Hey, it’s #NationalComicBookDay! Man, I love me some comic books…

A thread.

They say your own personal Golden Age for anything is when you’re about 12 years old. Well, that’s definitely true for me. The superhero comics produced in the early eighties are, IMO, the very best examples of the genre.

. @marvwolfman & Perez on Titans. @paul_levitz & Keith on Legion. Amethyst! Blue Devil! Some British guy writing about swamps. Doug Moench’s Batman was amazing. Guys like @PaulKupperberg elevated Superboy & Supergirl. @gerryconway tried new things with JLA & Firestorm. Great stuff

(I hear there were some decent books over at Marvel, too.)

This stuff formed the codons of my writerly DNA. Tell your story. Have your twist at hand, but be prepared for more than one twist just in case the reader sees it coming. Honor the past, but don’t repeat it. Character is king, but a punch out of nowhere never hurts the story.

For a while, I blogged awesome comic book panels from this era on this thread at my site: https://barrylyga.com/category/geeking-out/memory-monday/ Cheeky commentary included!

Years later, when I broke into publishing, it was with this book, about a kid who loves comic books and @BRIANMBENDIS. Maybe a little too much. Someone once called it “a love letter and a suicide note to comics.” That’s probably true.

Years later, I wrote the sequel, and proceeded to annoy @neilhimself with my characters’ perceptions of his work. (I’m joking. Like Bendis before him, Neil was an incredibly good sport about being dragooned into my fiction.)

Then, a little while later, I wrote MANGAMAN, with artwork by the incredible @ColleenDoran. Her art elevated the story, truly. Thank you, Colleen. (To those who always ask: Yes, we had a sequel planned. No, we don’t know if it’ll ever happen.)

And then I got to write The Flash…

And Thanos...

And even though they’re not comic books, they emigrated from those four-color countries to my territory of black and white prose.

For a long time, I eschewed the influence of comic books on my writing. Back in the day — before the movies and the TV shows and the video games — comics were considered trash. And those who loved them were considered…off.

But my writing professor, the great Tom Perrotta, once told me to embrace comics as an influence. “You’re at Yale,” he said. “Everyone in this class has read the entire canon of Western literature. None of them have read comics. That’s what makes you unique. Use it.”

I’ve been trying, Tom. Thanks for the advice.

And truly, a thanks to all the creators of all those comics that rotted my mind as a kid. I wouldn’t be where I am today without you. Happy #nationalcomicbookday, everyone!

/end