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| Oh yeah, he's on the shelf, too. |
You could call us geeks or nerds. Adults unwilling to finally grow up (ah, a compliment if I've ever heard one!). You could of course also say that we're just smart people, that we stay immersed in the world of comics because they offer great classic tales, archetypal characters (kinda like reading the ancient Greeks, really). Comics offer indeed a wealth of inspiration. And finally you might argue that we're just business-savvy dudes, eager to write wherever we can. I know a few screenwriters and novelists who also write comic book stories (like David Liss doing Marvel's Black Panther - I mean seriously, how cool is that!?).
Frankly, I think it goes beyond all that. It goes deeper and it goes simpler. I think we love the geeky stuff surrounding us because it's a constant reminder of the child inside of us. Whether it's the Samaritan frowning, Boba Fett aiming, the Spectre glowing or Spawn glowering - they keep the kid inside alive, awake, alert. The geek stuff reminds us (often subconsciously), every day, of why we write - why we love stories - why we fell in love with stories when we were kids. It had nothing to do with business, of course. It had to do how we felt. It was the pure joy of living in those stories.
That's why we write. With every scene we write, we try to recreate that complete sense of being IN the story (and we do so well knowing that this is exactly what we want our audience to experience, too). The way it was when we were kids - no analyzing, no comparing - just intensely living in that one world, together with the characters, our heroes. And so our comic book statues and action figures will continue to colour our writing caves... which reminds me, they need dusting. After all, they do so much for me, might as well treat them nicely.
2 comments:
Interesting for me at this stage in my life as both a writer and father. I see my children developing these beliefs and love of characters and it reminds me of where I used to be too.
I never was a follower of comics however. Sadly I owned 3 comic books my whole life and one was issue 1 of the original X-men. Don't want to know what is could be worth today but that's my extent of comic heroes.
David, you're still young! And shall remain so in part thanks to your children. So go hunt down that original X-Men and get into it all - I can, as you might imagine, only recommend it :-)
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