When I was 13 my Nana took me and my brother to the Garden State Plaza Mall. This was looooong before the hip remodel it got in the 90's. It was still a fabulous slice of 80's awesomeness with a Woolworth's with an old fashioned lunch counter where you could get a grilled cheese sandwich and a milkshake for probably $3. On this particular day, my Nana allowed my brother and I to spend a small amount on whatever we wanted. Normally I would buy some comics from the comic shop or an action figure from Toys R Us. But recently I had gotten much more into reading, so I always wanted to hang out in the book store. I'd also begun writing a few years earlier, so the two went hand in hand. Every cool book I read was inspiration for my next story. I'd also begun watching General Hospital with my Mom and actually found it to be pretty exciting. These were the days when daytime soaps had the craziest batshit storylines. Nothing like the garden variety, but no less fascinating, melodrama of today. Luke and Laura fell in love while they stopped the evil Cassidine from taking over the world with his freeze machine (General Hospital). Clint bumped his head and went back in time to the Old West version of Llanview (One Life to Live). I mean, this shit was loopy. I only watched General Hospital, but I saw this book called Soap World in the store and became fascinated with the fact that sooo much had happened on the show before I started watching but most of the characters still on it were related to the original people. I still find that fascinating today. I've long since stopped watching General Hospital, but now I watch a Clif Notes version of Days of Our Lives to follow the coolest gay couple in daytime, Will and Sonny. And Days, in particular, is a show that all started with 1 family, the Hortons. And the Hortons are still 1 of the main focuses. I like that. I like the sense of history and nostalgia already built in. And this book detailed every soap that was on the air in 1983, which was a hell of a lot more than what is remaining today. It told detailed plotlines from start to present. Who had an abortion, who killed who's husband, who had an affair when they should have been minding the baby. It was pretty awesome, actually. But the capper was when I was looking through the General Hospital section I saw a pic of a very young Mark Hamill aka Luke Skywalker himself from when he did a stint on the show that I hadn't even known about. I decided to get it there and then. As I think back on it now, I cherish the fact that my Nana didn't even think twice about me reading the book. There was no "Oh thats not fit for someone your age" or "That's not a book boys want to read". She was happy I was reading and happy it concerned 1 of her favorite shows. I can't say the same for my friends. Sometime later when they found out I was an avid watcher of soaps (after eventually adding Dallas and Dynasty to the mix), they invented a fake disease which they said I had contracted that caused me to watch feminine shows. They called it "TremuaSHAWitis" which sounds stupid and should have been laughed off with a "Fuck you" but I remember it hurting at the time. Of course these were the same "best friends" who would later ask me to not talk or hang with them in school anymore now that they had joined the track team, though it was ok for me to talk with them on the phone. But I digress. The book was fun and frothy, and I perused it all summer and later that year, began writing my own soap, THE INTRIGUE ADVENTURERS! Yea it was pretty cheesy...
I couldn't draw for shit. Every character looked the same except for their hair (though I at least knew enough to scribble on Michael Jackson's face so that he appeared to be of a darker complexion). Luckily my works of art only adorned the cover. Note also I copied the comics code authority seal and also patented my own logo: A STEVEN SHAW EPIC! They were fun times. I had kidnappings, affairs, murders, plots to take over the city of San Francisco, and much, much more.
Yes, I'm counting a comic as a book. It certainly meant as much to me at the time. I'd been reading comics for a while by then. This wouldn't be the comic that got me started. That distinction would fall on The New Teen Titans #1. I loved team books (still do) and that 1 was drawn by 1 of my favorite comic artists ever, George Perez. Plus the heroes were pretty close to me in age so it was easy to get caught up in their problems. But Avengers was, is, and always will be my favorite title. There were all the heavy hitters of Marvel in one spot: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, The Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye. And the team was always changing so you always had new characters to grow to love. Plus they weren't averse to featuring soap opera elements in their stories, which I loved. Ms. Marvel was still a fairly new character at this point and a new addition to the team who'd been doubting herself ever since she joined. In this story, the 200th issue of the original run which started back in 1963 (the same year as Doctor Who, the Kennedy assassination, and the death of Marilyn Monroe), Carol Danvers suddenly becomes pregnant. Within a matter of days, she gives birth to a child which grows into a startlingly handsome space entity who I assume wants to rule the world (its been decades since I have read it) and a fierce battle ensues. If I remember correctly (talking about it now I see I'm going to have to buy a copy because its making me want to read it again), by the end of the story the entity falls in love with Ms. Marvel (technically his "mother") and whisks her away to an uncertain future. Ms. Marvel as a character would go on to have an amazing history getting amnesia, losing her powers, gaining new ones, joining and leaving several teams, until once again she was a powerhouse in the Marvel canon. The Avengers was being drawn at this time by another of my favorite comic artists of all time, John Byrne. But oddly enough, if I'm correct, George Perez was brought on to draw the anniversary issue. And it looked amazing. Perez has a way of filling every minute space of page with something intricate and fabulous to look at. He is a genius. And I was hooked. My interest in comics has waxed and waned over the years (its so goddamn expensive now to follow anything faithfully), but it all started as a passion with this issue. And it will never go away, thankfully.
I notice nobody ever puts It near the top when they list Stephen King's best work. Everybody loves the other heavy hitters: The Stand, The Shining, Carrie. Those are all awesome. But this was the one that did it for me. I was always into horror from the time my Dad woke me up in the middle of the night when I was 7 to watch The Thing From Another World on tv. Remember, this was looong before videos and 24 hour movie channels. Plus this was also the first massive book I chose to read on my own. It was over a 1000 pages. It was a fucking doorstop. But people had told me good things. I started to read the story of a group of people who were raised in Derry, Maine and who had all gone through something extraordinary there when they were children. If you haven't read the book before, without giving too much away, it concerns an evil being called Pennywise who appears to people usually as a clown, just before murdering them horribly. It is the story of what happens when Pennywise returns after a long absence and the children, now grown, who once vanquished him have to return to Derry and face their fears so that they can defeat him once and for all. Its packed with scary stuff, a heavy sense of nostalgia (which in case you haven't guessed already I absolutely love), and disturbing scenes. Luckily I do not suffer from coulrophobia or I might not have been able to finish it. It is an amazing book. Thinking back now, this was a time when queer novels were not easily obtained from the book store, let alone the library which were almost always rainbow free. And pre-Amazon or Ebay, you were out of luck if you couldn't travel to a big city to check out a gay bookstore. And I remember very clearly It having several queer themed passages in it. In retrospect, they're probably not very flattering. Pennywise's first victim upon returning is a man coming from a night out in a gay bar, and if I recall he is being gay bashed at the time. And the other scene involves two of the bullies who torment our heroes as children. When they are alone in the woods together reading dirty magazines, the older bully begins to masturbate his friend. The reaction is immediate and I'm sure (though I can't remember verbatim) "faggot" is thrown around quite insultingly, after which the older boy is killed by Pennywise. Its startling to me as I think about it now that a subliminal message from this (probably not the intended one) is that gay sex equals death. Luckily at the time I didn't see it that way. All I could think was "Holy shit the dude just started jerking off his friend that's hot!" I was always puerile, I guess. But beyond that, It is still an excellent read. Maybe one day soon I will pick it up again.
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