Better Education Through Comic Books

I was very lucky as a child to have a mom that was a fan of comic books. Mind you I'm not talking the traditional strong-men in tights comics. Even the coolest of moms are girls, and girls hate that crap. My mom had a large collection of cover-less, water damaged, crumbling Disney and Conan comics. She also had a complete collection of Tin Tin and Asterix comics that were in much better condition, probably due more to production quality then care. When I went to bed at night my mom would lay next to me and read me a random Donald Duck comic, which usually involved Donald, Huey, Dewey and Louie and an adventure in a foreign land. Donald would get himself in some sort of trouble and it would be up to his nephews to pull his fat out of the fire. More often then not Donald would reward them by chasing them around with a homemade switch, because he's a bastard. A hilarious bastard.

At four years old, I was reading on my own, and started wading through Tin Tin and Asterix. Both followed a similar theme of adventures in foreign lands and colorful if not politically incorrect characters. Tin Tin often featured Captain Haddock, a raging alcoholic who would spit out water as if it were poison and scream nearly incomprehensible insults at people. Asterix comics featured the adventures of a tribe of Gauls (Celts) fighting Roman influence as it slowly took over their way of life. Both taught me a lot about European history and culture.