Emerald City Comicon

Emerald City Comicon

As a child, my life was disrupted by my parent’s divorce, I guess disrupted doesn’t describe it; turned it upside down, tore it apart that’s a better description.  I know that divorce is much more common now than it was back in my time, I know the feelings that young people growing up are experiencing, when their families are broken up.  Part of my family (children) lived through a family break-up, I can only hope that now that they are adults, they understand the mechanics, and emotions that create the environment that breaks up a family or keeps it together, and forgive me for the part I played in it.  I’ve said previously that if I could live my life over, I wouldn’t change anything, because I like the way my life has turned out.  I couldn’t imagine not having any of my children in my life.

Here again I digress, back to Comics and Comicon.  In my effort to quell my pain from my parent’s divorce I turned to comic books and the escape that the fictional characters and stories provided me with.  The youth of my time didn’t have computers, IMAX Theater, or many of the digital tools common today.  I, however, prefer to think of it as our advantage back then.  Before you consider making the argument to the contrary, two things to contemplate are; 1) we were able to develop our powers of imagination due to lack of technology, and the strongest argument, 2) two of the best known and most influential visionaries of our time were born in mid-1950 (Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs).  While people of my age group didn’t have the computers to work with, they were directly involved in the development if not invention of the technology of the recent past, present and future. 

So you see at least indirectly the comic books played a role in the development of our minds (mine anyway).  I’ve given comic books credit for my ability to read, write, and imagine what could be.  In case you thought about it, yes I use to wear the black thick plastic rimmed glasses, and until extraordinary skills in sports made me popular (I lettered in football, wrestling, and track), I use to run around with a slide ruler in my shirt pocket.  For those of you that don’t remember, the slide ruler, use to be the electronic calculator (non-electronic) of our time, and some of us used it more like a laptop.  Yes, I could also use the Abacus for performing arithmetic processes.    

One of my sons inherited the addiction to everything comic books and comic book characters.  Together he and I spent many dollars buying comic books when he was in high school and since then.  My wonderful son is quite the successful visionary himself.  I would be the last person to consider his involvement in comic books a waste of his time.  Matter of fact I know that his collection has been more of an investment.  You won’t hear of a comic book conference anywhere in the country where my son won’t be in attendance.  Presently you can find him at the Emerald City Comicon front and center. Isn’t life wonderful?  The best is yet to come….