How I Got Into Comics, Part One

I got into comics because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My wife and I lovelovelove watching Buffy and Angel (and Firefly, for that matter — we really like Joss Whedon, OK?), and were, like many, sad to see them end. Except we didn't actually see them end. We didn't start watching either show until they were off the air. That's how we watch every show. We don't get TV reception and really don't want to spring for cable. Everything we see, we see through the magic of DVD.

Except, that's not quite how it started. My wife actually began watching Buffy on TV before we were living together and while she had TV access. She got season 4 for Christmas soon after and watched it (without me!) rather obsessively. Finally, she dared let me into this wonderland, and we were both hooked. We slowly got the rest of the DVDs of Buffy, then started on Angel, and have watched both series several times in their entireties since. They went out well, I think. Angel has the most perfect series finale we could hope for: it is a perfect summation of what the show was about, and it (almost) completely quelled our anger over the show's somewhat abrupt cancellation. We could (mostly) live with the Buffy and Angel worlds being what they were and leave it at that.

See? Aren't they awesome?

But then we saw that Buffy was going to have a Season Eight. (Holy crap! We must get this!) In comics form. (That's cool, I've always kind of had an interest in comics.) We were so excited; we quickly searched for how to obtain these beautiful, beautiful things. (And I mean beautiful. The covers by Jo Chen are awesome.) We had actually found the news a couple months late, so by the time we were ordering it, three issues had come out, and we were only able to get the third printing of #1 and the second printing of #2. This actually did bother our perfectionist-completionist selves a bit, but we were happy enough to be able to read them. (And have since tracked down first printings of both. Squee!)

We ordered them online at Things From Another World — the place we found first, basically, probably because they're owned or something by Dark Horse — for a while. Then one week, the local alt-weekly, Creative Loafing, had a cover story on a local comic shop, Heroes Aren't Hard to Find. How perfect was that? We quickly decided to go there, as the shipping was horribly expensive for our one book each month. It happens to be an awesome place with a big selection (including a kid's corner which worked out wonderfully for us and our two-then-three kids) and the best staff you could hope for.

Over the few years we've been collecting and reading comics, we've expanded our intake considerably, but that's a story for another post. Several, probably. I've found the medium to, of course, elicit many geeky-fanboy "Squee!"-type moments — that's half the fun of it, isn't it? But, I've also found it to be able to move me greatly and speak profound truths. (Also stories for other posts.) I am much better for getting into comics — and not just for being able to see more of Buffy and Angel.