Uncle Scrooge kept me in comics

I tried to give up on reading comics half a dozen time when I was a kid, because everybody told me they were bad for me, and they were prohibitively expensive for a working-class household, and there were lots of other things to get obsessed with, like BMX bikes, and video games, and running around with sticks down the river, pretending I had a lightsaber.

There were also other times I tried to kick the habit because I believed the fools who told me I was getting too old for comics, and some other times - especially in recent years - where the cost to reward ratio was just not worth it.

But I kept getting dragged back because I just fucking love the medium, and sometimes I get pulled back by a single issue. The first issue of the New Warriors was one, an issue of an Ambush Bug comic was another. A couple of times it was random issues of 2000ad, and one time the very first Punisher comic that Ennis and Dillon did was enough to relight the fire.

The first time I tried to give up, I was six or seven years old, and I think it was because I got sick of my poor Mum complaining about the mess I was making with the huge collection of 20 or so comics I had. It just didn't seem like it was worth the hassle, even to my young brain.

And it was an issue of an Uncle Scrooge comic that kept me going. 

I can't remember any of the details around it, or even the cover. I feel it was yellow and had something to do with ice fishing, and that's all I've got. I'm still halfway sure that I would recognise it if I ever saw it again, but only halfway sure.

But I can remember how it made me feel. It was funny and clever, and looked so pretty, and I read it a dozen times that week. The issue itself is long gone - at that time I used to trade a big grocery bag full of comics at the second hand bookstore my Nan worked at every Tuesday, so I never really kept any of them - but it still represents everything that is great about comics to me. 

I've barely read any Uncle Scrooge comics since those days, but that pivotal issue is always more powerful as a metaphor than an actual object.

All attempts to give up on reading comics have been as half-hearted as this, and there has always been something to keep me hooked. It's unlikely to be another Duck comic in the future, but there's always something.