The Li'l Depressed Boy & Me

It all started on Comixology, that’s where I found the first issue of The Li’l Depressed Boy for free.  Being a fan of Image Comics as a company I took a look at a few panels of the book and like what I saw in regards to the art and downloaded it to check out later since I didn’t know how long it would be available for free.

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months before I finally took the time to read the ONE issue that I downloaded and it blew me away.  Although the book was great, it didn’t blow me away purely due to it’s quality, it was how close the story hit to home.  The first few panels alone were scary in how much it mirrored my time in college.  I’m not saying that my experience was incredibly unique, but I literally felt like someone had discovered a long lost journal of mine.
If you replaced the Rock references with Hip-Hop references and swapped out that vinyl t-shirt for an Okayplayer t-shirt, you would have my life in college.  My headphones were always on my ears or around my neck year round and no matter the weather.  He’s even vertically challenged/height deficient similar to myself.  The only differences were that he actually had a friend and a manic pixie dream girl to give him hope in that first issue.

I loved the issue so much that I immediately went to Amazon.com and copped both volume 0 & volume 1 of the series.  I read vol. 0 first and I wasn’t prepared for how moved I would become.  I literally teared up reading some of the short stories.  One in particular has LDB sitting in an empty diner eating alone while being too scared to sneak glances at the cashier he finds attractive.  He stares out the window to avoid eye contact with her while still watching her through the glass’ reflection.  I can definitely remember doing that on many an occasion, especially on buses.

I love that he’s just a rag doll.  It makes him even more relatable since characters of this nature are rarely Black.


Thanks for stopping by,

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