the geekocracy

My Intro to Comics

I could have written about the same subject as Mason did, but he did such a great job that anything I would have written on that subject would have seemed pretty damn unoriginal. So I figured I would write about how I got started reading comics.

I actually started later than most people my age. I didn’t read comics as a young child. I was really into sports. If I saw it on ESPN I wanted to play it. I played baseball, football, soccer, volleyball, floor hockey, basketball and was into swimming. There would have been more, but I couldn’t find anyplace in Illinois that would let a child of 10 play jai alai. It was my extreme love of baseball that led me to collect baseball cards. I bought tons. That where my allowance went for most of the years of my childhood. My dad collected cards when he was a kid so he was pretty understanding about it. He even took me to baseball card conventions where I got to meet some of my favorite players and got my cards and baseballs autographed. So as a child I got used to collecting things pretty early on.

When I got to high school I joined the swim team and while waiting for practice one day my friend Larry Spirek asked me if I wanted to go to the comic book store with him. So we took the walk to One Stop Comics in Oak Park and I thought it was awesome. I loved the Tim Burton Batman movie so I decided to buy a Batman comic. It was Detective 404, which I still have and that was pretty much the end of my baseball card addiction. Not only could I collect these but I could actually read them too! And I loved to read. I was a reading freak in high school and comics seemed to fit right in. Plus there was the fact that I pretty much lived my entire life in a fantasy world. Not very healthy unless you’re a writer or artist. And since I can’t draw, writing seemed to be a good way to express myself. But that’s another story.

Needless to say with a short break for a year or so, I’ve been reading Batman, as well as thousands of other superhero, action/adventure, sci fi and independant comics ever since. Now I even sell comics for a living. Funny how things all started with a simple trip to pass the time before practice.

Thanks Larry.

Rudy Hernandez