When I really think about it, really only a few things had to happen differently in my childhood to send me careening into all manner of geeky obsessions, comic books most of all. From the age of six until about the age of ten, comics were some of my most prized possessions. What began as reading the funnies with my dad on Sunday mornings blossomed into a real fantasy trigger when I discovered that whole volumes of vibrant, picture-driven stories existed that weren't overtly childish. Comics were better than the picture books at school because they were full of action, super heroes and intensity. So, why didn't I wholeheartedly embrace comics into my teens?

Aside from a rather powerful interest in girls, I suppose availability was the most significant culprit in why I missed out on the imaginative, varied world of comic books. During elementary and middle school I lived across the street from a convenience store that had one small magazine rack. Mixed in with all the glossy standards were a few random comics, usually special editions like goofy tomes of one-off Marvel Christmas books or speculative "What If?.." exercises that indulged fans in epic battles that had no bearing on any current story whatsoever. It was through these scant few comics that I learned about Spider-Man, the X-Men and even a few hardcore fringe books that the store technically wasn't supposed to sell to little kids.

Then one day they just stopped carrying them. The comics disappeared from the magazine rack and I guess I just moved on. The nearest proper comic shop was a good 15-minute drive away and my family certainly didn't have the financial means to support a budding monthly comics habit. Just like that, I didn't pick up another comic until a considerably more hip 17-year-old version of me grabbed Issue #1 of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac to see what everyone was raving about. I didn't delve deeper into the series after that. To this day, the last comic I ever bought was Neil Gaiman and John Bolton's wistful, romantic graphic novella Harlequin Valentine at age 18 (which incidentally set off a mild obsession with Commedia del Arte).

I don't necessarily wish I had taken a lasting interest in comics as a kid, but I do feel like it's a major pop cultural blind spot for me. So, when I was recently given the opportunity to blast through the full run of The Uncanny X-Men I decided to give myself a proper education. Every week, I'll be running through a small stack of issues, starting with the original #1 from 1963. Because the X-Men name has had something of a scattered history, especially in the 70's, I'll probably be popping around a bit until I land in some of the more stable collections from the 80's and 90's. From there, I'll probably delve into some other comics, especially some of the non-Marvel lines.

I hope you all join me on this quest to educate myself about this surprisingly pervasive element of our culture. I'm certainly looking forward to it.