Day 66 of 100

“And it was 15 years before I went back to Walgreens”

I loved comic books. Loved them. The juxtaposition of story and art is unparalleled in any medium.

In high school, almost every extra dollar went to buying comics. I bought tons of independent comics like the Badger and Nexus and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I got some mainstream comics, but I never really fell in love with overly popular characters, but I did love the X-men and their stories around just wanting to belong and not be persecuted for who they were or how they were different.

I also fell into the “wrong” crowd in high school. I had a few friends that ran a legitimate burglary ring where they would steal clothes from one store and return them to another. Pretty soon, they gave me the peer pressured courage to steal comics books.

I was good at it. I stole dozens and dozens. Until like all ne’er-do-wells, I eventually got caught at a Walgreens and they threatened to call my parents. And it was 15 years before I went back into that Walgreens.

It was a secret that was hard to hold. Every night when my parents got home from work I expected a call. It never came. I finally told my cousin, who told my aunt, who told my mom, who freaked the fuck out, and wanted to kick me out of the house until I learned to mend my ways.

Needless to say, I had quite disappointed my parents. I gave back most of the comics I stole, and stopped hanging out with the (not actual) Bling Ring. As the summer came to a close, I figured out that I had a skill for brokering sales between people, and started to do that at school. A D&D figurine here; a video game there; I quickly began to make real money and my need to steal comics followed my desire out the door.

Much later, I helped run a comic book startup and got to learn how the sausage was made. The comic industry is a unique industry loaded with wonderful characters that can be as fantastic as the heroes and villains they write about. And I still read comics now and again, but I don’t go to that Walgreens.