More matter with less art.

I am currently in a Comics and Graphic Narrative class at my university and it has opened my eyes to something I never took seriously before, comic books. I used to read Archie comics when I was in elementary school. I would pick them up and start to read them as we waited in line in the grocery store and my mother would buy them for me, a three-dollar entertainment. The comic strip was a staple read as well. My parents would read the newspaper and I would pull out the funnies, less interested in the news of the day then I was in what new sarcastic comment Garfield had to give John, or what mishap Hagar the Horrible was involved in.

Batman, Superman, Ironman, Spiderman, the entire spectrum of the X-Men- I knew these characters, but I never read their stories. My brothers read the comics and together we watched the cartoons. The tales of love and hate and hope and redemption fascinated me, but I was never interested in reading the comics these characters were spawned from. I admit that there are some art forms I reject simply because my brothers were interested in them. Comics or graphic novels fall into that category.

I recently read Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight for my class and we watched Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of it and I sat there and thought- why have I not done this before?? Every time I watch a movie based on a book I always think, this is a good movie but I bet the book is better. I’ve never thought that about movies based on comics. I always watched the movie and thought about the cartoon. Until now I have never thought about going back to the true source of the characters, the comic books. I’ve now realized the error of my thinking. There are so many stories out there that I have missed out on, characters whose depths I haven’t even come close to discerning. I have a lot of catching up to do.