Comics are at their best when they are about something more than just telling an entertaining yarn. Stories that make you think, and inspire debates about ideas much deeper that who can beat up who.

It’s what has made Spider-Man such a classic book. It’s why I loved the Movie, The Dark Knight so much. I cringe when people say that they don’t like stories that are so deep with meaning.

In his Re-Tales column at Comic Book Resources, comic shop owner Jud Meyers tells about how he made a sale of a single graphic novel to a college student looking for ideas off the beaten path for a class project, and how the story of that book, and the discussion of the ideas within it changed her life’s path.

Fiction, at its best, is something more than an escape from the real world. Its a lens that allows us to examine the world in a different way.

I think Jud’s tale underscores that.