Mauricio writes...
Story 12 - Navigating the ABCs ...
I learned to read in a different sort of first reader: a small, tabloid-size paper that published the best-known American comics. It came out three times a week and was fiercely disputed by the kids at the few newspaper stands there were at that time in our town.
The paper was enjoying tremendous success in the 40s, when my eyes were just opening to the comics and to the fascinating characters who revealed other worlds. I especially remember the big, colorful pages of Mandrake at odds with the cruel amazons.
Sitting on the floor, with the paper spread open for better visualization, I would ask my mother the sounds of the letters and the syllables, and patiently she would tell them to me.
My curiosity was so great that in a few days I was reading, albeit with difficulty, all by myself. I could read but not yet write. And there were an incredible number of words I could pronounce by reading the syllables but whose meaning I didn’t understand. And there came my mother, again, to help me. Sometimes my dad.
Helped along that way, I eventually met up with Li’l Abner and his comical stories; Jungle Jim, created by the genial Alex Raymond, who also revolutionized the comics with his anthological Flash Gordon; Prince Valiant, whose saga appeared on the double center spread in the impeccable and historically perfect illustrations of artist Hal Foster; some Disney pages; Brick Bradford and his journeys through time; the baroque Tarzan of Burne Hogarth; the early version of Superman; The Spirit (in weekly pages) by the master, Will Eisner; and stories about war: a world of action and emotions conveyed by the greatest cartoonists of that era.
That was my Internet, through which I navigated, fearlessly and without destination, at the whim of curiosity and fantasy. My eyes were my "mouse" and the recently-assimilated letters were the icons that guided me to the programs I wanted. Nor was there any lack of interaction: I would put the paper aside and pretend I was a wandering cavalier (astride a broom handle) or imitate flight with a tablecloth/cape tied around my neck.
But the best moment of that whole journey was when I "broke the code" of the letters. After I learned the passwords that enabled me to enter any sentence, there were no longer any boundaries or barriers to my knowledge. Only the physical limit of time, which I tried to overcome by reading, reading, reading. First the comics; then books; later on, magazines; and today, the sites on the computer.
And I’m still navigating. There is always so much to learn.
Mauricio de Sousa
September 24, 1996
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