First Comics

Took the boy to the local comic store which, somewhat surprisingly for a small town, is well stocked with comics. In the process, we ran into his martial arts instructor whom, it turns out, is a comic collector wit over 10,000 comics. He prefers the 60’s and 70’s strain but doesn’t have any preference for DC or Marvel. He just enjoys his comics, even to this day.

So we wandered the store for awhile, the boy looking somewhat overwhelmed and not sure what to make of it all. I pulled down most of the familiar titles to see if he was interested, but he demurred. There are 2 challenges for picking out comics, as I see it. The first is it’s almost certain you’ll be starting in the middle of some kind of plot line meaning it’s likely you’ll need to find back issues to get up to speed. The second, which I think is more of a modern problem phenomena, is that story lines nowadays are more mature than is appropriate for the typical 8-year old, particularly with the Batman or Wolverine titles.

He finally decided something Star Wars related would do. We were able to find several titles for him to pick from. We left with a couple of them, so we’ll see if they are a medium that captures his attention.

Looking through the comics put me in mind of picking my own as well. While I’m no collector, I’ve always enjoyed comics. With my Nook, I figured it was worth a look at the B&N selection. It appears that rather than individual issues, you have to purchase graphic novel collections. That’s fine by me, since I’ll presumably get all of a particular story arc.

Why should the boy get all the fun?