At a tender age, I confess, I....
wait a minute; I can plead the Fifth!
I....
*sigh *
Here goes. When my first-grade classmates read "Dick and Jane" (yes, I'm old enough to have read those books in school), I was reading fairy tales, especially those with downtrodden girls like Cinderella and Snow White magically transforming into princesses and meeting gallant princes who sweep them off their feet and into the Happily Ever After.
That wasn't so bad. (Deep Breath)
I was really captivated by romance, at an age far too young for this, and I kind of blame the soap operas my mom watched daily. "The Edge of Night." I still remember the names: Adam Drake, a lawyer, and his secretary, Nicole Travis.
Yes, that's right: I remember those names after 50 years. Because things learned early in life stay with us, while things more recent to us get lost. It's because the file cabinets of our brains are uncluttered in childhood. The older we get, the more names, dates, places, and people we have crammed into the memory bank of our brains. Now that we have The Cloud, I get frequent warnings on my smart phone about how my Cloud is full, and I need to buy more storage or purge stuff from my phone. Of course, I purge.
I wish I could buy more storage inside my brain.
But I digress.
If Adam Drake failed to propose to Nicole by New Year's Eve,
she would give up on him. And marry someone else. How long it took for them to get together--how many obstacles in the way! With the utmost suspense, hearts pounding, we watched the clock tick toward twelve, and...
"TUNE IT TOMORROW!"
Gaaaaahhhh!!
Romance. Soap operas. More addicting to me than the white stuff. (Sugar, that is, most ubiquitous of drugs.)
As I said, I was young. Everything is the mother's fault, so if I forget to plead the Fifth, I won't forget to blame Mom for the early interest I took in romance, the fictional version, because I didn't see any in real life. But I saw it in books and fairy tales and TV shows. And for some reason, it stayed with me. I internalized it!
God have mercy on my ruined soul!
And so, while other first-graders were dutifully doing their homework, I was dreaming of fictional heroines thwarted by their controlling fathers but ultimately eloping with their true loves. I wrote the words and drew the simple line drawings on the backsides of paper my grandma brought home from the scrap bin of a college where she worked as a janitor. I also wrote on those pads of white paper from the bank. So did my sisters. E.g.,
My First Epistle
was on bank paper, stapled together. I graduated to 8x11 sheets of scrap paper. All of these "graphic novels," primitive and childish as they were, got destroyed by my sister, but that's another story. From memory, a hasty sketch and the only title I can recall:
@kaelci says she cringes
at her debut novel written in November, only half a year earlier, but if my "debut" romances had not been shredded and burned, I would be blushing still, fifty years later.
Five Minutes Are Up,
and never have I been happier for an excuse to change the subject.
"Comic"book is the wrong term for what I was doing in grade school, because the only thing comical about it was how fierce, passionate, and earnest I was in creating this dreadful pulp fiction.
So, what is the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel?
A graphic novel is a book (not a periodical), made up of comics content, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized works. A comic book is a stapled pamphlet, published as a periodical.
Richard Kyle coined the term "graphic novel" in an essay in the November 1964 issue of the comics fanzine Capa-Alph. The term gained popularity, and "graphic novel" became a category in book stores in 2001. What is the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel?
Now, to purge the early conditioning of the {{{ Romance! }}} genre from my subconscious!
But wait--I must google the theme song of The Edge of Night!
I dare you to listen!
Day 558: 5 Minute Freewrite: Wednesday - Prompt: comic
Check Out The @FreeWriteHouse Prompt Of The Day By @MarianneWest
I never really got into comics or graphic novels although I tried. Enid Blyton and her Famous Five was my gateway into fiction
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I wrote more of them than I ever read, apparently - never saw any Enid Blyton in my entire childhood. Batman on TV was as close as I got to a comic book. But I loved the superheroes all the same. And from a tender age, I illustrated the dorky little romances I wrote. I should be thanking the mean sister who destroyed more than half a dozen of these "graphic novels" - badly written, badly illustrated romances by a first grader. :) Thanks for reading and commenting, @felt.buzz!
Enid Blyton wrote children books. Famous Five were mystery books. They got me into reading
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Never saw these in a library in my childhood--nor a Dr. Seuss book--but these look like stories I'd have loved.
Seriously: not until I got to college did I ever see a Dr. Seuss book! And it's not because they came after my time. Several existed before I was born. #Deprived! How did I grow up in America without The Cat in the Hat?
Ha ha! My mother didn't like them, so although I came into contact with Seuss they weren't a part of my childhood either!
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My mom too!!
Mom hates fairy tales, Wizard of Oz, musicals, and jazz--and has no qualms about saying so in front or our son, a jazz bassist by trade. She has no patience for Dr. Seuss. She read us Bible stories. Beyond that, we were on our own. I devoured my dad's Army-issue Red Cross manual and aspired to have a career in medicine. I aced the test to get into nursing school, LPN, but he pulled me aside and said I'm a malpractice suit just waiting to happen, so I took his advice - no medical career - but rejected his advice to get a blue collar job, and instead returned to - gasp - COLLEGE - which both Dad and Mom considered a colossal waste of time and money. Kinda fits with their aversion to Sr. Seuss, doesn't it?