Comics And Me!

 

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When I was a child, my mother wouldn’t let me have comics in the house. There was something ironic about that, because she told me that she had had comics as a child, till her brother-in-law threw out her collection, sneering, “Really, people going to the moon? What nonsense!” Well. It was the 1930s… and the other day, she remarked how wonderful it was to be still around in such an amazing era as ours.

I didn’t argue with Mum, I just read some Superman comics with my best friend, Denise, whose family owned a boarding house. The boarders placed their soft drink bottles in cases at the back of the house and we took them to the local milk bar, where we exchanged them for the deposit money you got in those days for empty bottles, and used it to buy ice cream, more soft drinks and Superman comics. We took it all home and curled up with our booty to eat, drink and read. 

Those comics were a treasure, and had some real information in them, apart from the stories. For example, I read in one comic the actual name of Roman Emperor Nero. In another, Superboy cheated on his school exam, by asking to go out for water and time travelling to ancient Egypt, where he saw the ancient Egyptian version of the Cinderella story(it’s in Herodotus’s Histories, in case you are curious. Her name was Rhodopis). Superboy used the information to pass his exam.

After those delightful years, I grew up without comics. It wasn’t that I had anything against them, but by the time I was an adult, comics were terribly expensive and graphic novels even more so, and my thought was that I could get a regular novel for the price of a graphic novel and have more bang for my buck.

It was different when I was buying for my library. I bought plenty of graphic novels. Admittedly they were graphic versions of actual  novels and even Shakespeare, so required good readers, something many schools don’t seem to realise when they sneer at them.

Now, here I am in middle age and finally catching up with the comics I missed out on as a teen and young adult. And I’m loving it! The comics are being reprinted with stories under single covers, so you don’t have to try hunting up the originals on eBay or ABEBooks.

Reading the bios of comic book creators(see previous posts) I have discovered some of the fascinating storylines of their creations and decided to look them up.

Right now, I’m enjoying Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, beginning from the very start, in which a crazy millionaire tries capturing Death for the power it will give him, and instead captures Morpheus, the god of sleep, Death’s younger brother. I believe this is going to be filmed for one of the streaming services. I do hope so, but must finish the stories. 

I’ve downloaded other comic books, such as Agent Of Asgard and Vote Loki, both of which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. The former I’ve been reading about in those bios, the latter I was curious about after the character known as President Loki turned up in an episode of the Loki TV series. The comic book character was a lot nicer than the one on TV, by the way. 

I’ve recently discovered the TV series of Hawkeye, which is wonderful, being about a superhero who has no super powers, no magic and only as much tech as he can create. In one scene, he gets stuck in a giant Christmas tree and has to be rescued. But he does it all anyway, something admired by young Kate Bishop, his new apprentice. 

Thing is, there are things I would have known if I had been a comics fan. Pretty much all the characters come from the comics, even the minor ones, as do most of the stories, though fiddled with. One character in this series is presented as a possible villain; if I’d read the comics, I’d have known they were not remotely villainous. 

There is also Hawkeye’s comic book costume which he refuses to wear in the TV version, at least till near the end, when it has been made for him by a bunch of people who are into costuming and fights. I have been looking up on YouTube some of the animated shows made by Marvel in the 60s and there he is, wearing that dreadful costume! 

Just before Christmas Eve I went out to buy some Jolabokaflod reading. I got that biography I mentioned in my last post, about King Oswald of Northumbria, at Dymock’s bookshop, then went to check out the newly reopened Minotaur Books, which specialises in comics, and bought two. One was a collection of short graphic stories about various Marvel characters, set during the various eras from the 1940s onwards. Captain America stuffs up, though well-meaning. Peter Parker, in the very long queue to see the original Star Wars, has to lose his place in the queue to be Spider-Man during a robbery, but gets in to see the movie after all.

Early Fantastic 4 cover. Fair use

The other book, which I haven’t started yet, is some of the early Fantastic 4 stories which I bought because they were by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

By the way, I finally managed to finish Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Klay, his novel about two cousins in the 1940s who create a hugely popular comic book series. Highly recommended if you haven’t read it! 

Do you have some memories of comic books of your early years? Did you discover them early or late?