Just was hit with how much I erase a part of my comics childhood:

The Sunday morning funnies

I talk a lot about books of magic being the first series I ever read, and how soon after my mom didn't buy me comics bc I read them too fast and they weren't worth the money

THAT SAID no one could keep me from the daily news and the Sunday times

My dad got the paper every morning, and driving to get the paper was a thing on Sundays. Like I'm saying driving around Manhattan with him if the regular guys ran it, or only had copies of the paper without the sports section

It was a great time for me bc driving with dad was how you hung out with him. It was the place where an often quiet man just TALKED with you, about media, about your life, etc.

(When I older he talked more in his house, but I also just think that's a dynamic change)

Anyway the funny pages in those papers were FORMATIVE. Fuck, I was reading Cathy before most novels. And don't get me started on Garfield

Read the political comics even when I didn't understand them. Flipped through whenever family circus had a one panel elsewhere

I was OBSESSED with prince valiant

And my babysitter would, because of that, wrap every Christmas and birthday present in the Sunday full colored funnies. I'd carefully unwrap things so I could reread those comics. It was as much of a gift as whatever was inside

I don't have a greater point, except I guess the funny Oates were important to my literacy, world exposure, and future, and I just was hit with how utterly I'd forgotten!

Wild