Originally supposed to be a series in 4 parts, I didn't even finish the first post. At the time I started doing this I was on a comic book kick, but soon after I started writing this I decided I had better things to do.
(A series in four parts. For no particular reason other than I felt like it. Which is always a good enough reason for blogging).
As a child I was always in love with comics. Most children are. I guess it's not hard to understand the appeal. It's halfway between reading a book and watching a cartoon, both of which are things most kids like doing. There's no need to over-analyze the appeal.
There was a time when I might have added something about the connection between the Y chromosome and the appeal of comic books, but my time in Japan and exposure to Shojo comics culture has taught me otherwise. Girls can like comic books just as much as boys, they just need comic books that are target to them. (Comic book companies in the US are missing out on a huge demographic here. They could really take a lesson from Japan. But that's a different subject for a different post).
When I was a kid I would read anything and everything if it was in a comic format. Even educational or Public service announcement anti-drug comics I devoured. (Yet another thing the US could learn from Japan, where educational comic books are very popular, and kids actually are more than happy enough to read them. I'm not saying we don't have them in the US, but they're not mass printed like in Japan. US educators have missed the boat on that one).
Access to comic books was another issue altogether. The Sunday paper comics was one of the highlights of my week. I loved reading the weekly PIX (Picture Bible) from Sunday School.
For a long time the only proper "comic book" I was able to get my hands on was "The Peanuts Treasury" in our school library, which I checked out of the library numerous times and read to the point of memorization...All without really ever thinking "The Peanuts" were all that funny. I just loved reading comics.
Super hero comics were out of the question for me, even though this is a hobby most of my peers got started on at a young age. My parents disapproved of the violent content and were not going to buy me any. I had little money to buy comics on my own. (My allowance for most of elementary school was 50 cents a week, which even back in the late 80s would have meant saving up for a couple weeks to buy just one comic). And I didn't have transportation to any places where I knew comic books were being sold.
No comments:
Post a Comment