How did you get into collecting comic books?

[SupergirlDC1959]

As a young kid I use to visit my godfather's house pretty often (or the whole family would meet on weekend's at my grand parents cottage). He was a hippy during the 60's and 70's and always loved playing guitar and throwing party's. He was a lot of fun that is for sure!!

 

I remember one day asking him what is in that huge blue trunk of his and he said when you get to be a little older I will show you.

 

So a few years passed I was now around 8 years and he decided to open that old looking trunk. Box after box of 200 comics just kept coming out. Must have been over 3000 silver age comic books. Mostly Amazing Spider-Man (I would say #40 to #150), Fantastic Four (I would say #30 to 120) and X-Men comics (I would say #20 to #100). I do not recall any DC comics but there was a lot of old Disney comics as well as Tales of Suspense.

 

Geez I wondered where did he get all those comics.

 

He told me the stories of when he was a kid and very poor he would make some pocket money doing little jobs and he would go to the corner store and buy all the comics he could. Over the years he would trade comics with some local kids on Friday nights after school and some times over the weekends. He said he would drag is little wagon around the street knocking on people doors asking if anyone had any comics for sale or for trade.

 

In the end his love for comics never ended but for him the SA was the last era of comics he would buy. He always says you simply can't beat the quality of art from that era (he also loved the GA but it was before his time).

 

For years and years we would read comics together (me, him and my brother).

 

One day he decided to give me his collection and told me if ever you get to go further in school to sell them and to use the funds to pay my tuition.

 

I remember the day when I sold them all to a local dealer in order to further my education. There where non of the Top 10 SA books in his collection (I am sure he owned a few of them if not all of them at some point when he was much younger) but every single book meant the world to him so it was very hard for me to let any of these go.

 

But now with that education I can afford to truly enjoy the hobby he and I both love. Every time I buy a key SA issue he is the first person I call and he truly enjoys knowing his passion paved the way for me.

 

Over time I have purchased most of his old comics back one buy one on Ebay and every time I see him I give them to him. I only likes raw comics he can't understand why anyone would want to have a comic in a cgc holder (or any other company that grades comics). He says I just love the smell of them and that it brings him right back to when he was a young kid.

 

He is now almost 70 years old and retired (he was a electrician by trade) but boy he has never lost his love for comics and music.

 

 

[oakman29]

My story isn't as cool as yours. I have four brothers,and three sisters. Growing up in the sixties all you really had was cowboy pulps,comics and National Geographic for the nudie pics.

My brothers all had comics and I grew up influenced by my older brothers. I started with Beetle Bailey,Richie Rich,and worked my way up to Sgt. Rock,Spidey and Batman. Ahhhh memories.

[SupergirlDC1959]

Nice story got to love those old vintage nudies hahaha!!

[trmoore54]

Acquired them...bought them (3-12 cents apiece)...read them...saved them...circa 1962-1971 ...

[Heronext]

My dad bought me a Turok comic when I was 6. I read the occasional coverless Spider-Man at the barbershop and would wonder what happened before and after the story. A good friend's parents would buy him GI Combat, Sgt Rock and Weird War Tales and he would give them to me after he read them. I would buy back issues in the LCS with my paper route money. One day I was on a trip with my father in his 18-wheeler. We stopped at a convenience store and I bought G.I. Joe #12 off a spinner rack. That's when I became a collector.

[gunsmokin]

Early 70's for me. A friend handed me a small stack of Spideys and Avengers from around 1974 which were great but mixed in was an Avengers 27 and a Thor 135 from his dad's books. I was hooked from that point forward. Took a break in the late 80's but still love the medium and am blessed to be married to a women who "kind of gets it"

[spracknetch23]

My dad and I used to go to an old 50s-style barbershop down in Vermilion, OH. Right next to it was a Higgins Pharmacy. We went in one time after a haircut and my dad suggested I get a comic book. I picked Mickey Mouse #225 (April 1987). I started getting more Disney comics after that, every time we went to get our haircut. Went to my first con in '93 (Philadelphia Comicfest) and the rest is history.

[*Bronze age fan*]

As a young kid I use to visit my godfather's house pretty often (or the whole family would meet on weekend's at my grand parents cottage). He was a hippy during the 60's and 70's and always loved playing guitar and throwing party's. He was a lot of fun that is for sure!!

 

I remember one day asking him what is in that huge blue trunk of his and he said when you get to be a little older I will show you.

 

So a few years passed I was now around 8 years and he decided to open that old looking trunk. Box after box of 200 comics just kept coming out. Must have been over 3000 silver age comic books. Mostly Amazing Spider-Man (I would say #40 to #150), Fantastic Four (I would say #30 to 120) and X-Men comics (I would say #20 to #100). I do not recall any DC comics but there was a lot of old Disney comics as well as Tales of Suspense.

 

Geez I wondered where did he get all those comics.

 

He told me the stories of when he was a kid and very poor he would make some pocket money doing little jobs and he would go to the corner store and buy all the comics he could. Over the years he would trade comics with some local kids on Friday nights after school and some times over the weekends. He said he would drag is little wagon around the street knocking on people doors asking if anyone had any comics for sale or for trade.

 

In the end his love for comics never ended but for him the SA was the last era of comics he would buy. He always says you simply can't beat the quality of art from that era (he also loved the GA but it was before his time).

 

For years and years we would read comics together (me, him and my brother).

 

One day he decided to give me his collection and told me if ever you get to go further in school to sell them and to use the funds to pay my tuition.

 

I remember the day when I sold them all to a local dealer in order to further my education. There where non of the Top 10 SA books in his collection (I am sure he owned a few of them if not all of them at some point when he was much younger) but every single book meant the world to him so it was very hard for me to let any of these go.

 

But now with that education I can afford to truly enjoy the hobby he and I both love. Every time I buy a key SA issue he is the first person I call and he truly enjoys knowing his passion paved the way for me.

 

Over time I have purchased most of his old comics back one buy one on Ebay and every time I see him I give them to him. I only likes raw comics he can't understand why anyone would want to have a comic in a cgc holder (or any other company that grades comics). He says I just love the smell of them and that it brings him right back to when he was a young kid.

 

He is now almost 70 years old and retired (he was a electrician by trade) but boy he has never lost his love for comics and music.

 

 

 

I knew it. Right.

[*Bronze age fan*]

Acquired them...bought them (3-12 cents apiece)...read them...saved them...circa 1962-1971 ...

 

 

 

I LOVE that story!!!

[*Bronze age fan*]

My story isn't as cool as yours. I have four brothers,and three sisters. Growing up in the sixties all you really had was cowboy pulps,comics and National Geographic for the nudie pics.

My brothers all had comics and I grew up influenced by my older brothers. I started with Beetle Bailey,Richie Rich,and worked my way up to Sgt. Rock,Spidey and Batman. Ahhhh memories.

 

 

 

[jimjum12]

Acquired them...bought them (3-12 cents apiece)...read them...saved them...circa 1962-1971 ...

 

 

 

I LOVE that story!!!

 

.... and then I bought them all for 5 bucks at his Mom's Yard Sale while Tom was away at College... GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[*Bronze age fan*]

Acquired them...bought them (3-12 cents apiece)...read them...saved them...circa 1962-1971 ...

 

 

 

I LOVE that story!!!

 

.... and then I bought them all for 5 bucks at his Mom's Yard Sale while Tom was away at College... GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

 

Which is why Tom is rebuying all these bad azz comics in high grade at nosebleed prices.....it ALL makes sense now!!! Well played James!!!

[Comicdey]

 

Grew up in Fairbanks Alaska where my dad was an elementary school principal. He was a collector and I inherited that gene so as the rest is not surprising.

 

I used to walk from school to Martha's for after school care in 1st-3rd grade (1973-1975 era) and on the way there was a small mom and pop store that had a spinner rack and a fixed magazine rack. I recall purchasing comics there from the DC 20 c and Marvel 25c era. I'm sure I had earlier funny animal, Archie and Harvey comics but do not recall ever buying them.

 

The real catalyst I remember was my father coming home from school with a small stack of comics, pocket knives and matchbox cars which were contraband from school rebels that never brought their parents in to get them back from the school principal. Out of that stack came my favorite character, Warlock, with #6 and Strange Tales 178. I searched the stands for more to no avail until that glorious day when I found #9 in the spinner rack at the mom and pop store.

 

The rest is history.

 

All this new hype is well deserved for those wonderful cosmic stories but I was in before those titles were on the "winning team"

[H0RR0RSH0W]

Around 5 years old my cousin gave me a cover less copy of a Conan comic. I always loved looking over my grandfathers shoulder at the funny pages as he would read me Beetle Bailey at the breakfast table.

 

Around 8 years old the neighbor gave me coverless copy of GI Joe #10 which I still have. Their older brother had a stack of Sgt. Rock comics they got from their step dad we would read too. That was around when issue #18 of GI Joe (1983) came out and was the first comic my dad bought me off the newstand.(Still own it). Most issues were purchased at the local smoke shop.

 

I got into going to the LCS around 12(1987) with lawn mowing money and collected steadily until 1995.

 

 

[jimjum12]

I've told this story before, but I suppose I'll add it again. In the summer of '67 I was spending a lot of time at my Grandparent's house. My Aunt Elsie came around often as she was a very young college grad who had been a High School P.E. teacher for a couple of years and was off in the summers. She was pretty cool, with a convertible Chevelle and a willingness to take us to the beach almost whenever we wanted One morning she pulled up in the yard and called me, my sister, and two of my cousins outside and popped the trunk. It was slam full of, you guessed it, COMIC BOOKS. According to the story (although she no longer recalls all the details...) they were amassed from the students with the idea that they could be sent to the troops in 'Nam.... many of whom weren't much older than her students were. Unfortunately, shipping was not the cheap international miracle that it is today, and it turned out the cost was around the amount of her yearly salary... so that idea was scratched. It was too late to return them to the students (who didn't want them anymore, anyway...).... so WE got them. I remember it like yesterday, they were spread out on the living room floor and the "dibbs" process began I knew what comics were, but just barely, but I was blown away by these things. Seeing so many at once, early on like that, probably destroyed any chance that I ever had of becoming a "normal" person (if such a creature even exists). All that four color delight was the end of me. For some reason, out of the couple hundred books that were my "cut", the only ones I distinctly remember were a coverless ASM 37, FF 47, JIM 120, a couple of Metamorphos, Marvel Tales 3 that I read to death (I already loved Lizards), and an Action Comics 344 with this awesome dream cover and some strange diamond dude on it. Anyways..... I was hooked, line, and sinker. That fall I started spending ALL my allowance money (25 cents a week for chores) on comics. Ironically, it was exactly enough to buy all 8 of Marvel's monthly output. Honestly, I often skipped TOS and TTA, finding their lineup of two ever continuing stories to be confusing. My Favs, in this order, were FF, ASM, Avengers, Hulk, DD, and Thor. Still love comics today. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[vaillant]

I believe it happened spontaneously… I have been "reading" comics since I was age 3 or so… my father taught me how to read on the pages of the italian Mickey Mouse, and then I started to pick a series which is a collecting fan-favorite here, which reprinted monthly all the best italian Disney stories produced since they allowed us to pick up where the american ones (more or less) left.

 

The title is "I Classici di Walt Disney" (Walt Disney’s Classics): up to when I was about 13-14 I bought the title at the newsstand, but then I realized there was an original series, started in 1957, of which the current one was – up to some point – a reprint. I decided I should strive for it, even if it was expensive.

 

Now, by selling my #2 I could pay for a lowgrade Fantastic Four #1 (more or less) but it’s a book that holds the same importance to me, as it features the second Phantom Blot story, with art by Romano Scarpa, which is one of the earliest full fledged efforts in following the Disney masters' paths. (published in USA by Gladstone about 30 years later, in "Mickey & Donald" #6-7-8, IIRC).

 

Since then, well I think I never thought about giving away a comic I cared about.

 

Here’s how it looks, but this is a 1958 reprint (which is valued a lot less than the 1957 original):

 

[PT]

Hmmm.....wish I had a cool story, but I never read a lot of comics when I was young - I have always had a collecting gene in me (trading cards, figures, pogs, coins etc). I have also always liked super hero tv shows and movies from back when I was a kid, and when the first Iron Man movie came out I went on the net to see what the first books he appeared in were.

I went on eBay and spent £15 on a random ToS book, which lead to me picking up more and more, and now I am spending 4 figures on books for my collection

Slippery slope guys, slippery slope.....

[jimjum12]

Hmmm.....wish I had a cool story, but I never read a lot of comics when I was young - I have always had a collecting gene in me (trading cards, figures, pogs, coins etc). I have also always liked super hero tv shows and movies from back when I was a kid, and when the first Iron Man movie came out I went on the net to see what the first books he appeared in were.

I went on eBay and spent £15 on a random ToS book, which lead to me picking up more and more, and now I am spending 4 figures on books for my collection

Slippery slope guys, slippery slope.....

 

.... that IS a cool story GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[zosocane]

This is a SA forum so I will focus on my SA origin. After I got hooked on then-modern ASMs, Star Wars and Sgt. Rock, GI Combat and Unknown Soldier as an eight-year-old in the Fall of '77 (and I would rip out those pesky ad pages), when I was maybe 10 I remember visiting relatives in Queens. My older cousin (may he rest in peace) knew I liked comics and he took me to the home of one of his friends in Flushing because that friend of his (in his late teens) collected comics. I arrived into this home and the friend brought down a long box and it was a nearly complete run of ASMs. The copy I still have a mental image of holding was ASM 10, the one with the Enforcers on the cover. I had never been to a con, and my local dealer didn't have many Ditko-era ASMs, so my only reference point for old ASMs was the OSPG. I was FLOORED with what I saw and held. It was treasure. From that day forward I was a collector.

[H0RR0RSH0W]

This is a SA forum so I will focus on my SA origin. After I got hooked on then-modern ASMs, Star Wars and Sgt. Rock, GI Combat and Unknown Soldier as an eight-year-old in the Fall of '77 (and I would rip out those pesky ad pages), when I was maybe 10 I remember visiting relatives in Queens. My older cousin (may he rest in peace) knew I liked comics and he took me to the home of one of his friends in Flushing because that friend of his (in his late teens) collected comics. I arrived into this home and the friend brought down a long box and it was a nearly complete run of ASMs. The copy I still have a mental image of holding was ASM 10, the one with the Enforcers on the cover. I had never been to a con, and my local dealer didn't have many Ditko-era ASMs, so my only reference point for old ASMs was the OSPG. I was FLOORED with what I saw and held. It was treasure. From that day forward I was a collector.

 

I noticed that too but I saw alot of other posts about Copper so I thought it was ok.

 

I started lightly collecting SA a couple of years ago. I have a few issues that I really enjoy owning even though I was not born yet in the 60's. I like being able to look at my favorite characters origins in the original form(not trades or reprints). I really find it a special experience to read books from the pre-modern era.