Comics in the sick bed

Getting stuck in a sick bed for a day or two is never anybody's idea of fun, but comics can make it a tiny bit better. Comics can always make things a tiny bit better, if you let them in.

I've always liked to read comics when I've been feeling crook - they usually don't take up a lot of brainpower, it's easy to dip in and out of the story when you can see what panel you're up to, and if the head is feeling particularly clogged up, you can just look at the pretty pictures.

Ever since I got my tonsils out when I was 5, and was insanely jealous of another kid in the ward who had Fantastic Four comics and I just had a bloody Beano or something, comics were there when I felt ill. 

Later in hospital for the one asthma attack I had, my Mum came in with the issue of 2000ad with the Mean Team debuting on the cover, and that was the best present anybody gave me during that stay, and reignited a long-burning obsession with the galaxy's greatest comic, one that is still burning.

Sometimes it can backfire, and can be a bit traumatic - during my last serious hospital visit a decade ago, I read the book about the making of From Hell, and I still haven't been able to crack it open again without smelling antiseptic and existential dread of physical woes.

It's not usually that serious, and I always read comics on my sick bed at home. I can still remember having the first issue of GI Joe on hand during one childhood dose of the flu, and getting through that lurgy with a dose of US military might.

The most recent dose of Covid in our house had me lying around in misery for a few days, and this time it was a reread of old Hellblazer comics that helped get me through it. The cheap thrill of reading these issues and reminding me of a time when I truly thought John Constantine was the best character in comics really did help, and seeing Constantine deal with all the legions of hell with style and wit is one way of getting over my own misery.

What else am I going to do? Just lie there? Not when I can read a comic book, and get away from it all for a while.