Poor Brian, he's going somewhere he's be away from for what seems like quite a while.
One 'friend' whom I should have been a better friend to, the guilt to this day eats at me. He was years younger than our class because our school system had no means of handling geniuses beyond advancing them grades above their age group. He was beyond brilliant and bullied so horribly. but I wanted to be a 'tough' rather than a nerd so I treated him worse than I should. A few years later I heard he'd taken his own life. I felt so bad. I probably couldn't have done anything being 15 years old but the hindsight guilt burns deeply.
This was SO me. I am was a big kid, often the biggest kid in school much less in class. I have always had a very nasty temper and to be honest rarely remember everything than happens when I lose it. Once when I was in Kindergarten I got in a fight with 2 boys in Grade 2 and whalloped both of them. Got hauled into the principals office with my Dad and received "the talk". From that day forward I had learned how to keep a lid on my temper and just tuck it away into a dark jar in the back of my head and seal the lid.
Being young I didn't really hear what they were saying, I just got "Don't fight ever" as the message. Flash forward to Grade 8, I play on the lacrosse and wrestling teams and am 6 Foot Tall, 220 pounds of muscle and at worst the second largest PERSON in my school... oh and also every bullies favourite target mainly because I won't fight back and I am sure from their perspective they think they look that much tougher. They think I am scared of them, but in all honesty I am scared of me, well and of disappointing / disobeying my Dad.
One day my Dad has come home from work early as the base had to be evacuated of non-essential personnel due to a very nasty lightning storm (at the time he was stationed in where the Navy stores the vast majority of the Atlantic Fleets munitions) and he sees me get chased home by two much smaller kids. I get into the house and he asks me what's going on so I tell him, he asks if that happens a lot and I tell him pretty much every day, different people but the same result.
He asks me why I am running from them and I tell him because I am not allowed to fight and relate the kindergarten story. Needless to say he was a little surprised, that is when he clarified that he didn't want me STARTING fights but if I found myself in one I should defend myself and finish it.
Next day at school was my Red Eye day. I almost feel bad for the first 3 or 4 of them that came at me. They were much smaller for sure and had NO idea what was coming. By the end of that day I was suspended for a week, had 11 people who were certainly NEVER going to mess with me again, and entirely new reputation and very sore knuckles but it was finally the end of the physical bulling. Thankfully I was able to intervene many times and save some of the other kids from their crap as well.
Now the verbal crap certainly kept up but when they scatter as you start to walk over it loses a whole lot of it's sting. I can so empathize with Brian here, and yeah it's scary but when it's been bottled up so long and so tight when it gets out you do feel so much better, scared of yourself a little but much better.
@Martyn
Seriously. They may be jerks, but they're just kids, people. If I got my blood spilled for every time I was a jerk as a kid I wouldn't be alive.
That being said, sometimes kids (ESPECIALLY bullies) also need a harsh lesson. I don't think I'll mind seeing Brian teach that.
Art often lets you experience things you never would in real life. I wouldn't read too much into people wanting Brian to kick some bully butt. Batman is fun, but I don't support vigilantism in the real world.
I don't know if we'll ever get the past bullies' full experience (unless one of them gets sent to camp), but I think in addition to seeing how Brian's past affects him in the present, we might get to see what makes Randall tick.
This comic is finally the one that made me join and tell Adam and Katie this is a fantastic piece of art.
I also wanted to reply to WestIndianAgouti:
I suffered from bullying from my pre-teen years to my teen years. Every year every day, the same thing from the same group of people, A couple were once my friends and people that I had trusted with my deepest secrets. Secrets they later used against me to be "cool" and torture me heavily. Everything changed once I moved away and "grew" up. I hated them for years. HATED them. Then as time went by and I looked back on my life. All the things I did to succeed to "show" them. All the things they suffered later on in life as adult life hit them and they weren't prepared for the cold hard fact that life doesn't care if you were "cool" when you were a teen. In the end when I saw them again as a parent, a mildly successful business man, and as a husband to a loving wife. I thanked them. I thanked them for making me a better person even if they didn't know they were making me better. The ones I will never see again because life is hard I feel sorry for and wish life would have been better for them. I suffered horribly for about ten years but have reaped a life of happiness afterwards, While a couple of them have made their families suffer because of their short hard lives. Life isn't fair. I know that now. Don't let the bullies win; work hard and love often. It does get better.
Posts
He didn't go to prison for what he did to me. But he did end up killing a kid. I think he ended up with voluntary manslaughter.
!warning self-harm!
I know the feeling. Seeing red isn't just an expression, it used to just be a fact of life.
One 'friend' whom I should have been a better friend to, the guilt to this day eats at me. He was years younger than our class because our school system had no means of handling geniuses beyond advancing them grades above their age group. He was beyond brilliant and bullied so horribly. but I wanted to be a 'tough' rather than a nerd so I treated him worse than I should. A few years later I heard he'd taken his own life. I felt so bad. I probably couldn't have done anything being 15 years old but the hindsight guilt burns deeply.
Being young I didn't really hear what they were saying, I just got "Don't fight ever" as the message. Flash forward to Grade 8, I play on the lacrosse and wrestling teams and am 6 Foot Tall, 220 pounds of muscle and at worst the second largest PERSON in my school... oh and also every bullies favourite target mainly because I won't fight back and I am sure from their perspective they think they look that much tougher. They think I am scared of them, but in all honesty I am scared of me, well and of disappointing / disobeying my Dad.
One day my Dad has come home from work early as the base had to be evacuated of non-essential personnel due to a very nasty lightning storm (at the time he was stationed in where the Navy stores the vast majority of the Atlantic Fleets munitions) and he sees me get chased home by two much smaller kids. I get into the house and he asks me what's going on so I tell him, he asks if that happens a lot and I tell him pretty much every day, different people but the same result.
He asks me why I am running from them and I tell him because I am not allowed to fight and relate the kindergarten story. Needless to say he was a little surprised, that is when he clarified that he didn't want me STARTING fights but if I found myself in one I should defend myself and finish it.
Next day at school was my Red Eye day. I almost feel bad for the first 3 or 4 of them that came at me. They were much smaller for sure and had NO idea what was coming. By the end of that day I was suspended for a week, had 11 people who were certainly NEVER going to mess with me again, and entirely new reputation and very sore knuckles but it was finally the end of the physical bulling. Thankfully I was able to intervene many times and save some of the other kids from their crap as well.
Now the verbal crap certainly kept up but when they scatter as you start to walk over it loses a whole lot of it's sting. I can so empathize with Brian here, and yeah it's scary but when it's been bottled up so long and so tight when it gets out you do feel so much better, scared of yourself a little but much better.
You got it- just posted a link to that image in the news section, as well as the Brian image from last week. :]
Seriously. They may be jerks, but they're just kids, people. If I got my blood spilled for every time I was a jerk as a kid I wouldn't be alive.
That being said, sometimes kids (ESPECIALLY bullies) also need a harsh lesson. I don't think I'll mind seeing Brian teach that.
I don't know if we'll ever get the past bullies' full experience (unless one of them gets sent to camp), but I think in addition to seeing how Brian's past affects him in the present, we might get to see what makes Randall tick.
I also wanted to reply to WestIndianAgouti:
I suffered from bullying from my pre-teen years to my teen years. Every year every day, the same thing from the same group of people, A couple were once my friends and people that I had trusted with my deepest secrets. Secrets they later used against me to be "cool" and torture me heavily. Everything changed once I moved away and "grew" up. I hated them for years. HATED them. Then as time went by and I looked back on my life. All the things I did to succeed to "show" them. All the things they suffered later on in life as adult life hit them and they weren't prepared for the cold hard fact that life doesn't care if you were "cool" when you were a teen. In the end when I saw them again as a parent, a mildly successful business man, and as a husband to a loving wife. I thanked them. I thanked them for making me a better person even if they didn't know they were making me better. The ones I will never see again because life is hard I feel sorry for and wish life would have been better for them. I suffered horribly for about ten years but have reaped a life of happiness afterwards, While a couple of them have made their families suffer because of their short hard lives. Life isn't fair. I know that now. Don't let the bullies win; work hard and love often. It does get better.