I must confess to a certain weakness for comic books and cartoons. It brings back all the childhood memories where a lot of my leisure time involved either reading comic books or watching cartoons on television. Even before I started to read I would go through this collection of Walt Disney comic books with Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Goofy and make up stories looking at the pictures. I strongly believe that I read comics before I read the fairy tales (Lady Bird books in my case) and enjoyed every minute of them. Of course the natural progression was Snoopy, Tintin and Asterix. However, belonging to a small town meant that I did not always have access to all the Tintins and the Asterix that I would have liked to have. When we did go shopping for reading material, my mother ensured I moved on to more "age appropriate books" and hence the introduction to the Five Find-Outers, Famous Fives, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and the other millions of Enid Blytons and many more authors in later years that have now become an indelible part of my growing up years and continue to accompany me as time goes on. Thanks Mum, for opening up the magical world of books to me.
Over the years, however, I have not been able to let go of the fascination I have with the cartoon world. As a result I, recently, decided to start collecting and reading some comics that I have always wanted to. It's simple really, everytime I decide to fly from one city to another I make it a point to buy a couple of Asterix or Tintin at the airport. What follows is an hour and a half of complete immersion in the world of the Gauls and the Romans or "ten thundering typhoons", "billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles" and several other such alliterations sprouting from Captain Haddock. I can't seem to get enough of the insanely named characters in Asterix or the crazy humour in the banter between various characters, whether Roman or Gaulish. Not to mention the crazy adventures and scrapes Tintin gets himself into wherever he goes. It is so easy to lose yourself in their world and wonder what it would be like to actually be present there when they set off on one of their adventures. When I read books, I am usually lost in the plot and feel as if I am part of the world that I am reading about. These may be comic books, but I feel just the same when I am reading these. There is a reason after all, for people wanting to own complete collections of these comic books.
It feels like I now have another advantage of travelling by air... I can buy another comic book, and for the next couple of hours, lose myself in a world I would definitely like to be a part of.
It feels like I now have another advantage of travelling by air... I can buy another comic book, and for the next couple of hours, lose myself in a world I would definitely like to be a part of.
