It all started years ago, with a little show called “Batman: The Animated Series.” Okay, so I was four when it started, and caught most of it in syndication, but that didn’t make its impact any less grand or significant. All I knew was that there was a guy who dressed like a bat, beat up bad guys, and did it all without super strength, spider-sense, or adamantium claws. Needless to say, the seed was most definitely planted.

Skip ahead to my adolescent years, probably around 12 or 13. Up to this point, I had bought a few comic books here and there. Whenever I was in the grocery store with my mom, I would browse the spinning rack by the magazines and romance novels. I’d pick out a random Batman and Superman comic, never caring about continuity or arcs; just wanting to see my favorite heroes throw the occasional batarang or save the occasional damsel. But that was all before I discovered that my town — yes, a small, unknown town in Wyoming — had a comic book shop. It was here that my addiction began to grow. It started with discount boxes: instead of a squeaky rack at the grocery store, I was searching for Batman and Superman issues at 50¢ each! It was in those boxes where I first discovered continuity and arcs. I caught wind of “The Death of Superman” and “The Reign of the Supermen”, and finding all those issues became my mission.

Also, as an adolescent male, I began to notice that often times, the women in comics are much more… voluptuous than any women I had seen before, and seemed to prefer to wear less clothing than real women. So, sadly, hormones drove my first monthly series purchase in the form of Tomb Raider.  At this point in my life, comics were a guilty pleasure; one to be snuck into the house and read in secrecy from my parents. While the monkey was fed for a time, the pressures of high school and a confused, socially normative definition of “cool” silenced the hunger for comics.

Finally, jump to last year. As a junior in college and an official, legally-drinking adult, I found myself surrounded and intrigued by how comics seemed to be everywhere. Movies, television, video games. It seemed that I couldn’t watch or play something that wasn’t based on some comic or graphic novel, popular or obscure. So I thought to myself, “Remember that time when I bought comics?  I wonder what I have been missing…”  With that question — and the discovery of Wikipedia – the floodgates were opened and I dove head-first into the ocean that we call “comics.”  Sure, I started small: “Batman: Battle for the Cowl” and “Superman: New Krypton,” but I was ultimately lead to titles such as “Y: the Last Man,”  ”Gotham Central,” “100 Bullets,” and my first Marvel comics!  I started using comics in school projects, culminating in a 70-page thesis on Batwoman, comic book fans and creators, and the meaning they place on comics.

Make no mistake: while I call this an addiction, it is in no way a bad thing.  I am proud to be a comics fan and you should be too!

So there you have it.  This may be an over-inflated introductory blog post to the Backroom Comics Blog, but oh well.  I hope that this will be the first of many posts (hopefully not all so long) and the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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