Comics Open New Worlds

If you’d told me 10 years ago that I would love comics I would have laughed. I would have told you, you had the wrong person. More so than that I would have looked at you like you were crazy.

I’d never picked up a comic book before 2015.

In fact, I viewed comic books as things for children. With their massive pictures. How could anything influential come from content that didn’t have at least 500 words on the page?

I don’t know who that person was. That person… is not who I am today. She was another lifetime that I actually wouldn’t go back to if I offered. These books, they’re more than just books to me. They were an introduction into who I wanted to become. The beginning of me finding, essentially… me.

Now? My bed boasts the Avengers logos. My floor is bathed in comics (not to say they’ve all been read, yet). My bookshelf has been replaced by those heroes. I’ve proved myself to many comic shop owners who think I don’t know what I’m talking about. (Shout out to the guy who tried to mansplain me Hawkeye — that was a trip.)

These books have literally saved my life on more than one occasion.

The thing that I hate most? Many people around me think that comics are simply books with pictures. The time to sit and understand that these things are so much more; isn’t taken. It’s simple to judge a comic because it’s more illustrated than written. But that’s also because many people don’t understand subtext. It’s a problem.

So let’s delve into this part history lesson, shall we?

What Is a Comic?

A comic, in its bare bones, is a serialized magazine. They tell stories that sometimes depict superheroes. These books are written by authors and artists.

The art is just as indelible as the word.

Now, without the dictionary dot com esq definition:

Comic books are self-expression. They are the written and illustrated masterpieces of a group of people. They are someone’s interpretation and creative genius.

The pieces of expression and art don’t just depict heroes and situations. They stand for life and tales. They have deeper means than many people give them credit for. There’s an entire…