Still trying to get the hang of this computer stuff. I am posting this with the hopes that the drawing didn’t turn out too small. I’m writing at the edge of the conventional weekend although I won’t be going to my day job this Monday. I’ve got bigger, better plans. They involve doctors.

Let’s talk about comics

This has been an interesting year so far. I’ve returned to being a weekly comic shop customer, I’ve been expanding my palate. This past week, I purchased my first Avengerscomic book ever. Something recently snapped inside of me and you know–alternative comics just aren’t enough for me anymore. I need more variety, more voices. I abandoned mainstream comic books (superheroes) so long ago that reading one now feels like it did the first time I picked one up as a young kid.  I’ve spent the last thirteen (more or less) years of my life raging against the evil comic book machines and now I’ve come full circle.

The most recent alternative comics I’ve been reading were certainly pushing me in a more mainstream/genre direction. Now I feel like the Berlin Wall of my literate life has been torn down and all aspects of my interest are united as one country. On that note, I also purchased a Captain America graphic novel. I might actually have a problem.

I can’t think of why I shut the door on so many comic experiences for so many years. I’ve been chalking it up to youthful pretentiousness. Late high school through college and the first post-college years. If a person’s going to get snooty about art, it’ll usually happen then.

Slowly, but surely, I’ve found myself gravitating toward the types of stories and types of drawing that originally first got me really excited about comic books. I don’t regret dropping superheroes for manga and alternative comics when I was sixteen–back then, the mainstream comics that I was aware of were almost invariably awful. But now that I’ve wandered back, I hope these superbooks will be on their very BEST behavior.

@darrylayo