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.1.1.3 Juxtaposed Images

A tale for writers

This is a story for people who love comics, people who love fan fiction, and people who laugh at them because they do. This is also a story for comics creators, and for those who want to become them. This isn’t a fanfic – it’s a story for writers about writers and for normal people about freaks.

Most of all, it’s a story for whoever has something do say.

And haven’t we all?

My friends call me a bonehead idealist.

I’m not sure if they’re really wrong. I mean, I am passing something I used to dream about. But somehow it doesn’t strike me as right to go and write real comics now. Not after everything that happened in my life, even though I know I probably won’t be writing anything else, stuck in a nine-to-five job, but I won’t be leaving fanfic.

When I was twelve, I fell hard for comics. My parents took me to a magazine shop, and I just hanged around kicking the floor and whining out my boredom until dad told me to be quiet and I ran and just got lost between the shelves. Mom grabbed me and told me to stand next to her and be silent as a dead mouse, or I won’t get no candies.

Mom was looking through some Burdas, and I glanced down and spotted a Wolverine issue someone forgot between the fashion magazines. I picked it up and mom told me to get that nonsense back where it belonged. I whined until dad bought it for me, and for the rest of the trip, I was completely silent.

I don’t know if initially I was a juxtaposed images kind of guy. But somehow comics managed to become an obsession. My parents would moan as my growing collection, and I just didn’t care. I only cared about getting more of those silly, brightly colored magazines. Avengers Mansion Siege, Dark Knight Returns, Days of Future Past…

Mom and dad, my teachers, most of my classmates that called me a geek and a jerk couldn’t understand what I found in comics. For them, it was just a bunch of guys in spandex trading punches. Such a strong stereotype, no one even needed to open one of the books, so confident they all were about what will be inside. I can still remember the day one of the class bullies threw my Sandman #8 out the window and said that if it landed on the garbage heap beneath, very well, cause that’s where it belonged. My parents didn’t bother to look into the case. As far as they were concerned, everything that helped get their son away from comics was a good thing.

Then there was the writing part.

I wrote my first story in the second grade. It was about my pet fish having a party in the bathtub, and my teacher said it was very nice and asked my parents if I were seeing a guidance counselor. A year later I got the hint, and if there was one thing everyone I knew credited me about, it was my writing. My mom was ecstatic whenever I wrote something new, and would run around showing it to all her gal pals. I didn’t mind much, I was kind of happy everyone liked my work, even though it wasn’t really my work. I didn’t write about spaceships and hidden islands anymore, and everyone seemed to be satisfied with it, so I guess I had no reason to venture any farther. But then, I discovered comics.

It’s amazing, how you can suddenly look at your work and think how lame it really is. In comparison with my new idols, Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern, Alan Moore, the stories everyone loved so much didn’t seem like any big deal. Roaming through Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comicsâ€