I thought I should start by telling you a little about myself, so you know where I'm comming from. I've been a pretty die hard Marvel Comics fan since I was little. I mostly read "Spider-Man" but I loved the "Silver Surfer", and I picked up some "X-Men" ocasionally and pretty much everything else once in a while. But just because I like Marve doesn't mean I dislike the wares of other companies. It'd really be more accurate to say that I always wanted to be reading more books from other talents. For the most part though I was to scared to jump headlong into something I didn't really get though. The DC universe had it's own jumbled up continuity (of course this was pre-crisis on infinite Earths), and none of my friends read DC stuff, so I just let it pass me by. Of course back then no one ever seemed to read 3rd party comics, although I did ocasionally pick up an issue of "Hate".
Like a lot of people I stopped reading comics as I got older. Things at Marvel were stagnent and the dreaded Spider-man clone saga was just beginning. I couldn't take it. I thought I'd just been growing up, but now I realize that the industry was at a changing point. Marvel really was pretty awful for a few years there, probably explaining the whole bankrupcy thing. Anyhow, a year or two ago my girlfriend bought me an old issue of Spider-man. In fact, it was the issue in which we first see his black costume. One of my favorite storylines. I really enjoyed it and Cyndi and I started reading comics again. I enjoy good stories, and now that I'm a bit older and wiser :) I think I'm a bit more savy to certain subjects. And Man, have comics come a long way in the past 15 years. I've been reading a lot of new books but also checking out stories written years ago. It's great. There's just so much good writing and artwork out there. I'm honestly suprised when I meet people nowadays who don't realise the value of comic books. It's not that they're not good fun for kids anymore, but they're self aware. The universes of comics are far more real now than ever before, and serious issues can be explored or ignored. There's some excellent work out there and I'm only just beginning to uncover it. So why not give it a chance; read a review ort two you might just get caught up.
Seeing as I'm in The Gambia and they don't seem to have comics here, I'll probably for a while only be reviewing the books that I downloaded and ripped onto CD-R before I left Canada. I've got a fairly limited selection here, but it's still enough to keep me going for a while. If you are interested you can most likely find any of the books I'm talking about in a back issue bin at your local comic store, for a fairly cheap price. Enjoy the page.
