When did it happen?

I have been mulling over this post for a few days. I read a post on my friend Jim's blog by, I believe, his daughter Gwen. In it she asks why we sometimes tend to look for the negative in comics as opposed to highlighting the positive. It was a great post and got me thinking about this in general.

We are a nation, if not a world, of cynics.

This does not apply universally. But on the whole, we tend to look a things with a sceptical eye. When did this happen? Now, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I believe that this trend began in the late '60s and gained traction in the 70's. Of course, we always think that earlier times were sunny viewed through the prism of hindsight. We tend to think that kids have it easier than we did. They have better tools to learn, cooler stuff to play with. That may be true, but the pitfalls of being a kid in this modern age is not as easy as in our day. We could walk to a bus stop on a crisp autumn morning and the most you had to worry about is whether you had forgotten your homework or lunch. Nowadays, parents stay until the bus comes to ward off potential predators or other nefarious types. You could have left your kids home alone and not have to worry about either someone breaking in, or what was happening on the internet. The media certainly must shoulder some, if not most, of the blame in what has happened to our innocence. I mean the fact that some local newscasts take the attitude "if it bleeds, it leads" and playing to our voyeuristic nature is telling. And we are a nation of voyeurs, whether we want to admit it or not.

I got a little off topic there for a sec, so forgive me. Where I was going with this was, when did we lose the innocence in reading comics? For me, there is a certain happiness in going to the comics store on a Wednesday and seeing what awaits. It's like Christmas morning. OK, it's nothing like Christmas. But do you see what I'm getting at? If you don't enjoy something, if all you do is look for the negative right away, then stop doing it. Go find something that makes you happy. In this world there are so many things that can do that. Not all of them legal or good for you. But man, do something that makes you happy. For me? The day that I no longer look forward to going to the comics store to see what Batman and company have cooked up for me, that's when I'm out. I guess it's why I read "Spawn" for so long after it had jumped the shark. That book was my re-entrance to the wonderful world of comics. And for that plus all the years of happiness that comics has brought me, I thank McFarlane. He sucks, yes, but he allowed me to see other terrific things I never would have known if I had not said; "man I can't believe I stopped reading comics".

I hope you stuck it out with this post. Think it's the longest I've done. If you have, post me. What makes you happy? What makes you forget all of your troubles, even if for only a minute?