Comics

Alright, so I didn't want to be *that* person who does all of their blogs exclusively on content/required readings done via class, but I'll be damned if I don't have something to say about Watchmen.

I have never liked Superheros. Quite hated them, in fact. I hated how unrealistic they were. I hated how they always did 'good' things. I hated how they were never wrong. I hated how they were incapable of screwing up. And more importantly, I hated how popular they were. To me, it always felt like they had a large portion of their popularity exclusively from the fact that they were popular and people, as a whole, largely couldn't find a reason to hate them. So it was not so much a matter of them being liked as much as a matter of them not being hated, and being largely popular as a result of that. And that fact in itself is the reason why I hated them personally.

Also, this is not to say that what I said above is necessarily the absolute truth. However, to me, this is how I felt about it when I was growing up.

Now, don't get me wrong. That's not to say I hated absolutely everything about them. I've always been a person to largely support justice and correcting evil/corruption and etc. I do believe that those in the wrong need punished and those in the right shouldn't have anything bad happen to them and should correct those who are in the wrong. Even still, for the reasons listed above, I just could not bring myself to like Superheros.

Going along with this, I also hated comic books. However, I had an even stronger hate for them than I did the Superheros themselves. And that is because of just how much of the comic book market is Superheros. Hell, I would hardly call it a stretch to say that comic books = Superheros. In my personal experiences, when you go to a comic store, almost exclusively, no matter where you look, it's incredibly dominated by Superheros, if there is anything else at all. And I always thought that was a damn shame. Because the medium itself, with the panels, speech bubbles, etc. was a really creative medium and I had a large interest in it. But the fact that I could not find anything besides all of the Superheros that I abhorred was absolutely infuriating. Why was the comic book market so exclusively focused on just one genre out of the hundreds of possibilities that exist in the world? I just could not understand it. And as infuriating as it was, it was also depressing.

That being said, after Shannon and Conner's presentation on Wednesday covering the history of comic books in America and the CCA (Comics Code Authority), I am glad to at least finally, after so many years, understand the why to my question from when I was a child growing up.

Going along with this even more, reading Watchmen also opened my eyes quite a bit on the matter. I never realized that a darker side to the Superhero comics actually existed. I never realized how mislead I was growing up and not truly understanding the medium enough. I never realized that the common conceptions of what Superheros were was not all there was to be. And I was astounded. I mean, sure, I was also rather young back then. So it goes without saying that there would be some things that I wouldn't realize or understand. But for all of my hatred I had for comics as a kid to be so utterly unfounded was really... crushing. I can't believe I was so misguided this entire time.

Now, I am exaggerating a bit here. It's not like I was 100% clueless. Growing up and having movies like The Dark Knight be released in cinemas, I already knew that some of my conceptions from growing up were actually misconceptions. But reading the Watchmen first-hand and then also having the presentation that Shannon and Conner did in class was incredibly eye-opening. I feel like I have been missing out on something for a great portion of my life that I could legitimately enjoy.

Tangenting a bit from all of this, my hatred of comic books not for the medium itself but for the stories they contained was how I came to have such an interest in manga. Manga largely cover far more genres than comics in America have even tried to cover. Though the art styles differ to some degree, it is largely the same idea. And that's a hobby I have been following for years.

Anyway, that's my take/rant on comic books and how I've evolved right alongside them.