The Comic Book
As a kid I had a comic book. It was an old issue of The Avengers. It was the only comic book I had. I must have read it a thousand times.
I’m not sure what the issue number was. I’m not sure of the date of its publication. I’m not sure how much it cost. All I remember is a few of the heroes and that Ultron was the villain.
I remember an ad was clipped out of one of the pages. But I don’t remember which page or any of the other ads. I remember another page had a corner missing, but I don’t remember which page. I remember somebody had written something in cursive, blue ink in the margin of one of the pages. But I don’t remember what it said, or if it was written at the top, bottom or side of the page. I don’t recall any of the characters’ dialogue, though I read my comic book over a thousand times.
My grandfather owned the local pharmacy. It had a rack of comic books and a newsstand for all kinds of magazines. He’d heard how much I liked comic books, so he told me to stop by his pharmacy and he’d let me have a few comic books. They were only a few cents each.
Whenever my mother drove us past his pharmacy, I never remembered to tell her to stop. And whenever I went to the movie theater across the street, I never remembered to go cross the street for some comic books from my grandfather.
There was a kid that lived on the other side of my subdivision. He had a big box of comic books in his room. He said he had a lot of old ones he didn’t want any more. He said he’d sell them to me or trade them to me for next to nothing. But I always forgot. I was always too busy reading the comic book I already had to remember anything about anything else.
Sometimes at school this kid would talk about his comic books. He’d ask me about my comic book, then tell me how all the characters in mine related to other characters and storylines in other comic books. He tried telling me how some of the characters in my comic book had evolved from their origins into the characters I knew from my comic book. He told that since my comic book had been written, some of the characters had evolved into quite different characters. But I didn’t pay any attention. I was too interested in my comic book as I already knew it.
I don’t even recall whatever happened to my comic book. I don’t know if I sold it or if I or my mother threw it away. I don’t know why I don’t know what happened to my comic book. My mind is not infirmed. In a lot of ways, I’ve got a good memory, especially for things like grievances. I guess it doesn’t matter what happened to my comic book. I don’t think too much about it anymore since I’ve found a different book to move onto.
mrobins71 