I have a confession to make. I want to be a comic book geek. I really do. As a kid, I watched superhero cartoons all the time. (OK, so I still do.) I never really got into the actual comic books, though (or “graphic novels” if you prefer), and I only recently figured out why.
I can’t read them.
I have crossed wires in my brain somewhere. I can’t process the pictures and the words together. The images sort of overwhelm the text, so I can’t follow the story from panel to panel. Even when I know the plot in advance, I still can’t understand what’s going on. I’m not sure what to make of this discovery, except that it’s kind of disappointing. All of the new movies based upon comic books, and I can’t appreciate the rich history that characters like Spiderman and Superman and the X-Men have; that and I don’t get any geek cred for having read the comic book first.
The other thought I had was turning myself over to science for study. Maybe I could get a syndrome named after me. That would make the parents proud.
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I love comic books, but I can’t claim to be geek about them. I used to read the older Marvel and DC ones through my cousin (who unfortunately migrated to the US so I don’t have anyone to borrow from), so at least I have an idea of the “history”. Then I discovered Japanese comics (manga) about ten or so years ago, so I’m into that.
I also have difficulty reading the text on American comics, so here’s what I do. I look at the pictures first, then at random dialogues. Then I read everything. Sounds confusing, but it works for me. :p
Comment by saberkite May 28, 2007 @ 11:11 pm[...] is another quirk of mine, I guess the result of my mis-wired brain. (Examples: one and two.) I can read a total of two books at a time, provided that one of them is fiction and one [...]
Pingback by Monogamy « Write, Wrote, Written August 16, 2007 @ 1:42 pm[...] probably reason I can’t read comic books, though. Oh, well. I guess life has its trade-offs. [...]
Pingback by The Letter H Tastes Like Grapefruits « Write, Wrote, Written January 15, 2008 @ 10:49 pm