#i am comics

I started to write a post about my garden, but I put that on hold when I saw this video by Amy Dallen.

I had been following this story fairly closely and I was hoping mad at the treatment that Janelle Asselin received for expressing a fair critique of a comic book cover.  I have always found the idea that anyone should be excluded from comics offensive and I wrote about last year.

From that video I discovered the We Are Comics Tumblr and  was moved to share my story.  Please check out the site.  Below is what I posted.

Hi, My name is Tom and comic books, in a very real way, saved my life.  I was born with Attention Deficit Disorder, Dyslexia and I’m a host of other learning disabilities they didn’t even know about back in the early 80’s when I was diagnosed. As you can imagine this did not make for a particularly pleasant childhood.  Reading was incredibly difficult for me, but I was able to over come that because of comics. I could always use the actions of the characters as contextual clues to figure out what they were saying and what was going on. That is how I learned to only read but to love reading, both comics and prose.

My learning disabilities were bad enough that I bounced around the public school system for a few years while they tried to find a place for me.  Eventually my parents found a special school that was just for children with learning disabilities.  Even at this young age I was super nerdy in to all of the stereotypical nerd stuff (Star Wars, D&D, computers, etc) that combined with being bounced from special class to special class, I felt like I was never really able to connect to any of my class mates.  When I was sent to the new school for kids with learning disabilities a felt like even more of an outcast.  Comics are what got me through these dark days, especially the X-men.  I could relate to them, because they had to go to a special school too and they were awesome.  I love Colossus, his skin became steel and nothing could hurt him. I badly wanted to be that way too.

My parents fostered my love of comics.  I think they saw how much they help me.  At this school we would get weekly report cards, based not on our grades but our behavior (ADD being an impulse control disorder, making good marks was harder than you might think).  Each week that I got high marks my folks would buy me comics based on how well I did.  That was all the incentive to get perfect marks and make sure I got as many comics from our weekly trips to Comics and More in King of Prussia.

Now I’m 35 years out and I have just put out my first 8-page comic. The comic really more of a writing sample than anything else, but the manager at that same Comics and More like it enough to want to carry it in the store.  I get such a thrill seeing up on the shelf.  I can’t convey how much it means to me to see my work next to comics by some of the people who’s writing and art had such a profound impact on my life. My greatest hope is to write something that gives someone the just a fraction of what I got out of comics. I want to create something that everyone, no matter who they are or what they look like, can read and see them selves repressed in the art form that I love.

I’m here because of comics and I am Comics

#i am comics