I’ve got the home stretch all to myself when the readings stop making sense.

I sit at home lazily in front of my laptop typing this, while the above line was said just in a different circumstance (the complete opposite in fact) by one of the most well known person in the world- Bruce Wayne, also known as the (goddamn) Batman. I know what you are thinking, he is one of the most well known and recognized for over 73 years and not even real!

The above line is the opening line of my most favourite and perhaps the worlds greatest graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns. The acclaimed comic book artist and writer Frank Miller (insert legend, not to be loosely used)  gave the world this epic work being the first actual dark gritty and serious take on The Caped Crusader. The epic conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises was mainly based on this (apart from a few other story arcs and Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities). The world changed forever with its release and popular culture with it, not restricted to Batman or comics.

When I think of my most favourite book, there are many which comes in mind instantly, some of them which include The Lord of the Rings, Sherlock Holmes, and off recently A Song of Ice and Fire. Dan Brown and Stephen King are also my favourite authors.

But the one which is the epitome of awesomeness is what I mentioned above. I strongly recommend this one to be read, even if you don’t read at all. This being a graphic novel and not just a novel might make it easier in that case. Being a long time Batman fan (and the nice guy which I’m :P) I gifted the same graphic novel to about 8 people in the last 2 years or so. (So yeah if you are nice to me I might give you one too, just saying)

Coming to the title of this post, (honestly if you don’t know it, shame) it does really strike a chord, albeit my post doesn’t have anything to do with it, but in a way it has everything to do with it, as because of it I came up with this, so I had to mention something out of respect. (alright that sounds weird, seriously). Thanks to the daily prompt for this one.

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

I must have read The Dark Knight Returns more times than I can count, must have quoted almost the entire book (because it is so awesome that it is entirely quotable) but never I gave a thought actually on the opening line itself and this actually made me think about it and to my surprise how much it actually reflects my current state in life :O

I wish one day I could also with the same amount of pride say/write:

Call me Ishmael Iyer.

(I just practice doing it now) 😛

Till then I’ll wait to cross one of this things in my bucket list of getting this signed by Frank Miller.

My Absolute Dark Knight preciouss.