Before I knew about Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Neil Gaiman

Sometimes you have to remember what meant to be 13 years old. You've got to respect that, that version of you, and the things you did and experienced. Those were formative times. Those things became you, and many are still with you right now in some way. Maybe by looking back you can figure out where you're going next.

I just finished watching The Punisher (the 2004 version with Tom Jane, not the 1989 version with Dolph Lundgren). I don't care if isn't very good. I liked it. First of all, I'm willing to admit that I LOVE sci-fi/fantasy/action movies of any kind. I loved Van Helsing, enough said. But that's not the whole story with The Punisher. We have a past, he and I. I have a personal history with this fictional character. When I was about 11-14 years old I used to read a LOT of comic books, and the three titles devoted to The Punisher were my favorites. I didn't just read those stories, I absorbed them. Every part of my life was pervaded by what I read and saw in those comics. For example:

• I have a huge poster of the Punisher on the wall of my bedroom. (A color version of this with the logo.) When I moved back in with my folks I changed a lot of things about the room, but not that.


• I have three big boxes of comic books from my old days. One of the boxes is entirely filled with Punisher comics.


• My first email address was PunisherJM@aol.com. Occasionally family members or super-old friends will still ask me if that's my email address.


• The girl I was dating in 8th grade wrote lots of notes to her friends and me. She liked to use little symbols instead of names in case, I suppose, the message was intercepted. I chose the Punisher symbol. I had my girlfriend write me notes where she referred to me as a skull.


• I wrote a comic book, that I found over a decade later, that was dedicated to the Punisher. Though it was not about the Punisher at all, it had Punisher quotes on the back cover.


• I think I learned more about patriotism, respect for the flag, and knife/gun safety, from the Punisher comics than I did from being in Cub Scouts for three years. That thing sucked.

I've recently been going back and re-reading those old comics, Punisher and all the rest. Some of it blows me away with how genuinely funny, emotional, profound, or in any other way mature it is as fiction, as art. Right next to that is the worst pulp I could imagine, way worse than I remembered (and I remembered laughing at it then). The stories don't make sense, the dialogue is shameful, and even the art is pitiful. Where did they find these guys? I mean, any freshman art student can draw a face, any semi-cogent reader should be able to make two consecutive panels depict a sensible punch to the face. Most of it is in the middle: just fun reading, nothing special, nothing bad.

But those good ones, they're worth all the bad/mediocre ones and more. Those special comics are magic. Even today they can connect everything I appreciate about art as an adult with everything I loved about art as a kid. It's not nostalgia, it's real again.

This one is for the sleepovers when we'd stay up until all hours playing Street Fighter II: Turbo, watching the precursors to modern-day sci-fi/fantasy/action movies, and carrying on. This one is for the kid who watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie so many times that he really felt confident if he ever had to get in a fight. This one is for the version of me that wondered if I would/should grow up to be a badass vigilante.

It was more than escapist fiction, it was a stone-cold reality to that 12 year old, and without it I certainly wouldn't be the person I am today.

Peace, Frank.