Day 3 Book Photo Challenge: Childhood Favorite

 This is one of those books that I have no idea of its origins in my home but has just always been there. It is so old its falling apart but I still love opening it up every so often and looking at the picture of the little mermaid getting her hair done sitting on an elephant's skull. The elephant's skull always intrigued me, how did an elephant's skull come to be in the ocean, let alone why it was adopted as a seat to have one's hair done. The drawing is exquisite and it reminds me of my child hood.

Musings on why my favorites are my favorites

I can always list what my favorite stories are when asked, but reading a discussion board today has made me realise why they are my favorites.

They are the stories and worlds that have been integrated into my own life, weather by a message or an ethos of the way i live, or by determining the relationships i have with other people or just simply by providing me with jewelry themes and dress styles.

Hence my favorite stories are:

Book: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (the trilogy in are we up to 5 parts now?) by Douglas Adams.

Why: I'm Dyslexic and it was a wonderfully complex story that was in an easy to read format. It was so important to me that I carried an omnibus around with me as a teenager for ages. When I met my partner, I found it was his favorite book too and that sparked our relationship. Now as an adult, every towel day I walk the halls of the school where i work with a towel in hand, proudly remembering the great man. (this is also my favorite radio program because it is slightly different in dramatic ways)  

Movie: Nightmare Before Christmas by Tim Burton.

Why: Other than having everything nightmare before Christmas that i can get my hands on, i re-watch this every Christmas and it still gives me the same feelings of childlike joy about Christmas that it did when i was young. Its been out for 20yrs now and it still works! Which is especially telling since i was born and have grown up in Australia, where it is not unusual to have a +40 degree Celsius day and i have never seen snow.

TV: can not split Dr Who and The Simpsons

Why: I love the Simpsons, they tell so many stories and drop so many references that you end up looking it up and learning new things left, right and center. Than and i love Simpsons quotes so much i have on occasions, gone a whole party speaking only in them! If your a fan, give it a go, its a lot of fun.

Why: Dr Who is so important in my life that it may just be the reason why my best friend is my life long best friend and it definitely is the cause of her and her husbands relationship.

Oh and the Curse of Monkey Island because its funny.      

Why I Read Comics (The One That Sparked It All)

So I used to read Catwoman on and off as a teenager and I decided recently to get back into it since we had the reset of the new #52. I am not sure how I fell about the new #52 reset of comics and I have deliberately avoided reading any commentary on it, so I don't even know how I am expected to feel, so I will leave that discussion to another post.
 
As a kid and early teen, my mum would drive us the two hours to the city for the second hand card fairs and they were always one of the best days on the calender. It started out with trading cards and that gave me an appreciation for art no matter how small or mass produced the medium.  Pretty soon the trading card hype peaked and petered out but I still had a hankering for the art that I once got from trading cards.
In stepped the comic book!
Sure, having a mum that was into trading card (she was collecting them as well, there was a self serving motive to her motivations of persuading us to start a collection too,) we had comics in the house and i had read them in passing but they hadn't grabbed me yet. So, as the desks of trading card sellers shrank and the space was taken over by boxes of comics, well naturally I was attracted to the $1 comics boxes for a) a bargain and b) something to browse after I had finished looking at the cards.  One auspicious day I found this comic;

I'll admit, I judged a book by its cover, but what a cover. I had never been a traditional superhero comic book reader because they had never appealed to be with the big steroidy muscle men always doing the right thing and beating up the bad guy. But this was different, no brightly coloured cover with a suited man doing what suited men do. No this was the "hero" vulnerable in the distance being visited or haunted by a ghostly visage. As a teenage, I thought i could relate to this sort of "superhero" and she was a she and in purple (my favorite colour.  

And I have never looked back, with my stacks of random comics I have collected over the years, literally judging comic books by their covers and buy with that instinct and feeling I had back then.

Now I am going back to my comic book roots with Catwoman Vol 1 of the new #52.

I look forward to reliving the feelings of old.