Why I love Super Heroes
March 22nd 2008 15:15
I have been collecting comics for 24 years. I can trace my fascination back to a batman comic from 1984. It had the riddler on the cover, my all time favorite Bat Villain (Everyone has one come on you can admit it.)
But comics are more than just superheroes. War Comics are a large staple found in any newsagency. Archie comics have been around longer than i have been reading comics and are very popular and The Phantom a book that has a special place in the hearts of many Austrailan comic book collectors held no interest.
For me it has always been Super Heroes. Superman, Batman, Spider Man, The Uncanny X - Men, The Flash. All these characters have held a fascination for me and I have had a love affair with these four color stories for nearly a quarter of a century.
But what is it that has held my interest for so long? What keeps me buying comics each pay and adding to my ever growing collection?
The answer is an evolving one.
The first thing that made me fall in love with Super Heroes was the color. That bright color that cannot be replicated by any other type of comic.
If you ever get a chance to look at the covers of comics from the mid eighties what you will see in a majority of cases is bright colorful images that really attract the eye. Being a young child that had difficulty reading these four color images were very attractive to me.
Then in about 1987 it became about the story. I started to identify with the characters and the immersive escapist aspect of the books appealed to my then 13 year old brain.
In 1988 I got a subscription for my birthday and began to follow the adventures of the X - Men and Spider Man and I began to get hooked by the serial nature of the story. One issue would lead to the next and the world and characters created a constant discovery for me.
Superheroes combined my emerging love of fantasy with my love of science fiction in one single genre.
Then in the early 1990s it was all about collecting. Comics were worth money and it was all about flash covers and hot artist. Speculators drove the market and it was all about having 2 copies of every thing one to keep and one to read.
Then I left the city and moved to a small town in New South Wales and it was all about what I could buy at the Newsagent again and it became about story. That was where I met the Flash and fell in love with a character that for the first time I really identified with. He was in his early 20s and just starting to mature.
I had just hit 18 and this character was someone that I identified with.
Then I really started to study comics as a story telling medium. Something that fascinated me an experience that was unique to any other. The stories that I could read in those 24 page books was more exciting and fast paced than any movie or book and in those days in the mid 1990s it was cheaper than buying videos and they were something that I could return to again and again.
Excitement and adventure was just a comic book away.
Then in 2000 I started to settle down, I had been in Melbourne for a few years and it had become my home. I had been collecting comics and following the stories for years and I finally started to build up a library of books, I discovered the community of the comic store a place to talk comics with my fellow collectors as the industry emerged from near collapse to embrace writers and artists intent on telling compelling stories and enhancing long neglected characters.
This brings us up to the current period of my life where I look back and see that I have been collecting comics with super heroes in them of 20 plus years and now, it is about hanging out with old friends.
Characters that have been a constant in my life for so long that they are a comfort and a joy.
So why do I love Super Heroes? Because they are part of the joy of my life and I still think they are cool.
But comics are more than just superheroes. War Comics are a large staple found in any newsagency. Archie comics have been around longer than i have been reading comics and are very popular and The Phantom a book that has a special place in the hearts of many Austrailan comic book collectors held no interest.
For me it has always been Super Heroes. Superman, Batman, Spider Man, The Uncanny X - Men, The Flash. All these characters have held a fascination for me and I have had a love affair with these four color stories for nearly a quarter of a century.
But what is it that has held my interest for so long? What keeps me buying comics each pay and adding to my ever growing collection?
The answer is an evolving one.
The first thing that made me fall in love with Super Heroes was the color. That bright color that cannot be replicated by any other type of comic.
If you ever get a chance to look at the covers of comics from the mid eighties what you will see in a majority of cases is bright colorful images that really attract the eye. Being a young child that had difficulty reading these four color images were very attractive to me.
Then in about 1987 it became about the story. I started to identify with the characters and the immersive escapist aspect of the books appealed to my then 13 year old brain.
In 1988 I got a subscription for my birthday and began to follow the adventures of the X - Men and Spider Man and I began to get hooked by the serial nature of the story. One issue would lead to the next and the world and characters created a constant discovery for me.
Superheroes combined my emerging love of fantasy with my love of science fiction in one single genre.
Then in the early 1990s it was all about collecting. Comics were worth money and it was all about flash covers and hot artist. Speculators drove the market and it was all about having 2 copies of every thing one to keep and one to read.
Then I left the city and moved to a small town in New South Wales and it was all about what I could buy at the Newsagent again and it became about story. That was where I met the Flash and fell in love with a character that for the first time I really identified with. He was in his early 20s and just starting to mature.
I had just hit 18 and this character was someone that I identified with.
Then I really started to study comics as a story telling medium. Something that fascinated me an experience that was unique to any other. The stories that I could read in those 24 page books was more exciting and fast paced than any movie or book and in those days in the mid 1990s it was cheaper than buying videos and they were something that I could return to again and again.
Excitement and adventure was just a comic book away.
Then in 2000 I started to settle down, I had been in Melbourne for a few years and it had become my home. I had been collecting comics and following the stories for years and I finally started to build up a library of books, I discovered the community of the comic store a place to talk comics with my fellow collectors as the industry emerged from near collapse to embrace writers and artists intent on telling compelling stories and enhancing long neglected characters.
This brings us up to the current period of my life where I look back and see that I have been collecting comics with super heroes in them of 20 plus years and now, it is about hanging out with old friends.
Characters that have been a constant in my life for so long that they are a comfort and a joy.
So why do I love Super Heroes? Because they are part of the joy of my life and I still think they are cool.
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