The first books I read as a child were the Dick and Jane readers in school. They had pictures with the prose. Later I discovered the Sunday comic strips in the newspaper. They were a step above Dick and Jane and their dog Spot. I fell in love with the Sunday comics. They were in color. The dailies were in black and white. I was much older when I discovered comic books. Married, with children, I secretly read their comic books while my kids were at school.

Let's backtrack to my childhood. The newspaper “funnies”, as I remember them, were limited to Major Hoople, The Katzenhammer Kids, Mutt and Jeff and Blondie. Major Hoople was a fat middle-aged man who pontificated over various problems that came his way. It was more of an adult comic strip. I had a hard time understanding it. The caption was not in balloon form but written under its one drawing.

Ballooned conversations made the story easier to read and move faster. There is something about dialogue in a balloon that easily makes its point, cutting out a lot of discriptive prose. Just look at the comic strips of today. For an exercise, try to write out the story line in prose without its pictures. The impact would be lost and the story move much slower. I like dialogue in balloon form.

The K. Kids seemed silly to me, but not Mutt and Jeff. They were the short and the tall of comic jokes. Their escapades usually revolved around their height or lack of it. Being short, I related well to their humor. But for the life of me, I can't remember which was the short one.

Blondie was the everyday humor of living in the real world. Blondie's husband, Dagwood was always in trouble with his boss. His neighbor was forever borrowing tools and not returning them. The “Dagwood sandwich” was infamous. To someone who seldom saw a slice of ham or cheese on her sandwiches, such humongous concoctions were the height of luxury. I salivated over his beautiful sandwiches. There was a character in the series that is not there today. Pug, in pigtails, was Blondie and Dagwood's daughter. She had a pug nose. Pug was always in one scrape after another. I could relate to that.

Comic books were another matter. Real life was not usually depicted between their covers. Action figures like Superman and Batman reigned supreme. Those were the ones my children liked. Secretly, I did, too. I remember my son Tom having stacks of comic books. They were collected and traded religiously.

Society feared our children would never learn to read and appreciate the written word without pictures. That didn't happen. The most serious part of the phase lasted about ten years. Today, it's a distant memory. Comic books were ten cents each back in the day. Most kids could scrape together a dime to buy one. But why buy when they could trade for an unread one? A new comic book with cover intact would be worth several older ones with or without their covers. Oh, to have Tom's stash of comic books today. They would be worth a fortune. Occasionally, I see them displayed on Antigue Roadshow worth big bucks. Do you have any hiding in your attic? Superman, maybe? Archie? Re-read one and relive your childhood.