The first comic book I read was “Batman ‘66.”
It was, in many ways, a perfect introduction to the medium. I had played Batman games, watched Batman shows, been given Batman LEGOs, but now I felt like I had grown up. Now, I could find out where all the things I loved really came from.
Of course, the series was very much a kid-friendly version of the Caped Crusader, but it was as close as I could get at eight years old.
A few years later, my dad let me read my first “grown-up” comic. I was on my way into middle school, and we jumped into the end of the New 52 run of “The Flash.” For the next several birthdays and Christmases, I asked for Flash comics to catch up on.
Going into high school, I went back to Batman. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s legendary run shaped how I engaged with the medium and the character. I read the entire run, spending hours in the basement flipping through pages of panels.
Through high school, comics came in and out of my life. The Marvel Cinematic Universe filled the void for a while, but DC comics were always more to my liking. I read “The Long Halloween,” “Flashpoint,” “Blackest Night” and “Watchmen,” as many of the essentials as I could, because I knew soon they wouldn’t be as accessible.
When I went to college, comics and I had a falling out.
I’m not too far away from home, but I’m rarely there long enough for it to be worth starting a whole new arc just to have to drop it at the end of the weekend. I went through my first three years at Bradley without giving them much thought.
Then I turned 21, and something brought me back.
Maybe it was a longing for a simpler time, or maybe it’s as easy to explain as nostalgia, but I’ve come back to comics in a way I never knew them before.
Once again, Scott Snyder writing Batman was the catalyst. His new “Absolute” universe gave me an easy jumping-on point.
I think comics have helped shape my love of film. I grew up on a visual medium of reading, so of course that shifted to another kind of watching. The heroes grew up with me, going from cartoonish to grounded as I learned how the world worked.
A lot of people get standoffish at the sentiment that “comics are for kids” — myself included — but I think the generalization is the problem, rather than the idea itself.
Comics are absolutely for kids. They’re there to give them hope, to give them something to aspire towards, to show what they can become.
The last comic I read was “Absolute Martian Manhunter,” a series decidedly not for kids. It’s maybe the best comic I’ve ever read.
I found myself in childlike wonder looking at the spectacle of Javier Rodríguez’s art and the brilliance of Deniz Camp’s writing. The medium connects me back to a version of the world I have fond memories of.
Comics are for us to get lost back in time.
