Comic Life

 Earlier this year, I began working at a comic book store.

If you're a subscriber, you may have noticed my reviews this year have included both manga and comic trade paperbacks. A story in any form is still a story, and being surrounded by these mediums on a daily basis has seen me include them quite regularly into my reading habits.

It does mean my reading of novels has dropped a little, but comics have also helped me out of what was becoming a slump - I'm back to reading regularly, where before I was opting more for TV, movies or video games ( hello to my new Minecraft habit, but that's another story).

One thing that's been interesting with this new comic-loving lifestyle is the jumping on point.

I've found it quite interesting how some comics are easily digestible for the uninitiated, whereas others are almost impossible to enjoy when you're not up to date with the characters, events, and storylines that have come before.

For example, I saw advertised the forthcoming title, Artemis: Wanted from DC, which sounded fantastic. However, I learned it was a spin-off that followed Trial of the Amazons - a six-part series that ran across Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, and its own, two-issue, Trial of the Amazons. I went back and read issues 3-6 of this series so I had a better idea of what was going on, but it's a lot of work for someone looking for a good title to start with. (As it turned out, only one single issue of Artemis came out, which was incredibly disappointing. Read my Goodreads review for the single issue HERE)

My first foray into the collected editions went much better. I chose to start with a character that fascinated me: Venom. He's only relatively new to the spotlight, so fortunately there aren't too many options to cloud the judgement. I wanted to start at the very beginning, so I chose Volume One of the Venom Epic Collection - Symbiosis.

Marvel's Epic Collections are now my go-to recommendation for people looking for a starting point for comics. They collect a whole lot of various issues into one cohesive story, so even later volumes stand on their own perfectly well. In Symbiosis, I was able to read about the very beginnings of Venom (as a suit of Spider-Man) and his development from a villain of the web slinger to a hero in his own right. (You can find my Goodreads review for this volume HERE)

Since then, I've read widely across all publishers, though I do tend to favour Marvel. Titles I've enjoyed include Saga, The Boys, DCeased, Batman: The Long Halloween, Savage Avengers and House of M. I'm addicted, now, so I'm constantly digging into the worlds and trying to discover the best collections to read. Next up, I'm looking at the very popular Batman story, Hush.

I've also been reading a bit more manga in an effort to learn the most popular stories, but I've found myself more attracted to the stories that were around a decade or so ago, when I first discovered manga/anime. That's why you'll see reviews for titles like Inuyasha and Dragon Ball, as well as a lot of first volumes of the newer titles.

It can get quite overwhelming at times - there are so many stories I want to experience, while I've also got a stack of novels sitting around begging to be read. But I really do feel blessed to be a reader, and to have so much available to me.

You won't find any of my reviews for the single issues on this blog - they tend to be quite short, and there are a lot of them - but you can follow me on Goodreads if you want all of my reading updates and reviews.

If you're a comic/manga reader, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on these things, too!