering comics again for the first time. I've been inspired by Kabuki to learn to draw, something I use to do a lot when I was a kid; to think about making my own comic; and gotten to know some of the best friends I ever had all from comics. I feel so lucky, and that's part of the reason I'm doing this blog, to encourage others, especially girls to read comics.
The way the guy looked so utterly devastated and desperate really spoke to me. I had to know who's grave that was and who the man was. I still remember thinking, this is totally different from those Archie comics I saw at Meijers (the first place I saw comics before I discovered my first comic shop). I soon discovered X-Men, Iron Man and Power Fist and Wolverine. I especially liked the X-Men, because they were outcasts who just wanted to be accepted. I could relate to them. I mean, who hasn't felt like an outsider at some time in their lives especially in their pre-teen, teen years. Comics became my escape. I could pretend I was one of these heroic people with these cool powers. When I was having a bad day, I'd pick up a comic. When I was having a good day, I'd pick up a comic to make it that much better.
In the late 90's I stopped collecting and reading comics. Most of the time the story was shit, but the art was pretty good or the story was good and the art was shit. Plus, I was going to college and I coudn't afford to get all the stuff I was use to reading. There's an issue of X-Men where Storm was the main focus and the art was so fucking bad I actually through it away without finishing it.
It was anime that actually got me back into comics. I was looking for an video tape of Vampire Huter D and I remembered one of my comic shops carried them. I walked in and noticed Ultimate Spiderman on the shelf. I wondered what it was all about and bought it. I loved the art and the story was entertaining and just fun to read. I went back to the shop and picked up some fo the titles I had grown up on and the characters I loved. I was exstatic to find that the stories were really good and the art complimented everything so nicely.
In the last two years friends from message boards have suggested other comics to me and I'm really glad they did. I started reading Y:The Last Man, Ex Machina, Green Lantern, Fables, Walking Dead, Invincible, Kabuki and Atomic Robo. It's been so much fun to discover these new stories and mythoses, I feel like a kid discovering comics again for the first time. I've been inspired by Kabuki to learn to draw, something I use to do a lot when I was a kid; to think about making my own comic; and gotten to know some of the best friends I ever had all from comics. I feel so lucky, and that's part of the reason I'm doing this blog, to encourage others, especially girls to read comics.
It's funny how many people's personal stories have them abandoning comics in the 90's only to come back to them later and appreciate them or care about them more, or just express how nice it is to get back into them after the absence. It's certainly the same thing for me. Variant covers still scare and annoy me to some extent, but at least there are a lot of good comics that balance art and writing nicely and bring back that feeling of what we first loved about them. Your bit on the SV podcast was great. the two films you've posted are funny, and I am now fiddling with that seeing if I can make anything out of it. Hopefully you'll post more comics stuff too, as the posts you have done show a good and interesting perspective and voice (sorry to comment on an 8 month old post)
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