Every Time I Get Out, They Pull Me Back In!

I was flipping through the Wizard (I have no defense) Edge supplement the other day and something got my curitosity up. They talked about a book called DEAD @ 17 and that the book's creator was from a town "two hours north of Amarillo". Having lived in Perryton, Texas, I immediately wondered if that was it. Turns out, it is. I lived in Perryton for a few years in the 80s, and graduated the High School there. Josh is more than a few years younger than me, so we didn't end up knowing one another.

But it makes the head spin, really. The entire time I lived in Perryton, you couldn't buy a comic anywhere; one grocery store (The old United supermarket, before they built the new one) very occasionally put out a few. You'd have to find them in down south in Pampa or up in Liberal, Kansas. During the time I lived in Perryton, I re-read old comics I had from before my family moved there, but I didn't get any new ones. Then when I went to college at TTU in 1987, I walked into Star Comics and asked what I'd missed. Sid Deavors (as great a comics/sci-fi retailer as you'd ever find) looked at me for a minute and realized I wasn't kidding. "I'm from Perryton; we just don't have comics," I said. He went over to a rack and handed me WATCHMEN, NINJA HIGH SCHOOL and DARK KNIGHT RETURNS ("Oh," I said about the last. "This is by the RONIN guy."). He led me back in, and I haven't left.

So the fact that a comics-less town (this may have changed, but I doubt it) in the middle of nowhere produced two fellows who now make comics/graphic novels is your curious thought of the day. Hey, did they build a McDonald's? Look at that, willya.