There is No Gate to Keep: An Introduction

In the comic space, there are two types of readers. Legacy readers and new readers. Some kids grow up as legacy readers, reading their parents' old comics and being surrounded by the comic community for as long as they can remember. The rest of us had to find the way through this hobby ourselves. Carving out our own place in the community.

I discovered my love for comics in 2010 but didn’t fully embrace comic book collecting until 2017. When I first delved into the hobby, I traversed the comic space completely alone. None of the people I knew were already in the hobby. I know how hard and intimidating it can be to get into the hobby, but I also know how worthwhile it can be. 

So here is my Comics 101 guide to getting into comic books. This blog is dedicated to breaking down the barriers to entry in the comic book community. We all deserve to be here, read comics, and enjoy the space. 

Photo Credit: deberarr (Adobe Stock)

Some of the topics I’m planning to cover are, comic book vocab, how to navigate a comic book shop, where you can find comics, how to find something you’re interested in reading, what are comic red flags, etc. 

I also plan to have some interviews and stories from other people on how they got into comics and their advice. I can only speak from my own experiences. Everyone has their own stories and I want to share those too.

I’ll touch on a few different series I suggest, but there are plenty of reading lists for new readers. The main focus of this blog is to get you comfortable and confident in the community. It can be intimidating and it can feel like it’s impossible to find a way into, but you deserve to be here just as much as anyone else. 

There are several sites that will be helpful to you as a beginner in the comic world. These sites work as essentially comic book encyclopedias that document every book, every character, and every event. There are websites for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Image Comics. These are often thought of as the big 3.

These types of sites can be extremely useful for anyone in the comic world, but they can easily be overwhelming. I hope that through my posts I make things a little less intimidating and help to create more excitement for what comics can offer.

Comics are for everyone, and I hope that I can prove that to you through this blog.