Continuing habits

[017] ... [Life]

I grew up with a liking for comics. Our father would buy us comic and so many other books regularly, me and my brother waited for those daily comic strips in the newspaper. Phantom, Mandrake and Modesty Blaise were what ours carried. There was of course the ever favorite Blondie printed in large size in a long ago extinct, tabloid-sized weekly, in black and white. Later another Sunday newspaper introduced us to Beetle Bailey and Bringing up Father. Much later Archie and Dennis the Menace became welcome additions when changing over to a different daily. Hagar the Horrible and Wizard of Id continue to be the other favourites.

There are ways to read comics, purely for its humor or as a deviation from the routine, with some even avoiding them as kid stuff! Personally I like to observe how each frame is drawn, the detailing, colors, even the position of blurbs that are so creatively handled by some, being a part of the frame on the edge than a conventional stand-out, and wondering at the way they manage to draw each character looking the same in every frame so effortlessly, updating the environs and outfits with changing times.

This habit has stayed with me, and I was glad to find most online at Comics Kingdom, including the old ones classified as Vintage, and there's Creators.com dedicated to many more under various categories.

Beau Peep was another oldie that came to mind suddenly a few months back, and the search led not just to OMG Beau Peep, but something never expected, a whole lot of yesteryears titles in the same portal. If our likings are similar, old editions of Archie Comics since 1942 are bound to hook you (unless of course you knew of it and never told me). Nicely catalogued and easy to navigate with clear, yet fast loading scans, they take you back to the old world charms of the time before we were even born.