I came across some musings about what restrictions parents put on their kids independent reading, and I really thought about it. I don’t think my parents put any limits on my reading. I honestly think they were relieved that I was just being quiet and not collecting bugs and bringing them into the house anymore.
I was nine years old when I got a small grant to go study at the Long Island Art League, but I really should have chosen another class to take. My oil painting teacher was nice enough, but it was just really boring to me. I learned later on I’m more of an an acrylic painter, instant gratification and dry in a matter of minutes not days. If I had to put more than an hour of work into something, I generally lost interest.
Sometimes my dad would just outright ask me if I wanted to go to this class and I’d be like, “Can we go to the comic book store?” and we’d never get to my class. I read X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force etc… but I also bought the occasional Amazing Spiderman and the Hulk if it was a crossover. I was also obsessed with Wolverine. Again, referring back to my Anne Rice obsession, it’s really fascinating to me to examine a character who can’t die, and trying to find meaning in that type of life is very interesting to me.
I also began to pick up reprints of the Sandman, just because Dave McKean is an amazing mixed media artist. But the story was epic. Using Morpheus as a vehicle for the story, bringing in DC universe villains and planting Morpheus in the Justice League Space Station, it was basically everything.
I can’t quite recall which came first for me. I know I read Interview with the Vampire after I saw the movie. I know I was in junior high school. But I think around the same time I read Catcher in the Rye, just because I saw in the middle of the school year they took it off the reading list and I was just curious as to why. It really is one of those books that changed the way I thought about storytelling.
Same goes for the Sandman, it is strange to pitch an idea like “Oh, this comic is about an ancient god with siblings that represent aspects of human consciousness.” But it somehow works. They fight like a family, and in real life, these parts of the human experience clash.
I started reading Books of Magic too, another Neil Gaiman project. Timothy Hunter really interested me because first of all, he’s no hero. He’s flawed, comes from a broken home, has no real power. So many things about Books of Magic were ‘borrowed’ by the Harry Potter series I for real thought J.K. Rowling was going to get sued eventually. But I guess it’s all good.
What Books of Magic really taught me about writing, and life in general was the following: Just because the main character’s love interest is no longer the main character’s love interest does not mean that her role in the story is automatically diminished. Side note here: Molly O'Reilly is a BAMF. Also, there was a three part series where Tim finds a relic from John Constantine’s past. You’d think Constantine would be interested? Even maybe help Tim? Nope! You’d be wrong. John Constantine gives zero fucks. Absolutely none.
Another thing about Books of Magic, I think it was a place for Gaiman to experiment a bit. He wrote in Zatanna as a person Tim went to for advice. Tim and a succubus go to her house, but she’s not home. Her answering machine is basically a piece of herself, like a horcrux but not really. It’s like, a part of her that looks like her but it’s a part of the house. It bakes banana bread and hosts guests, but only if they’re on ‘the list’. Which is a hard thing to explain here. But I think it was a precursor to how Gaiman wrote “The Doctor’s Wife”. He gave the Tardis a human form, and it was kind of like that. But not that. Again, I don’t know how to describe this, but playing around with Zatanna was definitely translated to the way Gaiman treated the Tardis.
I love that. When a writer takes an idea or a rule in one universe, then applies that rule to another completely unrelated universe and it just works, it’s just amazing. Like, how did you do that? It makes it uniquely your own. Then everyone remembers you for the thing you introduced, and everyone just accepts it in the new setting. It’s really magical.
Yes, comic books changed my life. I wouldn’t be the same person without them. I learned that it’s okay to be different, and it can even be an asset. Long story short, I’m glad I skipped out on my oil painting classes.
