I owe a lot to comic books. I read some when I was a child, but I really didn't get into reading until I started to pick up comic books regularly. My vocabulary shot through the roof, and I moved from being a B-C student in English to being an A student in a matter of months. It is hard to overstate the degree to which an expanded vocabulary opens up the world.
It also gave me an appreciation for art I'd never had before. I never was much into drawings and paintings until I got into comic books. Soon I was going to the art museum, and marveling over people's ability to draw. To this day, the ability to draw and paint comes to me as a divine revelation. In Exodus we hear that skill in art is a gift of the Spirit of God. I believe that strongly. People who draw reach into another world, and pull it closer.
It gave me people to look up to. I really found in some of the characters kindred spirits. This was especially true of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, who had been picked on as a youngster, just as I was often picked on in school. Peter was a nerdboy who used his intelligence to make the world a better place. He had the strength I wish I'd had, both internally and externally, and he was much better with the ladies than I, but still I couldn't shake the feeling that in that figure was something of what I really could be.
Comic books were an escape from a life that was often difficult. I despised school mostly because of the torture of the other students, and because I liked learning on my own. Most people would tell you I was pretty bright even back then, but I always gravitated to autodidactic approaches to learning. Home life was chaotic and just insane. In my heart there was much grief and darkness. But when I opened my ground of comics each week, to learn the continuing adventures of Ghost Rider, Adam Warlock or my beloved Spider-Man, all my problems melted away, and I was transported to Somewhere Else.
I realize now that in all of this were also the seeds for my current place in my relationship with God. My beliefs and worldview were being shaped in ways I never imagined could happen at the time. To me comic books are low-intensity rapidly-evolving myths that seek in a simple way to reach out to that Force that informs all creativity, imagination, and yes all good religion. So thank you comic books, I would not be who I am today without you.
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