When I was in middle school and high school, I read manga non-stop. Well, maybe it wasn’t non-stop but whenever I had the spare money to buy a volume of one of my favorite stories, you could bet on me going to check it out. I built a collection. By the time I graduated high school, I owned over 50 volumes and that’s not including the volumes that I borrowed from friends. I was reading them late into the night and consuming entire volumes. It wasn’t until I realized that in buying all the manga volumes I had, I’d easily dropped $500 dollars that could have gone toward getting a slightly better card when I turned 17.
But the manga wasn’t the first time that I delved into comics and I hadn’t realized it. Sure, I read Spider-Man comics when they came my way. Heck, I remember there was a time when The Star-Ledger was including Spider-Man comics on Sundays for about a year. Then again, I don’t know anyone who didn’t read Spider-Man at least once. Spider-Man is part of every child.
It was Archie that actually captured my attention. While I have a book shelf of manga, I have a drawer filled with Archie comics and I didn’t keep them all. I read Archie like a fiend. If I went to the grocery story, there wasn’t a time I didn’t beg my mom or dad for a new Archie. Whether it was Archie, Jughead, or Betty and Veronica I was there ready to read the whole digest. And I really preferred the double digests. Despite, reading these comics all the time, I didn’t realize until recently that I have been an avid comic reader my entire life.
Even now, I am currently blowing through manga after manga, while reading Marvel comic line, after comic line, and I want to read more. I’m always looking for more to read. Currently I am reading Attack on Titan and I’m about to read Ouran High School Host Club again.
What are you favorite manga series or comic series? Do you have any recommendations?
So, I pondered... 