HEB 3

When I think of a comic book, a few things come to mind. First I just think of mindlessness. I guess I just always associated a comic with just being something with little meaning, not much of a story, and just a bunch of pictures. Not exactly my ideal reading material. The second thing I think of with comic books are younger boys because I mean, come on, what girls actually read comics? Ok, so maybe my assumptions were a little misguided and I would have to say I have been converted to at least accepting comics.
I was surprised that the comic actually does have some really good things about it. The comics, at least within the super hero genre, have an immense sense of heroism as the fearless fighter attempts to protect the world. Also I particularly noted that this Superman I read about had a great deal of compassion for society, something perhaps we could use a little more of in the world. He cared about saving the alien just as much as saving himself. The story was somewhat how I would have imagined it: a superhero story, but it was not really as cheesy and predictable as I thought. I can definitely understand why people do enjoy reading them and can’t wait to get the next issue as it leaves a little cliff hanger at the end for you. It was also educational as it gave me a lesson about black holes. And I don’t know, maybe all of Superman’s red and blue that made me feel patriotic, as if a comic book was something really American.
Well I did see some good things about the comic, other things I was not that impressed with overall. I would have to say the artwork in this particular comic I read did not impress me at all, but perhaps this is my own personal bias as I am not really a visual person in any sense. So I generally found myself going right to the word bubbles and not putting all that much effort into looking at the pictures. However I did see a classmate’s comic in which the art was a little more impressive. The other thing I am still quite perplexed about is who exactly the age market is for the comic. As I said before and I would expect the average reader to know older than 13, however nearly every advertisement was geared to someone in high school. Every video game had a teen rating, as well as ads for acne and an ad o stop teen smoking. Not exactly the audience I imagined. I also have never known anyone in high school who had read a comic, but then again I did go to a Catholic all-girls high school, so it’s probably not the best place to go searching for secret X-Men readers.
Overall, I would have to say comics really are not all that bad. So maybe it’s not my particular choice, but that doesn’t make it bad either. There are really some choices for people to make with things like anime besides the super hero type. Comics are not really what I thought: a glorified version of a good old-fashioned story book.