Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Comic Relief

Wow.  Has it really been almost a month since my last post?  Sorry about that.  Some day I'll get the hang of blogging.

On to my point.

There has been a rash of comic book movies in the past several years, and in truth, I love almost every one of them.  In know they are unrealistic, somewhat corny, predictable films, but I'll watch them every time.

Many writers will brag that they have been avid readers from an early age.  And not just that, they were reading high quality literature, nothing low brow.  I read Dostoevsky at the age of three.  Yeah, well good for you.

I was no slouch in the reading department, but as a young man my taste ran more toward comic books than "appropriate literature".  My parents were never distressed by this and were happy to feed my addiction as long as I agreed to keep it within a budget.  But there are many that looked down their noses at reading that sort of drivel.

But I have great memories of going to the comic book stores in town and roaming the aisles for hours.  Or during recess me and my friends would run around the playground playing X-Men.  I always wanted to be Wolverine, but my buddy Israel always claimed that persona.  I most often played the part of Beast.  We would draw our own characters, and write our own comics.

I think this was the beginning of my writing life.  It was those comics that taught me to love story telling and world-creating.  They carried me to the greater works and kindled a fire in my imagination.

So, go easy on those kids and their comic books.  They aren't all bad.