Things For Which I’m Grateful To America

In many ways I’m just like every other non-American, looking across the Atlantic at pizza being classified as a vegetable and pepper spray as a food stuff and thinking “What the heck?” I’m British, I can’t help it, it’s in our collective DNA.

However, I’m not going to pretend I don’t also love America. So today, to celebrate Thanksgiving, here are a few things for which I’m grateful to the U.S. of A…

Star Wars

The original trilogy, of course. The series for which the term ‘blockbuster’ was invented, a part of my heart will always live in a galaxy far, far away.

Bruce Springsteen

Specifically Thunder Road, but I talk about that more here…

Superhero Comics

I love superheroes – the stories, the characters, the iconography, the concept. If you want specifics… All Star Superman #10. James Robinson’s run on Starman. Grant Morrison’s Justice League. Gail Simone. Justice League Unlimited, especially Guy Gardner losing a fight to a mouse. And the story my friend Sudge and I came up with that started with Booster Gold getting beaten up by the Hulk.

To Kill A Mockingbird

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

The Moon Landing

Something else I’ve written about before, but the moon landing is the one event I wish I’d been around for. The excitement, ambition and heroism of the Apollo programme is still something that resonates with me long after we stopped walking on the lunar surface – I hope that one day I’ll get to see men and women heading there for myself.

Happy Thanksgiving!