Back to Paperback

Back to PaperBack

Something very important happened two weekends ago, something that solidifies the entire process of moving back to New England and was the last step in feeling “at home.”

I found a good comic book shop.

You laugh, but I hadn’t found one in two years while living in North Carolina, and had resigned myself to moving all of my comic book reading to the digital sphere. I held no hope of locating a source for print comics again.

Don’t get me wrong, digital comics are a great thing. I always prefer to give my money to a small local business whenever possible, though, and the local comic shop is more of a cultural experience than it is a retail experience. There are really good conversations that happen there about very, very geeky things.

This particular shop has a great selection of old issues…boxes upon boxes of them, in fact…which is wonderful because I’m not a fan of what any of the major publishers have been doing in print of late, so I’ve focused my reading a lot on graphic novels and back issues for the last year or so.

As I browsed the neatly-organized and alphabetized shelves of recent-but-not-new issues to fill in some gaps that have occurred in the last couple of months, I found myself questioning which issues I had, and where I had left off. I found a few titles there of which I suddenly remembered having read the first issue, but had let the story and issue-to-issue cliffhanger escape my mind since doing so. Some of these were four or more months old.

This is highly unusual.

For two years, I have purchased all of my comics digitally. I thought that this would have no effect on my reading. After all, I still prefer to purchase ebooks whenever possible, primarily for the convenience of having whatever I’m reading readily available when I find myself with free time. Any excuse to read is well-taken, in my mind, so facilitating more opportunities to do so is a no-brainer. Comics should be no different, right?

Except that my theory is now proven wrong. These digital issues had as much interest to me while I was reading them, certainly. Yet, they faded from memory very quickly. I lost track of where I was in a given series, and even what series I was reading in some cases. It’s as though the stories took up space only in my short-term memory, making no lasting connections at all.

Which is far, far too disrespectful to any story to permit to continue.

I’m not sure why novels that I read in e-book format stay with me just as a physical novel does. Perhaps the issue at hand is that I have been far too busy with little time to read for the past few months (a new child has that effect). Or, more concerning, perhaps my attention span is being progressively shortened. That’s a frightening concept that I prefer to not consider.

So, that Saturday afternoon, I brought home my first paper issues of new comics in two years. A good feeling, I’ll admit.

Incidentally, I still remember where each issue left off, and am looking forward to next month to continue reading.

Just like in years past.

Physically.

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