Introducing the Mad Thinker

Well, how do you start a blog?

An introduction sounds like a good idea to me.

I was born in the summer of ’79 in Middle England and I’ve been reading comics regularly since the age of 5, 20^th September 1984 to be precise. I started with Transformers published by Marvel UK. A relative bought the first issue from a newsagent for me and I had a great many more after that, I also branched out into the Action Force comic, which is the British name for the American G.I. Joe.

I read comics on and off until I was 12, at this point my little brother came home one day with a copy of 2000 A.D. and I’ve read seriously since then.

2000 A.D. changed the way I thought about comics and their potential. That’s no disrespect for the wonderful job that Simon Furman has done with Transformers over the years. But 2000 A.D. by it’s very nature has both a wider scope and a larger regular readership.

It was Judgement on Gotham, the first Judge Dredd/Batman crossover that introduced me to American comics and I haven’t looked back since.

Or rather, I have consistently looked back since.

I’ll explain.

If you look at the side bar to the right there are three images. Stan, Jack and Steve. When I initially discovered American comics, I of course had not a clue who these chaps were. Obviously, over time I picked up the names and looked around to see what the fuss was about.

So I started working backwards. Instead of spending my pocket money on contemporary issues I started buying back issues and trades of whatever I could afford and whatever was available from the origins of the Marvel Universe.

Now, there were some excellent stories on the way, but it was the very early issues by Stan, Jack and Steve that really caught me. These chaps were World-Building from the ground up and I loved every panel of it. They had created the comics masterpieces that I’d read about in contemporary letter pages but hadn’t truly believed existed.

Stan, Jack and Steve are the chaps you’ll see pictures of on the side bar, but there are lots of other creators who will get a mention as the blog progresses, Doug Moench, Gene Colan, Lou Fine, Dick Sprang, Gardner Fox, Mark Gruenwald, all the way through four colour history to Warren Ellis, Alan Moore and Robert Kirkman.

But why am I writing a blog?

Well, I’m opinionated, obnoxious and self-serving, which is qualification enough to write anything on the Internet.

MT