227 - Speech

This was my speech when I was in grade seven or eight.

Marvel, DC, Valiant, Darkhorse, Image, Malibu are some comic book publishers to name a few.

Greeting fellow students and Mr G. Today I would like to talk about comic books, particularly their influence on their readers. Some criticize comic books as garbage, filth and especially a waste of money. Some would comment about their value in society, that they are not being influential enough.

Comic books, in my definition, is an illustrated short story having subplots, plots, settings and a few characters.

Originally, it began as a comic strip series for the local newspaper. They expanded into magazines containing all sorts of stories and a wide assortment or characters. They then expanded again into today's present form, having somewhere up to 30 pages or so.

Today an average comic book from Marvel comics would cost $1.60 CDN From Image comics a, a new and hot company. An average comic would cost $2.45. The difference between these companies, except its price is that image gives more than 30 pages and the quality of the art is excellent.

Most of the images comic book artist such as Canadians Todd McFarlane, Dale Keown. Korean Jim Lee, Filipino Whilce Portacio, American Mark Silvestriand Australian Sam Keith have their own artistic trademark which makes them famous. These artists would annually make $400,000.00...plus all respective profits from their own comic.

Just by reading comics or looking at every picture, it would influence your own technique like how the human figure is drawn, perspective, settings, shadings and anatomy.

Comic books would influence writers due to its use of plots, subplots, description of settings and characters and narratives. They would also show proper grammar, dialogue, abbreviations or possible dialect.

Well known comic book writer such as William Shatner, Clive Barker, Peter David, Neil Gaiman, Dave Sim, Frank Miller, Alan Moore and others would roughly make around $250,000.00 yearly. Quite a lot of money for comic book writers.

Regarding comic books as a waste of money, it may be true, but only to those who don't know if it is worth anything. Collecting comic books is quite like collecting stamps or sports cards.

Like stamps and sports cards, comic bocks increase in value, some increase faster than others but all in all they do increase. For example, Superman issue 75, where DC kills off Superman, presently costs $ 50.00 in the chart.

Another comic called Amazing Fantasy issue 1 where Marvel Introduces Superman costs $9,900.00. What an increase over 30 years! Comic books would increase in value through infinite reasons such as its art, the story and how many are in circulation...etc.

To conclude, comic books are influential enough to inspire artists and writers alike. They are educational through events taken from real life and changed into comic book form. And a good investment if you know what will cost $200 in the next 5 years.

Thank you for listening to my speech. I hope that you have learned some facts abut comic books.

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It was an absolute pleasure being in front of the class and the teacher. I remember being nervous going up to stand in front but once I inhaled, opened my eyes I felt a peace come over me and a calm awakening inside me that allowed me to go through the speech without any nervousness and awkwardness one would usually feel when put on the spot.

I did well and was asked to come up again the next day as no one wanted to go first. I broke the ice and again with the same speech this time, no nervous feeling. It was great. there was a short period of questions and answers after and it was great to be in control.

Every so often that moment of clarity comes over me and I feel like things look brighter, things are OK and life isn't as hard as people make it out to be.

I hope you all have moments of clarity such as these.