Jake Shares How He Got Into Comics!

How Did I Get Into Comics?

I was started young on comics, something that I think my father was thankful for as the parent

of a young and loud child. I could proficiently read at the age of 4, and my mother had run out

of Dr. Seuss and Little Golden Books for me to read. I specifically remember a day I was left at

home with just my dad, and I had woken up at night to find my dad shoulder deep in short

boxes filled to the brim with comics. I had no idea what any of this was yet, and because he

knew I wouldn’t go to bed again any time soon, he sat me down and explained. He gave me the

marvel handbooks (The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe) and told me that all of these

books I was now surrounded with were about all the people in those handbooks. My first

glimpse into that world were in those handbooks.

Man thing was the first character I gravitated towards, and I dove into his books that my father

had. I found this out later, but my dad also had OCD, and was a completionist collector for all

the titles that interested him, which I thanked God for. From Man thing I went from Howard the

Duck, and from him to the Defenders, on and on until I had read or was reading everything my

father had. I finally ran out when I was in Fourth grade, and by then Marvel had begun to

digitize all of their comics on their website. This would eventually become Marvel Unlimited,

and I filled in the gaps with that.

It’s not that I didn’t read regular books during all of this, it’s just that they didn’t last. I was

naturally a very fast reader, and when a book or series would end, it would never come back. I

had read, Dickens, Tolstoy, Riordan, Rowling, King, and Fleming, but eventually the books would

stop and I would be bored again. Comics were the only thing that I could read and not run out

of. I don’t think at this point I had really fallen in love though.

My grandmother was a commercial painter when I was growing up, and taught me all she knew

about illustration and the mediums she used to make art. Under her I studied Monet and the

other French impressionists at the time. I was enrolled in summer art programs and given all of

her old anatomy and illustration books. Hidden in this stack was ‘How to Draw comics the

Marvel way’, and this is where I really went insane with comics. Now instead of doing still life

compositions and practicing my Chiaroscuro I was practicing page layouts and group action

shots. I had become immersed with the beauty and art of comics as well as the story.

By the time I was in High School I had become engrossed with the history of the industry, from

the Charleston Comics buyout to the founding of Timely Comics, I wanted to learn all that I

could.

I was lucky enough to find my favorite book at a young age: Alex Ross and Kurt Busiek’s

“Marvels”. This book had the Rembrandtian art I had studied in books and museums, but also

the personal story of a disillusioned journalist surrounded by heroes and villains, gods and

monsters. I still frequently read “Marvels”, and I’m still inspired and in awe of what the comic

medium can accomplish. I’ve since walked away from doing art as a career, but I don’t think I’ll

ever give up on comics. To put it simply, comics make me happier than any other hobby would,

and I still love to be lost in a world so different and ever changing.

I’m not a huge collector of comics, I have my father’s old books to keep my sated on that front.

I started to work at the shop so that I could get kids to love comics just like I did, which

hopefully I’ve done to some level of success. My real dream is that one day I can be lucky

enough to have a kid that gets into comics like me, so that I can watch them fall in love with it

too.

-Jake

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