Confessions of a Comic Book Virgin

I've a confession to make - I've been reading comics for less than a year.

Don't get me wrong, when I was younger you couldn't pry me away from the staples of British comicdom - starting with Dandy and Beano, then moving on to Marvel UK titles and 2000AD. For the 20-ish years in between, though? Basically nothing bar an odd Age of Apocalypse single and a frankly baffling read through a friend's copy of Zero Hour, which left me with the firmly entrenched opinion that 'they don't make 'em like when we were kids'.

Then, several months ago, the only comic shop I can think of in Northern Ireland moved to a bigger, better location and took on Forbidden Planet branding. I decided to browse through the store in case anything caught my eye from my childhood. It did, but not in a form I expected.

I came across Ultimate Spider-Man.

Wow, were all comics as good as this one now? I had to find out. I extended my Spider-buying to Amazing Spider-Man hardbacks, bought a few softback trades, began to read comics blogs and decided that I would bite the bullet and set up a pull list in time for the big summer event. After all, who would want to miss Civil War?

Er ... never mind. From there, I jumped the once-unthinkable gap and -gasp- picked up some DC comics. Why had I never heard of this Green Lantern Corps before? Was Superman still dead?

So there you go; the Ultimate line ended up getting me interested in both the Mighty Marvel and the Distinguished Competition in abundance. I try to visit my LCS at least twice a month (at weekends sadly, so I have to foreswear myself from spoilers) and spend more money than I'm really comfortable with each time (is it bad that all the staff seem to know me by sight now?). Who'd have thought that a young Spider could net an old fan simply by, I dunno, being good?