Writing and Publishing: Inspiration Part 5 – The X-Men

Back in 1992, I discovered the X-Men.


I remember my first issue I ever bought was the first part of X-Cutioner’s song in the Uncanny X-Men. I had seen comic books, I had heard of comic book characters, like Batman and Superman, but I had never read a comic book until that day.


The week before, one of my brother’s friends took comic books to our house. He was, of course, there to visit my brother, not me, and since I was 16 years old, it wasn’t appropriate that I hung out with them at all. I knew this friend since I was nine years old, but it was still not something you did back then. I did, however, stopped by my brother’s room often with some excuse or other just because I rarely ever had friends over – nor did I have many friends – and this is how I saw the comic books. They were kind enough to show them to me even if they didn’t let me read them.


This was my introduction to comic books. 


Comic books are amazing. I quickly fell in love with them. Once again here were stories of super humans who were really regular people. The stories didn’t always make sense. Comic books also had short, medium and long arcs and they had a way of retelling what had happened that I quickly got the hang of previous issues without having to read them. If anything, the X-Men (and all related titles) showed me that crazy stories about super powered people not only existed, but had been told for decades. 


I never picked up a Superman issue until he died and then came back to life, and now that I’m an adult, I like reading Batman comic books compiled in graphic novels. I also read other comic books/graphic novels that are aimed at adults, but nothing will ever compare with my first experience getting to know the X-Men.


​cheers!