By Amanda Eike Koehler

Until 2015, my knowledge of comics centered around Sunday strips and the antics of Calvin and Hobbes. I read chapter books at an early age and decided that pictures meant kids’ stories—superheroes, cutesy characters, stuff for boys too lazy to read ‘real’ books.

Then earlier this year I met Ted Intorcio, founder of Tinto Press, and he lent me a few comics. As a fiction writer I was curious about literary comics and I immersed myself in Art Spiegelman’s Maus I & II. The rich history, metaphorical character design and poignant emotion moved me in a way that many mainstream novels never have.

I moved on to R. Crumb’s Kafka. I’d read Franz Kafka’s complete stories but knew little about the writer. Reading about his life in the visual form introduced me to the man behind The Metamorphosis, and Crumb’s haunting yet realistic crosshatch style drew me into the tortured writer’s solitary world.

I followed this up by reading the books put out by Tinto Press, and was knocked off my figurative feet by Jason Walz’s Homesick—an emotional journey of loss and the human need to be connected to one another.

Between Denver’s Drink & Draw and this summer’s Mutiny Café reading, I met some of the artists behind the local Denver comic scene, and my perspective evolved even more. These were storytellers, fellow writers putting form to their imaginations.  They were passionate and dedicated, and more likely than not working jobs unconnected to their art. I could relate to this and appreciated the devotion to their craft.

There is a lot behind the comics that we read. From speculative and surreal, to autobiographical and historical, comics are as varied in style as in storyline. There is no limit to character or plot, use of color or simplicity. Comics are so much more than Spiderman and Archie and Charlie Brown, and I will never look at them the same again.