I don’t watch Heroes but I am a geek for the comics industry. Although now it’s just the occasional trade paperback collection, there was a time when I was way into superheroes. It looked something like this:

Age 6 – 13: Comics Rock! I was a DC guy, mostly into Batman for the brooding vigilante stuff. Especially liked older comics which back then could be had quite cheaply so long as they weren’t in great condition.

Age 14 – 18: Girls Rock! I didn’t really know what to do with them but I knew they smelled better than Batman.

Age 19 – 22: Joseph Campbell Rocks! My freshman year mythology lit class teaches me that comics are just another version of the monomythic hero’s journey. Except I’m reading Matt Wagner’s version of Grendel instead of the original.

Age 22+: Less time for comics – brief love affair with Astro City, comic art – especially Alex Ross, the purchase of a fancy Green Goblin statue, bunch of superhero kitsch off of eBay.

Dec 2006: Lunch with Joe Quesada, Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief, and a visit with Caroline to the Jewish Museum for their Superhero exhibit (like Kavalier and Clay comes to life).

Joe Q is a really interesting guy – some of the things we talked about:

• longterm impact of technology on comics and Marvel.com
• why trade paperbacks have become an important part of industry economics
• whether popularity of comics is linked to macro social or geopolitical reality
• if he listens more to fans, sales figures or his intuition
• what Marvel has on tap for 2007