Nothing wrong with simple pleasures

Everyone has guilty pleasures. For me, it's comic books.

I know, that officially makes me a geek -- and not the cool kind who can fix your computer. But I'm not ashamed. Comic books have been an important part of my life ever since I first discovered this uniquely American art form in a tiny grocery store in my hometown of Lake Worth, Fla. I was 11 at the time -- the golden age of awe and wonder -- and that comic book spoke to me in a way that few things have before or since.

The book in question was "Where Monsters Dwell #5," a repackaging of monster and science fiction stories first published by Atlas Comics in the 1950s. I devoured it in a single reading and was instantly hooked. I started collecting with wild abandon, first science fiction comics, then superheroes, then funny animals. I loved them all. I still do.

In Europe and Asia, sequential storytelling is revered as fine art. In the United States, comic books are still viewed as gaudy, disposable entertainment aimed primarily at children. But nothing could be further from the truth. Granted, the medium has produced its share of dreck, but it has also produced works of remarkable genius.

"Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale" is an excellent example. In this Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Spiegelman poignantly relates his parents' experiences during the Holocaust, portraying the Nazis as cats and the Jews as mice.

Alan Moore's "Watchmen," a brilliant re-examination of the superhero genre, is another example of comic storytelling at its finest. So is Frank Miller's "Sin City" series and, more recently, Brian K. Vaughan's "Pride of Baghdad," in which a group of lions accidentally freed from the Baghdad Zoo serves as a heart-wrenching allegory for the war in Iraq.

A moment ago I referred to comic books as a uniquely American art form. It was M.C. Gaines (father of Mad Magazine publisher William Gaines) who, as a publishing experiment in the early 1930s, repackaged popular newspaper comic strips in magazine format and offered them at newsstands for a dime. Those early comic books quickly sold out and a spectacular new medium was born. If it has been a while since you've read a comic book, here's a little trivia that you may find of interest:

* Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, sold the rights to the character to National Comics (now DC Comics) for $130. Needless to say, the Man of Steel made a fortune for the company. Years later the duo sued National Comics for a bigger piece of the financial pie and lost. With that judgment went their careers and by the 1970s both men were practically penniless. Shortly before the release of the first "Superman" movie starring Christopher Reeve, a group of artists lead by Neal Adams finally convinced DC Comics to grant Siegel and Shuster a lifetime pension and creator credit on all Superman comic books.

* C.C. Beck, co-creator of Captain Marvel, fashioned the popular superhero's face after actor Fred MacMurray. Dr. Sivana, Captain Marvel's most notable nemesis, was fashioned after Beck's neighborhood druggist.

* Psychologist William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman, was instrumental in the development of the modern polygraph.

I could talk comics all day, but they're just one of my many guilty pleasures. Others include cheesy '50s science fiction movies, pin-up art from the 1940s and the Flintstones.

What are your guilty pleasures? Do you read romance novels when no one is looking? Collect antique beer bottles? Watch "Saved By The Bell" after everyone has gone to bed?

Don't be ashamed -- be proud! By admitting your passion, maybe, just maybe, you'll open the eyes of someone who has never before experienced that particular joy. And that's a wonderful gift to share.