Memory recall is flimsy by nature which shouldn’t be as surprising to hear as it is to experience. Some of us can REALLY struggle with the concept of memory fluidity. After all, there is ample evidence to suggest that we may not remember things the way they actually happened. Over time all sorts of different things can interfere or tweak our memories. Just ask my mom to tell a shared story of my childhood. If I’m in the room you can bet I’m going to interject with the REAL facts. But I’m no scientist and I’m not sure how scientific it is to refer to a memory as a “core memory”, but I believe such memories exist and they are generally more powerful than the other memories. Point being: they tend stick around like glue. They’re sturdier than regular memories, built different. For example: I remember a lot about going to high school but running out in front of an auditorium full of my peers in nothing but my speedo alongside the rest of the swim team is a core memory that I will likely never forget. Haven’t forgotten it yet. It’s as clear in my head as it is to watch 4k movies on the new overpriced tv in my living room. I like to think of core memories as events that have impacted us in one way shape or form. In my said example, it impacted me because of the way that experienced felt compared to the average school day. I was practically naked in front of the entire student body after all. I can ascertain that we all have core memories because we’re all growing and evolving humans who learn from our experiences. These are simply the memories of the things that make us who we are; therefore we cling to them, for better or worse.
Those memories and experiences accumulate and build over time into a (hopefully) complex individual. I don’t believe in destiny in the strict sense that some higher being has predetermined our fates and controls our paths. But we experience things at certain moments in time that fundamentally change and influence us, which in turn sincerely alter our path forward. I can’t believe I’m saying this but some of you may be too young to remember a movie called Donnie Darko. I’m sure it still has its cult followers to this day but let’s just say that was a DVD I only pulled out for special people. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, there isn’t a real way to summarize it accurately. But its worth a watch if you’re in a philosophical mood wanting to explore a variety of themes such as predetermined destiny vs choice, the meaning of life, the nature of reality, and selfish vs selflessness, to name a few. The movie had a lot to say about a lot of different things and was truly one of those movies that (in the best way possible) left a mark on you once it was over. It forced you to rewatch it numerous times to even remotely grasp the entirety of the concepts presented. And it was worth doing so. Point being, that movie has exemplified my belief on destiny in a way no other story has since (I’m open to suggestions and challenges on the matter). We experience things, and we make a choice, and it alters our path forward forever. Or it doesn’t. Spoiler alert for an “old” movie: was Donny simply always destined to die by saving the universe? Im not here to start a debate on the messages or themes or nitty gritty of Donnie Darko, its been ages since iv seen it but I would certainly welcome any discussion on the matter in a future post. But for now, I just want to use Donnie for what he’s best at being used for, and that’s as a metaphor, a metaphor for how destiny has played a role in my life.
You could say I was destined to become a nerd from day one. I was more often than not seen in a Batman or Wolverine costume in my single digit years (pictures exist to prove it). My Mom and Dad were a bunch of business mongrels when they were together (divorced when I was in 4th grade) and notably ran a trio of successful movie theaters in the suburbs of Chicago. One of my earliest core memories was running around the Geneva Theatre playing with toys in the projector room while my parents swooped me out. Another was getting a private screening of Pokemon the Movie when I was 9 years old in an empty theatre ran by my Dad. You could say that had a big impact on my developing love for Pokemon.
You could also say I was destined to become an insulin dependent diabetic. I inherited it most likely from my mom who is also type-1. That means that our pancreases from an early age stopped producing insulin so now we have to inject it to cover any form of carbohydrate we need to eat for the rest of our lives, and from a young age to boot. We had to grow up really fast if we wanted to survive both long and short term. I was around 15 years old when I was diagnosed “pre-diabetic” (my mom was the same age when she was originally diagnosed) and had to begin watching my diet. I was already a rail thin swimmer who burned too many calories a day. This was life changing, especially for an essentially fatherless young innocent soul who just wanted to go to swim practice and woo some young ladies. I was never in short supply of guidance despite it just being Mom and I, she covered just about every base both parents should cover. She was workin overtime as both mom and dad, no easy feat especially for a type 1 diabetic. I don’t want to dwell on these details for long because we’re here to celebrate geekdom and fandom. My secret origin will always be the most interesting to myself and myself alone. What does this has to do with being a geek? It was just destiny. It was meant to be, in a perfect cocktail of emotions, hormones, and life circumstance, and susceptibility to radical changes via the formation of new core memories.
I was primed for things to impact me. A lot them just hadn’t yet. But little did I know how much they would.
One day my mom brought in a package, a special delivery from my aunt. It was larger than expected. Inside of it was quite a few books, dvds, and video games (she was a geek long before I was born). My aunt is responsible for showing me what a Super Nintendo was at the ripe young age of 5 years old. My earliest memories of video games were playing the Legend of Zelda on her Super Nintendo and never wanting to shut it off. It’s neither here nor there but i’m proud to admit I have played the vast majority of every mainline Zelda game the Nintendo Corporation has released since, so you will likely be reading about Zelda in more than one post in the future. Anyway, the care package that arrived contained a swath of content that would forever change my life. In particular there were 4 things that in summation changed my destiny. They brought me to the here and now, to this moment in time, discussing fandom with you. They are as follows:
- The Sandman trade paperback vol 1-2, by Neil Gaiman
- Identity Crisis hardcover by Brad Meltzer and art by the wonderfully talented Rags Morales
- Blackest Night free comic book day issue 0 by Geoff Johns and a variety of artists
- Fables vol-1 by Bill Willingham and Lan Medina
Iv watched Batman the Animated Series growing up. I watched the Pokemon Movie in my parents movie theatre. I enjoyed the Teen Titans tv show, the X-men animated tv show, you name it. I enjoyed it. But comics were something I always knew existed (I did have a very small random collection of comics from childhood that I had NO idea how to connect) yet never really dabbled into. I kinda thought they were for either kids or weirdos.
I picked up the book that looked the most immediately interesting. The cover was designed to look more like a book than a comic book. The author and artists name was HUGE covering half the page. The bottom half of the page was white and had a picture of the justice league (literally, a picture inside a picture frame like the ones on your wall) with the glass broken and blood splattered all over it. Huh. This isn’t like the Justice League I watched growing up. I opened it up and did not put it down.
Core memory unlocked… “Batman and Robin: Orphans” (as written by Brad Meltzer in the pages of Identity Crisis). I had found profound imagery inside of a…comic?! I was shook. I had the chills. It was…exceptional. A comic book made me..feel? How is this possible? What impressed me the most about Identity Crisis was how accessible it was yet I felt like these characters had adventured together for years. They didn’t call each other their superhero names, they referred to each other by their REAL names. They KNEW each other in a way that made me feel like I was watching a blip in the life of these larger than life beings. Superman, along with the rest of the trinity, were presented bigger and more iconic than the rest. Seeing the iconography presented by Rags Morales in the printed form left an impression on me that has yet to evaporate. The heroes stopped what they were doing when Superman walked in the room. He had a PRESENCE that I felt. He was bigger (literally) than everyone else. There was a lot here that I was picking up as an eager first timer that was blowing my mind. I sensed the POSSIBILITY that printed art offered. The possibilities were endless. These characters had lives that intertwined and intersected for DECADES. And why was I not caught up on this? Who do I have to blame? Not my aunt clearly.
I was on the edge of my seat while I watched a desperate Tim Drake race home alongside a worried and desperate caped crusader. They had realized Tim’s father was about to die. And they were too late. Flipping the page to reveal: Tims father dead! And Bruce embracing his surrogate son in emotional pain with the words that simply read: “Batman and Robin: Orphans”. I realized how these sequences were so impactful and relatable and most of that was due to the art form itself. The masterful building of tension and angles, the use of the page flip to reveal it all. It changed my life. I had become…a fan.
As a quick side note, I have developed some differing opinions over the years as my expertise in the comic community has grown regarding Identity Crisis that I look forward to writing about one day. Nonetheless, it was highly influential on a young amateur reader. I know that the comic deals with some sensitive subjects (i.e. rape) that some of you would like to avoid so lets just leave it at that for now.
I finished that book and immediately moved onto a book that I had no idea was so influential until later on. But that book was The Sandman. And I had to read it twice to fully understand the concepts presented. It was Donnie Darko but even cooler. It had A LOT to say both with its profound and carefully crafted writing and its pictures that clearly had changed depending on the artist. This was..art. It was epic. It actually taught me things, in the moment, that I carry with me much like Donnie Darko stays with me. These were not concepts for children. Or weirdos. This was intellectual fodder.
I immediately picked up Fables and it blew my mind. There was BLOOD. In the first issue. In a book where the main character was the personification of the big bad wolf featuring a presumed murder of Snow Whites sister. What a concept, mixing the big bad wolf, Snow White and blood. And I couldn’t put it down.
Now here’s the real kicker: I finished the free comic book day issue 0 of blackest night and saw all the characters I loved from identity crisis dead. I had to know more. So I went to the comic store the next day and found out that…the next issue wasn’t out yet. I had to know more though. So I asked when it would be out so I could return that day to get it. But I left the store that day with two other things in hand:
1. The Sandman vol 3
2. Fables vol 2
The rest is history and I can imagine you can fill in the long blank that is between then and now.
Here is a hint: its a lot of long boxes.
Now lets get to some actual fun stuff and celebrate.
To be continued…