Comic Relief: Living in an Alternate Universe
Comic books took me to new worlds, and were the spark for my love of storytelling
When I was around twelve years old, I started reading comic books. I don’t remember what precipitated my buying the first of my comics, but I was immediately hooked. I liked the stories more than anything else. It was like reading a movie. Way back then, comics were eight cents, and then twelve cents each. I received a dollar a week allowance, and since the comics only came out once a month, that was more than enough time to save up my allowance and buy my favorites.
I had two sources of comics. The first was the grocery store in Gilbertsville’s commercial block. That was probably where my addiction started. In addition to all and sundry grocery items, the store had a revolving magazine rack chock full of the latest comics. For much of my childhood, the store was run by Max and Helen Cleinman. He was one of those gruff, mean-sounding men who sometimes barked at kids, but scared no one, as every child could see right through him, and knew him to be the nicest and kindest of men. Mrs. Cleinman was equally dear. Their son Alan was a year behind me in school.
Mr. Cleinman was usually behind the counter at the cash register, and he always had something to say when I bought my comics. Did my parents know what I was spending my money on? How could I read those things, anyway? What was so good about them, that put me in his store, week after week? Of course, all this went on as he added up my purchases and bagged them as I laid my hard-earned pennies down.
My other go-to place was the diner in Morris, the next town over. When we went to church on Sunday morning, we always stopped there afterwards, and I would buy my comic books and maybe a snack, as did my brother and parents. After playing the organ at mass at Holy Cross, my Mom had to drive over to Edmeston, another small village about twelve miles from Morris, where she played the organ at their small Catholic church. The two churches shared the parish priest, who lived in Morris, as well as other resources, which included my mother.
As we got older, we didn’t have to sit through two masses, so my brother and I would sit in the back seat of the car and read my comics, eat our snacks, and nap. It was essential, to me anyway, that I had reading materials. After the second mass, we had the drive back to Gilbertsville, 23 miles away. Sometimes it seemed as if we were always in church or on the road to or from church. Reading in a moving car didn’t agree with me, but that 45 minutes while mass was going on was my time to catch up on the exploits of heroes.
When I first started reading comics, I bought the usual “girls comics,” Archie & Veronica, Richie Rich, and others of that ilk. I didn’t stay with Archie and Richie very long. Boring!!!! There used to be a whole set of romance comics sold, as well. SUPER BORING!!!! I never bought them. I wasn’t allowed to read the horror and true crime comics, which didn’t appeal to me anyway.
I did like Classic Comics, which illustrated the great works of literature. I probably never would have read many of the classics if I hadn’t read their Classic Comics version first. Some of the more wordy and dense works could be hard to get into, especially anything written by James Fenimore Cooper. In addition to Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer, I also read the comic versions of The Three Musketeers, the Iliad and Odyssey, Macbeth, David Copperfield and Treasure Island, to name a few. I read the originals later, but I had the basic plot down thanks to Classic Comics.
What I really was attracted to were the superheroes. My stores carried a lot of DC comics. Reading Marvel Comics came later. The pantheon of DC’s comic line introduced me to the world of people who could do amazing things. Superman, the Justice League of America, Batman and Robin, the Flash, Wonder Woman and scores of lesser well-known heroes and the villains they battled. I began reading them during what is now known as the Silver Age of Comics. Many of these heroes were introduced in the late 1930s and early 40s, in what is now called the Golden Age of Comics.
I was a pretty solitary kid and lived in the land of comics because the characters, especially the ever-growing list of female heroes were everything that I was not. They were confident, beautiful, athletic and powerful. They righted wrongs and defended the powerless. They could fly (the best power ever!) or use their minds to move objects or read minds. They could shoot power rays from their eyes or hands. They could kick butt!
Some heroes were from other planets and were green and blue or had purple hair and no one discriminated against them or made fun of them. Many of them could also shapeshift or change color so they could blend into society when they were in their secret identities. I could relate to the desire to do that. Some, like the Teen Titans, were actual TEENS, a group of superpowered teens! I would have loved to have been a superpowered teen.
Looking back, I think I started to stray away from DC’s characters when I realized that there were just too many of them with ridiculous names and the plots were getting tired and absurd. Did we really need Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman, Bat Mite (don’t ask) and Bat Dog? There were lots of really marginal characters like Captain Comet, Saturn Girl, Doll Man and Eclipso. I could go on. DC World was overrun with superheroes, super villains and alternate universes.
That was also frustrating. They could never commit to major plot changes. If Superman told Lois his secret identity, or if they got married in a truly 1960s suburban housewife fantasy, with superbabies, that would be the plotline. He helped with the housework by using his super breath to blow the dust out of the house. But by the end of the comic, he either woke up, or was subjected to some new color of kryptonite that made him hallucinate, or was on one of the many alternate earths that existed in the DC universe. Comics were fantasy but come on! I felt cheated.
I began to explore the other big comic company, Marvel Comics. Wow, what a difference! Marvel characters had similar powers, but they also were more realistic people. Spider Man lived with his elderly aunt in Queens and was barely employed as a freelance photographer while he was going to college part time. He’d swing into Manhattan – a real place, unlike Gotham City and Metropolis - because he couldn’t afford to take the subway.
Marvel had supergroups too, like the Avengers. They didn’t all get along that well all the time. Much more like real life. While some characters had secret identities, others didn’t bother, everyone knew who they were, like the Fantastic Four, another bunch who were a dysfunctional family. Since all these characters have now been depicted on screen, they are a part of popular culture more than they ever were when I was a teenager. Back then, they were just comic books, mostly read by boys, or geeky nerd girls like me.
My favorite comic was the X-Men. They were mutants, genetically altered humans with all kinds of powers and appearances, some of which did not allow them to walk the streets without being detected. Unlike some of the other heroes in both DC and Marvel, they were feared and hated by many, and were hardly ever lauded or admired like the Avengers or the Justice League, no matter how often they saved the world. It didn’t take much to make comparisons of the mutants to any marginalized group of people, a very purposeful take by its writers and artists.
I also have to point out that comics greatly increased my vocabulary. They used big words often, and could inform the reader on actual historical and scientific facts in an entertaining way. I wrote a paper for my English class in high school on the advantages of comic books in teaching kids to love reading and improving vocabulary. It wasn’t all “Zap, Pow, Woosh” you know.
By the time I was in college, comics had risen to $.25 and $.50 each. They had also changed with the times. A new group of writers and artists took comics forward to mirror what was going on in society. Some attempts were better than others. I’ll talk more about that at another time.
Buying comic books while in college could be a blessing and a curse. I had a big trunk that I carried to school every year. During the school year, it was convenient storage in a space that had very little storage space, and lived right under my window, with plants on it. It was a great place to store my comics until I could take them home, either at Christmas or at the end of the school year.
It also made me leave them alone after I put them in there, because in order to get to them, I had to remove the plants, move them somewhere else, etc, etc. That kind of killed motivation and the desire to read them instead of studying. It was too much effort. Most of the time.
Marvel comics had some great marketing idea to get fans to buy a lot of comics. I guess DC had similar ideas, but I was reading Marvel almost exclusively by then. If you were a follower of a certain character, you read his or her comic. OK, that was once a month, and the comic was $.25. But semi-annually, the most popular titles would have a “GIANT” edition of the title, in addition to the monthly, which would either be an entirely new long-form story, or a combination of a longer than usual story, plus a shorter one, which would be a reprint from 20 years ago. This edition cost $.75 or maybe $1.00.
The GIANT edition was a great time to run a cross-over story, where a different Marvel character or characters would “guest star” in the title character’s storyline. Or they often introduced new characters that way, having the title character interact with them, creating some kind of relationship or origin story. If readers reacted positively to these new characters, they would often guest star in other titles, and eventually get their own book. Or join one of the many superhero groups.
The marketing part came in because if you truly were a fan of a specific character, Spiderman, for example, you bought his book, the giant annual, and any other title that he may appear in. This was necessary, because important plot devices could happen in the other books that you needed to know about and witness. If you followed multiple characters, you ended up buying an awful lot of comic books to keep up with the cross-overs, guest appearances, etc. In one month, Spidey could appear in 5 or 6 books. You HAD to buy them all. Yep, you certainly did.
When I was in college, the only place to buy comics within walking distance of campus in New Haven was a smoke shop on Chapel Street, just up the street from Vanderbilt Hall on Yale’s Old Campus. During those days, in the mid-1970s, Chapel Street, even near Yale, was not the upscale dining and shopping haven it is today. Some places were pretty sleazy, and this smoke shop was one of those places. My mother would have been horrified to know that I actually went in there.
The shop probably made most of its money from the large selection of porn magazines and materials that occupied the back of the shop. The racks with the comics were towards the front, with the legit newspapers and magazines. I used to go in there every week, when I knew the new comics were coming out, and take my stash to the counter and buy them, barely escaping the leering horde in the back. The things you do for love.
There weren’t too many women reading or writing comics during those years. It was pretty obvious that many of the female characters were there for the adoration of adolescent boys more than the advancement of female super powers. In fact, some of the costumes worn by some of the female characters were so unrealistic, revealing and pretty much painted on, their real superpowers were keeping them on their bodies when they were kicking butt and saving the universe.
When comic characters moved to movies and television, it was interesting how the costumes, both male and female, but especially female, had to be reimagined so that the actors could actually wear them and move in them. High heeled boots in your supercostume? Plunging necklines? Really?? That’s also a topic for another story!
I knew I was totally a comic nerd when one of my friends and I were on the phone, and the topic of comics came up. He knew I read them. He wanted to know what one of his high school favorites was up to, and I was able to give him the rundown of the storyline for the past few years, telling him who he had fought, major plot lines, who the character was dating, who died, who died and came back, who died, came back and died yet again, both good and bad, and who he had teamed up with, and whether or not the universe was still intact.
After all, with comics, you never know. You could be in an alternate universe.