Bold Lines On Paper, Blurred In Real Life
We moved to a new state when I turned six, and in the middle of unpacking and buying groceries, my mom let me get a comic book. The one I chose had a guy on fire, another made of rocks, and like everything else around me, unfamiliar.
When Saturday morning rolled around, my dad woke me up with the words, "that comic book you got is on TV," which started my routine of watching The Fantastic Four for the next two years.
The parts that really stuck to my mind were Victor Von Doom being thrown out of university for conducting forbidden experiments, then taken in and armored up (with a hot face mask) by a mysterious order of monks while wondering Tibet. Meeting The Watcher on the blue area of the moon while fighting The Red Ghost and his super primates. Going to the Micro World, learning that Rama Tut of ancient Egypt was actually a time traveller, and especially Galactus coming to devour the Earth with the Silver Surfer. It seemed like witnessing ancient things that no one was aware of.
As much as I loved the cartoon, it would be six years until I bought another issue of the comic. An older kid let me read some from his stack, and it was a surprise to see what had gone on. They went broke, were almost captured and made slaves (very bewildering to my nine year old mind), two of the members got married and even had a kid.
The words and pictures were strong, bold, and contained images and ideas that seemed stange, yet familiar in the back of your mind, but you didn't know why. The work was credited to Stan Lee as the writer/editor, and Jack Kirby as the penciller, but the contributions were not that well defined.
I tried to write about it, but this guy says it better. So does this one. Or you can listen to Dave Gibbons and Gary Leach discuss it here.