I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. The first time I used the internet I typed “X-Men” into a search engine and, finding the results unsatisfactory, said, “This will never catch on.”

Lately I’ve been thinking about Superman. This is not all that unusual, as there are three different’ representations of the character sitting on my desk as I write this, but I’ve been thinking about what he means to the world.

Working in a library is a gift. There are no door-buster sales, no agitated customers (okay, maybe a few), and no Black Friday shenanigans. Instead of trampling over one another, our patrons wait patiently for the latest best sellers. Best of all, everything is free.

If you’ve ever read an article about comic books, there’s a good chance the author included the words “biff”, “pow”, or “zap” in either the headline or the lede. 

Part of the success of stories like IT is the transformation of something innocent or mundane--like a clown--and making it unspeakably evil.