A Writer's Biography, Volume I, Part 3: Comic Book Days.

Photo by Dev on Unsplash

I wound up buying a comic book today when I was in the Quad Cities running some errands. (For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here's a couple primers.) I realized today that this was the first comic book I've bought in about 20 years. It might even be 25, but it's at least 20.

Before I get into why I purchased the particular comic book pictured, I have to tell you how comics were a major part of what I read when I was younger. In the choice between DC and Marvel, in the end I was a Marvel guy. I loved the tales of the X-Men in particular, this idea of people with superpowers representing outsiders and those feared by society. The comic book writers of the late 20th century got endless mileage out of that idea, almost like how the WWE got endless mileage for years from the conflict between labor (Stone Cold) and ownership (Vince McMahon). However, a biography piece on wrestling's influence in my life is another bio entry for another time.

As I said, I…