WARNING: The following contains unbridled nostalgia and reflection from a man hurtling rapidly towards the grave.
The cover to Avengers #198 was posted on the Back Issue Magazine Facebook group this morning. This comic is very, very familiar to me. It got me a-ponderin' how our approach to reading comics is so different as a kid and as an ever-so-slightly older adult.
I don't remember when I got Avengers #198 and #199 – they weren't my first comics, but not far off. While my first American comics, not to mention my seminal collection of UK Secret Wars reprints, have long since gone astray, these two issues have persisted, and have remained in my possession for more than 30 years.
When you're a kid getting into comics, your first few issues, regardless of quality, have a particularly potent impact on you. Not just because first impressions are so powerful, but because the tininess of your embryonic collection means that you read the few comics you have over and over and over. I've read these issues dozens of times over the years. I've wallowed in every panel, lingered on every word, been swept along by every action. George Perez's art is amazing, of course, but the overall aesthetic has permeated my brain so deeply that more recent Perez art, with more modern colours, from the 90s Avengers relaunch onwards, looks all wrong to me. For me, Perez demands flat, slightly washed-out colours – there's no rational reason for this. I've just been programmed that way.
There's a sad irony in the fact that, while these comics were instrumental in launching me into a lifelong obsession, they also, in some ways, represent a high point that necessitates an ongoing gradual diminishment of the depth of enjoyment I get from this medium, and therefore a nagging sense of loss. This is partly due simply to sheer volume – when you have a handful of comics that you read over and over, they are your whole world. When you have thousands, half of which you barely remember, you are drowning in sensory input. Plus, increasing distractions, concerns and responsibilities, a more cynical/critical eye, and the decreasing malleability of your brain as you creep towards decrepitude make it harder to become as deeply, intimately enmeshed with art and storytelling as you did as a kid.
The cover to Avengers #198 was posted on the Back Issue Magazine Facebook group this morning. This comic is very, very familiar to me. It got me a-ponderin' how our approach to reading comics is so different as a kid and as an ever-so-slightly older adult. I don't remember when I got Avengers #198 and #199 – they weren't my first comics, but not far off. While my first American comics, not to mention my seminal collection of UK Secret Wars reprints, have long since gone astray, these two issues have persisted, and have remained in my possession for more than 30 years.
When you're a kid getting into comics, your first few issues, regardless of quality, have a particularly potent impact on you. Not just because first impressions are so powerful, but because the tininess of your embryonic collection means that you read the few comics you have over and over and over. I've read these issues dozens of times over the years. I've wallowed in every panel, lingered on every word, been swept along by every action. George Perez's art is amazing, of course, but the overall aesthetic has permeated my brain so deeply that more recent Perez art, with more modern colours, from the 90s Avengers relaunch onwards, looks all wrong to me. For me, Perez demands flat, slightly washed-out colours – there's no rational reason for this. I've just been programmed that way.
There's a sad irony in the fact that, while these comics were instrumental in launching me into a lifelong obsession, they also, in some ways, represent a high point that necessitates an ongoing gradual diminishment of the depth of enjoyment I get from this medium, and therefore a nagging sense of loss. This is partly due simply to sheer volume – when you have a handful of comics that you read over and over, they are your whole world. When you have thousands, half of which you barely remember, you are drowning in sensory input. Plus, increasing distractions, concerns and responsibilities, a more cynical/critical eye, and the decreasing malleability of your brain as you creep towards decrepitude make it harder to become as deeply, intimately enmeshed with art and storytelling as you did as a kid.
All of this means that, no matter how much I may absolutely love a particular comic in the moment – recent favourites include Lazarus, Squirrel Girl, Saga, The Mighty Thor, Paper Girls, Black Panther – ask me a week later and I can barely remember the overall thrust of the story, never mind the minute details of every single panel. The comics reading experience is a constant and increasingly futile quest to achieve the same strength and depth of connection I had with Avengers #198 and #199.
That's not to say that these two issues are the gold standard by which everything else is judged, it's just that they represent a time in which attachment and engagement came easily. I often see geeks of my vintage complain that comics just aren't as good anymore. Sorry, but that's absolute nonsense. There are great comics and terrible comics, just as there always have been.
Comics haven't become crap. You've become old. And that's OK. It happens to us all.
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