Notes from the back room - an excerpt from my weekly newspaper column

I have always been a comic book reader, although now I buy them with different criteria than I did as a kid. Back then all the purchases were leisurely and spur of the moment, more likely to happen as a whim on a trip to the grocery store with my ma than as a directed effort to seek out the flimsy, stapled literary pictorial works. I didn't care about the condition of the comics I purchased. Bent, torn, wrinkled didn't matter, it was about the story. The stories got me wanting more narratives. There was something, too, in the actual moment-to-moment experience of reading comics that provided a unique delight. The visual accompanied by the structure and dialog. Yup, the sequential art and the play-by-play narrative. It fostered (and still does) my love of a well-crafted tale. A saga that even stretches out through many adventures with the same characters. When I compiled my list of the ten most influential books of my life there was one comic book on it. (The graphic novel X-men-God loves, man kills). Chris Claremont was the author back then, and I liked that comic so much I went down to the library and got his actual novels. While I liked his novel, First Flight, his comics are so much better. I think a lot of adults brush aside comics as juvenile eye-candy and fluff (and some are, of course so are some books..) But as we approach summer reading and start promoting literacy with kids and other reluctant readers, lets not forget the comic book. Now literary merit is one thing and reading just because it is fun is another, and while comics can meet both of those criteria – yes, it is true there are some comic books that have won actual literary awards – I do want to mention that reading something that is just plain fun has its place in building literacy. For a list of award winning graphic novels that the library has, just stop by the back room and ask me!