RAISED BY COMICS

Let me start by saying that I LOVE comic books. I truly believe it to be the greatest art form or genre or whatever the hell else you want to call it. I've read them, studied them, went to school for them, worked on them and spent a good portion of my life creating my own characters and stories. I'm good at them... no, correct that, I'm GREAT at them. You'll just have to trust me on this one.

I read my first comic at age 10. It was a DC Presents featuring the Atom. It was like turning on a light switch in my head. When I got home from school that afternoon, I asked my mom if she'd ever heard of comics. To my never ending delight, she was a old time comic fan. She had read the early Marvel comics including the Hulk, Spider-Man, Thor and Captain America. She told me if I wanted her to she would take me to the newsstand to buy some with my allowance.

The first comic I bought with my own money and read over and over was Amazing Spider-Man 148. I'll never forget it. The cover had Spidey chained and being thrown off the Brooklyn Bridge by the Jackal and Tarantula. It was amazing, no pun intended. I was hooked.

Over the next few years, I bought every comic put out by Marvel and DC and some by the now defunct First Comics. Eventually I narrowed my focus and weened out the comics I didn't really like. To be truthful, I was a Marvel guy. While I liked alot of DC comics (Justice League, Warlord, GL/GA, Batman Family, Teen Titans among others) I just understood and related to Marvel Comics alot more.

In fact, I credit Marvel comics and its writers for raising me to be the man I am today. I am neither ashamed nor embarrassed by that fact. Spider-Man gave me my sense of responsibility and, along with Bugs Bunny, my sense of humor. Cap gave me my love of country and patriotism. Thor, and Supes too, showed my a sense of nobility. I also learned lessons from Luke Cage, Iron Man, Hawkeye, the X-men, Iron Fist and a host of others. Back when I started reading comic books, there actually were lessons to be learned. There were morals to the stories. They taught you things. And not just life lessons, they taught me how a good story was written, how a narrative was developed, how a subplot was introduced and brought to it's fruition. Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Stan Lee, Cary Bates, Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, Len Wein, Steve Englehart, Marv Wolfman, J.M. DeMatteis and others. These were my instructors. I learned alot from them.

These days comics seem more interested in smart ass dialogue and showing who's the biggest "badass". The current writers think they are bigger than the characters. They all want to put their "stamp" on the character which is such total bullshit. These characters have been around for 40/50/60 years but they aren't as important as the guys writing them?!?! Puh-leeze. I read alot of the interview with these so called geniuses and it seems like, although they supposedly grew up loving comics, they can't wait to shit all over the stories and continuity that came before them. In fact, continuity seems like a four letter word these days. The current creators treat the reader like they are too stupid to understand what's happened before that issue.

But, then again, when I started to read comics, things actually happened. There was action. Heroes and villains fought each other. Seems like comics can go months with nothing but a conversation happening... these days the characters TALK more about doing something than actually doing it. And what is the preoccupation with bars. Characters routinely find themselves in bars just talking about stuff. I guess that's where all these new writers spend most of their time, so the old adage "write what you know" comes to the forefront.

I read online that in the 60's/70's comics were written for kids. In the 80's/90's, they were written for teens. Now I'm told they are written for adults. What a brilliant concept! Write comics for adults and don't try to develop younger readers so when you're audience grows old and dies, your entire industry crumbles! What a plan.

Oh yeah, I should probably tell you all: I don't read comics anymore. They are a part of my past. I couldn't continue to read the characters I loved bastardized and twisted into something they were never meant to be.

I didn't out grow comics... apparently, THEY outgrew me.