What got you to collect....?

[chezhead]

I just got back into the hobby of collecting GAs and I love coming to this board and seeing all of the different comics that people collect that I really never saw or heard of before.

 

I personally collect GA Archie's and SA Marvels. Since I came back a few months ago I have really enjoyed the Schomburg WWII covers and Startling stuff he did. Hopefully soon I will have some of those too.

 

I am also kind of fascinated in the covers done back in the 40's and 50's. Those horror covers with melting faces and GGA are really clever and intricate. Some really good artists back in the day.

 

What really makes me curious about WHAT got you into collecting what you do.

 

Is it the covers, just the artwork, the material etc.

 

I am really interested in finding out what got you into collecting what you do.

 

and please keep up the pics. (thumbs u

[nearmint]

That damn Superman: From the 30s to the 70s book. It cursed me for life.

[Doohickamabob]

I blame Mad Magazine. Started collecting the mags, paperbacks, and anything else Mad when I was about 9 years old. Around age 15 found out about females and put the mags in a box in the garage. Though I never forgot about females, about 2 decades later retrieved the box and decided to "finish" the collection. Ooops, big mistake. Started reading about the artists, writers, and editors, and slipped into collecting EC comics. Started realizing all the work they did for other publishers and branched out to that. Then learned about other artists, titles, etc. and there was no turning back. It is an incurable condition and I may never recover.

[cheetah]

I started collecting Marvel titles when I was 11 and continued with a few breaks even through today.

 

I got started on GA by wandering into the forum and seeing folks like AdamStrange, Billy Parker, GAtor, nearmint, jive, telerites and others posting incredible stuff. Doesn't seem fair that there are so many cool books to get and so little time to get them all.

[G.A.tor]

reading comics as a kid and growing up in the superhero era (1970's)...we had it all...WW, Hulk, Superfriends, Mego dolls of our favorite superheroes...that cruddy live action spiderman show...batman reruns (from the 60;s)

it was a GREAT time to be a kid...

[thedude]

reading comics as a kid and growing up in the superhero era (1970's)...we had it all...WW, Hulk, Superfriends, Mego dolls of our favorite superheroes...that cruddy live action spiderman show...batman reruns (from the 60;s)

it was a GREAT time to be a kid...

 

plus the Superman movies, as a kid I always bought comics and read them and watched the black and white George Reeves T.V. show, but my comic buying and reading really kicked into high gear with the 70s Superman movies.

[seank]

I had a great Silver/Bronze Age collection in the 1980s that I sold most of. When I got back into comics (for the third time) in 2002, I wasn't interested in rebuilding that collection. I flirted with a few different GA genres before focusing on GGA and Fiction House. I guess I'd rather look at women in leopard-print bikinis instead of men in spandex.

[Mio]

HBO's Tales from the Crypt introduced me to GA horror 20 years ago. When I finished school and could afford the originals, I started (on and off) to pick them up. I'm on an off period now... but I'm sure it won't last forever!

[aardvark88]

I got sick a lot as a child, so when my mom took me to the drugstore in 1975, she would let me pick out 1 comic as a treat. I was a greedy sob so picked the thickest 100 page DC comic at a high price of 50c. Those GA Bat/Detect, Lou Fine art, N. Adams covers warped my grey matter to this day.

[adamstrange]

I got started on GA by wandering into the forum and seeing folks like AdamStrange, Billy Parker, GAtor, nearmint, jive, telerites and others posting incredible stuff.

GA collecting sounds like it's contagious. Perhaps there should be Mental Health Advisory prominently displayed on the main page.

[adamstrange]

I got sick a lot as a child, so when my mom took me to the drugstore in 1975, she would let me pick out 1 comic as a treat. I was a greedy sob so picked the thickest 100 page DC comic at a high price of 50c. Those GA Bat/Detect, Lou Fine art, N. Adams covers warped my grey matter to this day.

I bought 100 pagers with my own money but it was still my mom's fault. She pointed out the economic advantage 100 pagers because the cost per page was dramatically lower.

[Toz]

I grew up with late Silver mostly,read a few of my Brother's Dell westerns & war books.Got hooked on Bronze Marvel's and became an "Official" collector in the early 1980's with the rise of comic book stores.Never really got into Golden Age books until I won a cheap Fritzi Ritz book with a "what the heck bid".Before that I was only interested in The Spirit from the GA and getting the Archives.

 

HOOKED!!!

 

Only got a couple hundred now,mostly low grade with a few nice higher copies I got lucky on.

 

Now I've branched out into pulps.Gotta love it!

 

To quote seank:"I guess I'd rather look at women in leopard-print bikinis instead of men in spandex. "

[telerites]

Two books in particular hooked me on GA -

 

This one and I discovered Lou Fine

 

 

And this one -

 

 

 

 

[ciorac]

I grew up with late Silver mostly,read a few of my Brother's Dell westerns & war books.Got hooked on Bronze Marvel's and became an "Official" collector in the early 1980's with the rise of comic book stores.Never really got into Golden Age books until I won a cheap Fritzi Ritz book with a "what the heck bid".Before that I was only interested in The Spirit from the GA and getting the Archives.

 

HOOKED!!!

 

Only got a couple hundred now,mostly low grade with a few nice higher copies I got lucky on.

 

Now I've branched out into pulps.Gotta love it!

 

To quote seank:"I guess I'd rather look at women in leopard-print bikinis instead of men in spandex. "

 

Fritzi Ritz

[40sJohn]

reading comics as a kid and growing up in the superhero era (1970's)...we had it all...WW, Hulk, Superfriends, Mego dolls of our favorite superheroes...that cruddy live action spiderman show...batman reruns (from the 60;s)

it was a GREAT time to be a kid...

 

Amen! Sounds like my story to a tee...nothing like going to the 7-11 to buy 20cent DC's off the spinners, a Wacky package and a few baseball cards plus candy for less than a dollar!

 

[goldust40]

Golden Age was so hard to get hold of in the U.K. back in the 1980s, when I started seriously collecting. The odd E.C. and Fawcett would occasionally appear on a comic shop wall, but that was about it. Difficult to pique interest when there was so little out there, although I did buy one or two low grade E.C.s...

 

It was only when I got back into collecting in the early 1990s that the bug bit - GA books were exotic, mysterious and bizarre compared to their Silver and Bronze counterparts, and by this point I wanted to collect all that pre-Silver, antideluvian stuff, which was slowly getting more available. Plus condition was less important with these books...it was more about the scarcity, oddness, and lack of information about them that got me hooked.

 

Even more important was that by this point (the mid-90s) I was finally going to U.S. shows, where I quickly learned of the gulf between the U.S. and the less developed U.K. market, not to mention the emphasis placed on GA by so many dealers and fans, which was, needless to say, infectious.

[Doctor Svord]

It's all Murphy Anderson's fault.

 

Back in '99 I re-read the Brunning/Kubert/Kubert Adam Strange limited. What a great character. The next thing I know, I'm combing through eBay looking for late run reprint issues of Strange Adventures.

 

Strange Adventures 229 reprints Anderson's The Last Mile of Space story from Mystery in Space 17. What? He's Adams before Adams was Adams. (He's actually Fine after Fine was Fine, but I didn't know that at the time.) I need to find out more about his work.

 

Some of his earliest work is on book called Planet Comics? What's that? Never heard of it. So I luck into winning Planets 34 and 57. Anderson's 40's work is not what I was expecting, but who's this L.Renee? Oh yeah, George Evans... wasn't he an EC artist? Hey that's Graham Ingels. Then I pick up a Planet 53. Matt Baker...

 

Sky Girl? Sky Girl. After that, it was all over but the crying.

 

So yeah, it's all Murphy Anderson's fault.

[BaltimoreLauren]

When I was 12, my LCS had just put out a 'Life With Archie' #2. They showed it to my dad and I (terrible idea) when we got there one Wed. night. The asking price was $50, which my dad scoffed at. Of course being 12 and wanting the book, I urged my dad to try and work out a deal. His reasoning was "You're 12 and will destroy the book." However, I insisted I wouldn't do any harm to the comic. He just had to trust me.

 

So, we got the book for $25! I promptly read it when we got home, put it back into it's mylar and board bag, stuck it on a long box, and didn't touch it for 11 years. I had decided, at 12 years of age, when I was older and could afford to do so, I would collect GA Archie books (or, "much older comics" as I out it). Well, I am older and can afford it and I do collect GA Archie books, as well as GA DC books.

 

This is the LWA #2. Not the best condition book, but I was thrilled to have it.

[walclark]

I used to tag along with my little brother to the monthly flea market. He was buying SA Spideys and Iron Man. I bought the occasional SA X-Men. I think I bought as much to take the pressure off my brother's buying as for satisfying my own collecting instincts. You know, when Dad says, "You paid $10 for a comic book!!," it was like having my brother's back.

 

There was an article in an old OSPG by Harry Thomas and Gary Carter about GA war covers. I had always been interested in WWII and looked at GA, but never bought any until that article piqued my interest. Harry was setting up at the flea market and I would spend some time combing through his boxes and picking out a couple of comics to buy. A Timely here, a DC there, some FH and Nedors, ...well, you get the picture. Whatever had a cool war cover.

[ft88]

X-men vs Teen Titans one shot.