I Read Comics

So how about a brief history of me and comics? Sounds boring, let's do it!

I started reading comics in the late 80s and early 90s when I was nine years old or so. I was mostly into the Spider-Man and X-Men titles and for some reason I totally boycotted DC titles. I'm still not sure why I refused to read them. The part of my brain that made me do that is probably the same part that made me inexplicably dislike the Beatles from 1999-2004. I should probably find it and get it removed.

Anyways, as most nerds are aware, the 90s were a crazy time for comics. They started selling so well that the publishers went CRAZY. Every major character had like nine different titles every month, and every other issue had like variant chrome hologram covers and shit to try and sell more copies. This, of course, led to a huge decline in good stories, as there were so many titles that pretty much any dude with a half-assed idea could write one of the EIGHTEEN Spider-Man or X-Men titles. Spidey's in particular got really bad. First his parents came back, then they were revealed to be evil robots, and then it turned out that Spidey was actually a clone of himself and yawn etc. Basically, the stories were so dumb that I lost interest, and even if I wanted to keep up, I was having to buy like twelve things a week. Ridiculous.

So I stopped buying comics, and apparently Beatles records, altogether in the late 90s and never really looked back.

Then in 2005, my old friend Casey VanHeel moved in with me in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Casey had briefly attended college for comics illustration or something and still followed a lot of titles and stuff. One day I just went through his collection of paperbacks and started reading. Amid all the clones and robot parents and shit I had forgotten about the Alan Moores, the Frank Millers, and so on. I read all kinds of great stuff and even discovered some new writers that were just totally amazing: Brian K. Vaughn, Grant Morrison (by no means new, but I had never read him), Joss Whedon, and Ed Brubaker. These guys were all doing really solid, fun stuff, some of it having to do with characters I was familiar with, and some of it totally indie.

So, long story short, I started slowly picking up a few things here and there, and it slowly went from there. Every month I started discovering new things that were great. I now follow about 25 titles a month, and I enjoy them all. Sure, there have been a few misfires along the way (the miniseries "Bullet Points" and "Eternals" spring to mind), but I can safely say that everything I read is good. I know it won't last forever; in fact, the good stuff may stop sooner than later. Superman's death started the downfall in the 90s, and now that Captain America is dead I'm starting to get flashbacks. I'm going to enjoy the ride while it lasts though, and when Batman's parents come back or Ghost Rider becomes an angel, I'll honorably withdraw.