An introduction.

I’ve never been a stranger to comics. I grew up in a haze of X-Men back issues starting with ‘The Dark Phoenix Saga’ and became so fiercely protective of my Marvel upbringing that I would read nothing else.

Things recently changed. My friend Lee gave me DC’s Identity Crisis to borrow and yes, at first I was sceptical and shot the hard cover sideways glances for a few days. I picked it up one morning and ended up skipping breakfast (a rather shocking experience) as I just couldn’t put it down. It excited me in ways I hadn’t experienced since my Uncle Colin handed me his magical box of Marvel goodies one summer all those years ago. It’s fair to say I’ve never seen Lee smirk at me like that before. He just KNOWS.

After reading Identity Crisis, Lee asked me which characters I liked best. My answer: Black Canary and The Flash. He then let me borrow ‘Blood and Circuits’ and ‘Dead of Winter’ from Gail Simone’s run on Birds of Prey. Apart from an inexplicable dislike of Barbara Gordon I fell head over heels for BoP and consequently, Simone’s writing. Again, I just could not put it down! I found myself wondering if I had finally succumbed to obsession.

The two of us took a trip to Birmingham one day for Forbidden Planet’s 30th Anniversary. Who can resist a sale? I bought every Birds of Prey graphic novel I could find, and while I certainly did pay attention to the wealth of Marvel material in front of me, I felt no urgency to run my finger tips over the covers and gaze adoringly at the artwork like I once did. I needed to branch out a bit.

I think Lee truly opened my eyes with his introductory post for me. This really is in a way, a love affair.
I guess I’m still ‘going steady’ with the DCU at the moment, for lack of a better term. So, from this introduction comes a first and ‘proper’ blog post of my wide-eyed fledgling excitement of a first Comic Con...