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Reading my First Comic

CRITICAL ROLE: THE MIGHTY NEIN ORIGINS--CALEB WIDOWGAST

While watching the announcements portion of a Critical Role episode one night, the cast highlighted an upcoming issue to their comic book series . Listening in, I thought to myself “I really should look into reading that series. I bet I would enjoy it.” So I decided to give it a shot.

Obtaining a Copy

After some quick research on where I could find Critical Role comic books, it turned out that they are available on Hoopla through the Durham Library. I love libraries. That night, I read some articles on how to read comic books, in order to better recognize subtleties in the art, how the panels are organized, gutter spacing, and other techniques that are often used. This article was very helpful in getting me going.

After brushing up on how to read a comic book, I read the intro/sample to the issue I intended to checkout: Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins - Caleb. The next morning (there’s a daily limit on electronic checkouts), I was able to checkout the full version electronically from my library.

Reading

At first, I paged through the issue, skimming and taking in the art. I didn’t have a large dedicated time in that moment to properly read it, but I was excited to give it a quick first pass. A week or two later, I sat down on a Sunday night while I was watching my son. He read his books next to me, and I cruised through the comic on my iPad. I was a lovely time.

Thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed it. It was fun to go through the story and delightful to appreciate the art. Even more than ’normal’ book reading, I can feel that comics are more likely to make me want to periodically go back and page through them, as there is so much visual complexity. The library issues are a great start, but for ones I really love and want to revisit, I might buy a few of my own copies. We’ll see.

Moving forward, I want to start occasionally reading comics, probably with continuing the Critical Role series. I think it could be a nice treat to sit down and read through an issue once or twice across a few nights. If you’ve never read a comic book before, I recommend it. See what your library has to offer 😉.