My mother taught me how to read with Little Lulu comic books before kindergarten. I read all the Harvey, Dell, DC, Marvel, etc. that I could get my hands on. Used to skip church and go to the corner store, get a box a cheezits and a double cola and read their comics.
Would never have occurred to my mother. She wasn’t a comic book person. My earliest collection was Little Golden Books, but the first big girl book I read was Tales from Shakespeare. I went through all of mother’s and grandmother’s books, and still have them all (as well as the LGB). The hallway is 37’ long with floor to ceiling bookshelves on both sides - full size on one side, paperback on the other. Then there’s the library with walls of book bays (AND A LIBRARY LADDER!!!!!) and then there are bookshelves in several bedrooms and the rest of the books sit in boxes in the closet.
I think the glory of comic books is that combination of art and writing. Putting poetry into that format seemed so incredibly natural.