Comic Binge

***WARNING: Contains evidence of how big a geek I really am***

It took me a long time to get into comics. Not because I thought comics were too geeky for me or too juvenile, but because I had no idea where to start. I was daunted by the amount of content out there. If I wanted to read super hero comics, did I have to start at the very beginning? Did I have to read every single issue Marvel ever put out? That was going to cost a lot both in time and money, so I avoided it.

The first comic series I got into was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, namely because I finished the show and wanted more. After that, I heard about Fables and being the fairy tale lover that I am, how could I resist a series where every fairy tale character ever was stranded in New York City? But both Fables and Buffy were relatively self-contained compared to what I imagined the super-hero books from DC and Marvel would be like, so I continued to avoid delving into those series.

I read Northlanders. I read saga – again self-contained stories. I tried reading The Walking Dead but found that I liked the show better (that’s probably controversial to some people, but oh well).

Like many, I’ve been a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When I watch the shows and movies and see things that are meant to be Easter Eggs, I start to obsess about them, wanting to know what they are and where they came from, but instead of finding the books those Easter Eggs referenced, I turned to the internet to supply the answers.

It was until Marvel announced that they were working on developing a Runaways show that I finally dipped my toe in the super hero comic book world. I found out that Runaways had long-since completed its run (this was before they announced the Rainbow Rowel-penned reboot), so I took a chance and bought the first volume of the complete collection and loved it.

And the floodgates opened. In the year since I cracked open that first Runaways collection, I’ve explored the Marvel universe, primarily sticking to their recent female-led books: Mockingbird, Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, Thor. And then I picked up Spider-Gwen, which threw me into the Spider-verse and I had so much fun reading that that I’ve started reading the bigger arcs, tracking down the crossover events.

I’m obsessed now, which is sort of what I was afraid would happen. Now that it’s happened, though – now that I’ve delved into the incredibly rich Marvel Universe – I’m in love.

Last weekend, I took a couple of days off writing (well, not completely. I edited a short story and read some things for my writing group) to read comics and it was so much fun.

Thank you for reading. For those of you who are comic book readers, what are your recommendations? Right now I’m reading X-factor, Young Avengers, Spider-Gwen (along with Silk and Spider-Woman), and Moon Girl and the Devil Dinosaur.

Also, anyone who managed to read all the way to the end, I’m assuming to be as big a geek as myself, so what do you think of the new Doctor Who announcement? Personally, I’m excited.