GeekFaction: Comics

Considering there's so many factors that go into making someone a "geek", I figured I'd do a few posts about those things which define us best, and maybe grab the interest of the rest of us for entry into new areas of geekdom.

My first comic book was Avengers #333 in June of 1991, I bought it (well.. my mom bought it), because I used to draw all the time when I was a kid, and I wanted to get a look at comic book format. This lead to a major consumption of Marvel, DC, and Image comics over the next few years, leading to my last comic book, Uncanny X-men #317, around october of 1994. From what I've heard, this was around the time the big comic book revival was ending. Stan Lee said in an interview that they started making too many multiple collectors covers, citing Xmen 1, and really milking the readers....they got greedy.

Over the years I've kept up here and there with the major plot developments, and have even read a couple web comics, but haven't been in a comic store in nearly 15 years now. I've been thinking of comics as a solid form of media lately because there are no special effects budgets, no need to cater to the mass media (maybe a little on major titles), and that for many science fiction titles, I find a visual component important. The Difference Engine was a good read, but I'd appreciated it more if it were in some visual form.

A friend from work recently gave me The Watchmen comic book and movie to enjoy, and enjoy it I did! I flipped through the book and quickly got interested in a few groups of pages, but didn't want to start the process of reading the whole thing, so I gave it back to him. Not long before that, while waiting for my wife at Borders in Timonium, I found my way over to a graphic novel section, a section that actually amazed me at how large it was. Again, I leafed through a few of the collections, but didn't buy anything.

I like to read, but like I do with most of my hobbies, I go through ups and downs of how much reading I get done. Once I finish my current book, and I'm not busy writing blog posts, or playing Xbox; I think I'll go pick up The Watchmen, or maybe something else.

Any suggestions on what titles might draw me back into the fold?