I want to tell you about a realization I had last night. My stack of new Wednesday comics had been read & I was reflecting on the stories I had just experienced. My final conscious thoughts were filled with stories of super heroes and heroines and their adventures of the week. As that final waking moment slipped away my last thought was "I have so much love for super heroes, but I think I hate super hero books". When I woke this morning, this fleeting thought had taken seed in my mind and began to grow. What did it mean? Do I hate comics? Obviously not. Do I hate super hero comics? That couldn't possibly be true. While I reflected more and more about this harsh statement, it became clear to
me: I didn't hate super hero comics, they hated me.
My story of how I started reading comics again is far from unique but here is a little history before I continue. I started reading comics again after a hiatus of about seventeen years. As a child I was an avid reader of comics, but stopped reading, like so many people of my generation, in my mid teens. I came back to comics two and a half years ago after discovering books like; Ex Machina, The Walking Dead, Transmetropolitan and Fables to name a few. Discovering this world of comics was revolutionary to me. There was a whole world of writers, artists and stories I never knew existed. On top of all these wonderful books were the old favorites I had read so voraciously in my youth. It was only natural to see what my old friends were up to. It had been so long. I couldn't wait to catch up and hear about all their adventures!
It's taken me nearly three years, but last night I realized my old friends don't like me any longer. We don't have anything in common. We've been trying to make it work, trying to spend time together, but I now see that we don't have anything new to talk about. They tell me the same stories time and time again and they tell it the same way they did when I was a kid. I've told them that we need to talk about something new, but they don't seem to care. This realization isn't sad, it's freeing. These relationships ended when I
stopped reading comics all those years ago. We are free to go our separate ways. My old friends are free to make new friends, with a new generation of people that will love to hear their stories. I am free to make new friends, friends I have more in common with and to hear their stories which are new to me. The lesson I learned yesterday is not to hold onto the past, take those lessons learned and look forward to the future.
