Every good story (true, fabricated, or more typically, somewhere in between) here in the City That Forgot to Care, begins with a thoughtful pause, a drawn out “Well,” followed by the phrase “what had happened was…”
“Who drank my beer?”
“Dude, what happened to your face?”
“Why are you carrying that sack of mannequin parts?”
“Where'd all this blood come from?”
“They're charging you with WHAT?!”
And so on, and so forth.
That's how my story starts, in answer to the question you totally didn't ask, which is “Who are you and why are you here?” I'm skipping out on answering that first bit on account of you'll find out soon enough and likely wish you hadn't. But why am I here? Well I oughta ask you the same. Actually I aim to, but if I let that out now it'll spoil the dramatic turn and… rats. Well. What had happened was, there was kinda this epic contest of wits, see? Between me and Oz. I mean real epic, like as epic as ever been heard of this side of Ragnarok, got it? After what seemed an eternity of twists and turns far too complex to detail here, I was eventually bested, undone by some logical fallacy or riddle or Jesus Christ y'all use your imagination for once. I ain't even getting paid for this gig, you cant expect me to do all the heavy lifting. Anyhow. Resultant of that I'm kinda sorta bound by this blood pact to write out a Friday news post for perpetuity. Also I now have to live entrapped in this cursed jar until some unwitting fool utters my REAL name three times under a full moon, but that's neither here nor there, right?
But enough about me. Lets talk about y'all. More specifically, let's talk about what you're doing here. Lemme guess: comics, right? Hell, I said I was gonna ask, and here I am just blurting out assumptions. Well, if you've somehow stumbled in here shopping for adult diapers or looking for quick and easy chicken dinner recipes let me be the first to regretfully inform you of your mistake. As for the rest of us, let's talk about why we're here. Let's talk comics.
More specifically, what is it about comics that keeps us coming back? There are other ways to tell stories, certainly. But there's something about comics that engages all sorts of folk from all sorts of walks of life, all ages, all backgrounds and creeds in a way that no other media can. Most of us can probably chronicle our life in the comics that grabbed us and drew us in- captured our imaginations and made us look at the world and how we engage with it in a new way. Do you remember your favorite newspaper strip? The first title you followed? Were you convinced that you'd totally develop mutant powers when you hit puberty? What about the stories that made you go, “whoa, that's heavy”? Do you remember the sense of power and freedom that making your first comic gave you- being in control, being able to craft your own world, your own characters, tell your own stories? Do you stay up well into the night, despite obligations to work or school, toiling over a story that you know only a handful of people will ever see? Is your house one big explosion of comic books and books on comics and pages of comics and seriously I can't find anything around here, where the hell is my Jack Kirby book, I know I didn't lend that out? Am I talking about myself again? Crap.
Anyhow. Comics are just about my whole world. I could wax poetic and philosophic-like and all kind of ways about what comics mean to me, but I’m stuck in this jar for perpetuity so I got plenty of time to get around to that. But, eh, in the meantime, what are you doing here? Why comics? Why you? Shoot.
Of course I know what I'm doing.
HyenaHell at 12:00AM, Feb. 3, 2017
5 likes!
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Ozoneocean at 8:48PM, Feb. 4, 2017
You don't wanna KNOW what I had to do in order to get her IN there...
Dragonaur at 11:14PM, Feb. 3, 2017
"Were all these beer can here last night? It's such a disgrace..."
bravo1102 at 11:10PM, Feb. 3, 2017
And now you know why I always have a glass cutter with me whenever I am near Ozoneocean. ;-D
bravo1102 at 11:08PM, Feb. 3, 2017
I was reading Peanuts and Mad Magazine digests since I could read. With two older siblings there were plenty of comic books. Typically I followed my older brother's lead and read Sgt. Rock, GI Combat and Weird War as well as Classics Illustrated. Whenever I had a quarter and went to the Krauzer's I got a comic. They were all sold at yard sales after my wife and I bought a house. In high school I had a few friends who heavily into comics, so I was able to save money by reading their collections.
sarokophoenix at 8:41PM, Feb. 3, 2017
Apparently I was writing comics before I even knew what letters were. According to my mom, I would draw out my comics, stick figures on separate pages in place of panels, and would tell the stories out loud. 'Dialogue' was a big sequence of loopy lines over or under the characters. There are no specific stories that come to mind, but they were all set in this world of 'Stick Fruit (stick figures with fruit, usually oranges and apples, for heads) who were at war with each other. All except one Apple and Orange Person who were friends and were often harassed by the Apple's father. The funny thing was, though, that it took almost seven years before I realized that this had any kind of meaning. The namely the kind that starts and ends with 'I was born to do this.'
Zaptoid56 at 2:19PM, Feb. 3, 2017
I started drawing comic books when I was 7 years old. I 'published' them under the Lucky Book Club logo and sold them to my older brother. I drew on lined paper with the 3 holes at the edge and when the comic was done I tied it together with string. I received a small stapler for my birthday one year and considered myself to be a big time publisher after that. :D
HippieVan at 12:30PM, Feb. 3, 2017
That's how oz got me too, the scoundrel! I only freed myself by slowly gnawing away at the glass of my jar, and fasting until I could squeeze through the tiny hole I had managed to chew. Unfortunately my days are now numbered due to having consumed nothing but shards of glass over several months.
PaulEberhardt at 10:39AM, Feb. 3, 2017
Nice to meet you, news post writer in a jar! :) I don't exactly remember what my first comics were, but Disney, Asterix and Don Martin must have been among them. I do remember that I soon developed rather mixed feelings about Disney, though, and at age 7 or something I tried to draw some kind of comic where the big bad cat wins. I failed at that and resolved to grow up first. Kinda failed at that as well, but when I was in my early twenties I picked up the pencil again on a spontaneous whim and started drawing in earnest. Now, fifteen years later, I still haven't figured out how to stop, but that's Ok, as I wouldn't want to anyways. Turned out it was something that had just been missing in all of my previous life, if that makes any sense.
Banes at 9:29AM, Feb. 3, 2017
My early comic reading included MAD Magazine and Archie digests (as well as Beetle Bailey and Dennis the Menace). My first Marvel comic was an issue of The Incredible Hulk. I think the first comic I tried writing was called "P.D. Days"; it was just a cover, and two strips, but it was supposed to be a sprawling world about the wacky goings-on at a school (definitely MAD-inspired)
Banes at 9:23AM, Feb. 3, 2017
Welcome to your jar! I hope they poked a couple holes in the lid this time! We've lost more Newspost people that way...
Tantz_Aerine at 5:31AM, Feb. 3, 2017
Hahahaha! Welcome to the fold of jarred newspost writers. We're all here because Oz is a diabolical necromantic sorcerer and eventually hopes we'll all be pickled. As for your question, I was suckered into making comics for my students because the little twits wouldn't study otherwise. Then I couldn't shake the habit. First webcomic I read though was Sluggy Freelance. That was weird fun.
KimLuster at 5:07AM, Feb. 3, 2017
And I can tell you're gonna be fun!!
KimLuster at 5:07AM, Feb. 3, 2017
I sometimes feel my inspiration from making a comic is more from Roleplaying Games rather than comics, as that was my hobby of choice over the years. The crafting of worlds, of stories, characters, using your words to paint a visual image... I don't RP much anymore, but the yearning to create is still there, so I decided to see if I could render on visual media what was in my head. More than a little painful at first, I now considere it one of the more rewarding experieces I've had. That the primary reason, but there are others... I did collect graphic novels here and there (got most of the Elfquest series) and I read ALOT, both fiction and nonfiction, so plenty of streams running into this pool!!
Ozoneocean at 4:32AM, Feb. 3, 2017
I was just now going through some of my ancient Mad Magazines. I remember how awesome they were and how sexy the naked ladies in were in some of the cheekier panels... I wanted to learn how to be cheeky like that.