

by Beau Smith

As a very young kid, I used to read comic books with what I refer to as reckless abandon. I didn’t stop to think a lot, I just read them. Every now and then I would link some continuity of the character or a past storyline, but most of the time I just read them and took them at face value.



As I got a little older, towards Jr. High age, I began to see other layers to my reading and collecting comics. Even at that early age, I began to take better care of my comics, not so I could sell them decades later on what would be called the internet, but because I enjoyed them and wanted to take care of them, mostly so I could read them again and again. I took some pride in organizing them, placing them in plastic food storage bags (there were no Mylar bags then), and also finding just the right empty box at the grocery store that would fit stacks of my comics.



The Fantastic Four was the book that really got me into enjoying continuity (in moderation) and character development. I also began to realize that I had to suspend disbelief. I was more aware of what was going on around me in the world, when I wasn’t thinking of me and MY needs, wants, and desires. I knew that there was no way The Fantastic Four could really walk around the streets of New York , even in their blue collar uniforms, without causing city wide panic or disruption. There was no way that Spider-Man could swing from building to building without the police putting a stop to it sooner or later. Just the thought of Iron Man flying around broke all kinds of air laws. Superman fighting some major alien or giant ape and the collateral damage that it would cause, would be enough to shut down any sort of grid that we had going. Mass chaos. The real world couldn’t make it. I knew that. Yet, I didn’t care. Not because I was selfish, I was, but because in order to enjoy this comic book, I had to make myself believe that it all could work.



It was the same with TV shows. Come on, Gilligan’s Island, I Dream Of Jeannie (and I did) or even The Man From U.N.C.L.E.? They were all begging, pleading with me to suspend my disbelief, and I gladly did so.

As I got older, high school and college, my desire to suspend my disbelief started to feel like too much work. The comic book stories at Marvel and DC Comics were starting to be written by guys who used to be readers like me and they weren’t too much older than I was. They brought a distraction to comic books that I had not had before. They were writing the characters that we both grew up with, but were trying to make them as adult as we were also becoming. It didn’t mesh too well. It was harder to suspend my disbelief because it was either too far out or too close to reality. I didn’t read comic books for reality, the real world gave me more than enough of that. There was the war in Viet Nam going on, President Nixon was getting tricky and getting caught, Civil Rights, Civil wrongs, and women weren’t too happy at the time. I really didn’t want all of that seeping into comic books. I had newspapers and TV for that. Maybe it was my personal taste for escapism, maybe it was me growing older and comics set style of storytelling was beginning to fray with me, I’m not sure. I will say that I hardly bought or read any comics during that 15-early adult age of my life.



It wasn’t until the early 1980s when I started to slowly creep back into reading comics. I was married, had a kid, worked, and it was just a chance moment when I stepped into a comic book shop, which was still a fairly new thing, and I saw a book called The X-Men. Well, I hadn’t read The X-Men since about issue 50. This issue, #94, looked interesting, but I hardly recognized any of the characters. Still it made me curious. I bought it. I read it. I was back!



That started a process of me beginning a new hunt. I had a quest to find and buy most of the comics that I had missed out on since about 10th grade. I have to admit, the hunt was a major part of the fun. There were now comic shops and comic book conventions. Comics had never been this available to me before. There were magazines like The Comic Reader and The Comics Buyer’s Guide where I was given more information on comic books than I had ever imagined. It was a new world and it happened while I was busy doing other things that the law should never know about. I was back!

I came back with a vengeance. I broke into the comic book business in 1987 and have been here ever since. I’ve fulfilled a lot of my childhood dreams by writing for almost every major comic book publisher (except Marvel Comics, my first love) and I’ve had lunch with Stan Lee twice. My list of dreams comes true are many, and in a way, I have The X-Men #94 and the ability to suspend disbelief to thank for it all.

Today, my comic book reading is filled with old stuff and new. I don’t buy and read as many comics as I did in my youth, but I also do buy and read more than I did in my mid-youth. I think I’ve found a nice balance, and that’s a good thing.



There are comic book movies, TV shows, toys, and much more. All of these things I dreamed of as a child. They have come true and well beyond what I ever thought. That’s not to say I still don’t have comic book goals. I still want to finally write some Marvel Comics, I still want to see characters I have created come to life on TV or in films, and I wouldn’t mind having lunch with Stan Lee again.

Maybe if I just suspend my disbelief, it’ll happen.

Your amigo,

Beau Smith

The Flying Fist Ranch

www.flyingfistranch.com