What was your first book when you returned to comics? 3 3

[mackenzie999]

What was your first book when you returned to comics?

My story is a familiar one: I collected comics as a boy, outgrew them, then returned to them as an adult.

In my case my initial readership was the 70's, then came back around 2008. What brought me back was wandering into an LCS, seeing an Avengers Annual #7 and remembering how much I loved that story, so I bought it again. It was fun to be reading again so I decided it was time to come back, torture my LCS guy with stories of all the great stuff I used to own, and maybe buy a few of the books I could't afford back in the day.

 

I know many of you have similar stories. What brought you back, and what was your first new purchase?

 

 

[ADAMANTIUM]

In about 2014 I had some extra dough and initially bought a Nolan Ryan rookie for $300 graded by Beckett a 5.0! Then I was going by HPB with other people and saw ton's of people by the comics. I never was a big collector of comics but new most of the characters, and I started asking those by the comics what was popular. I was a newbie and rememeber seeing Strange Tales #110 under lock and key and it being $400 and wondering why it cost so much. Once I found out I went back by Half Price Books and the ST was gone. BBuuut then I knew it was First Appearances that I wanted so I bought a NM 98 off of Amazon for $102 and heard of CGC got it graded by submitting it at the LCS for $50, it came back CGC 7.0; so my first comic back and first CGC submission was a NM 98 CGC 7.0 for $152........  

[DeadOne]

I always loved comics growing up, but really collected them between 1984 and 1991. Then came college, booze, girls, and work, and the collection (like so many other collections) soon went bye-bye.

What brought me back was Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I'm a huge fan of the television series, so when it continued into comic books in 2007, I jumped on board. While looking for the best (cheapest) place online to subscribe, I discovered that some genius had turned the Marvel universe into zombies just a year or so earlier. I read that and I was hooked.

[exitmusicblue]

Great Q.  A comic that stayed with me during my hiatus  was one of Jae Lee's issues from his Namor run.  When I returned to comics, first thing I purchased was the entire run as a lot off of ebay.

My first project was picking up Jae's assorted stuff -- the characters and covers I especially liked.

Then one thing led to another...

[jools&jim]

 

I started reading comics in 1972, and was very much a self-conscious collector (on a VERY limited budget) from 1975 - 1978, but dumped out of the hobby ca. 1979/1980 at the start of high school.

What lured me back in was a Rolling Stone article I read in college about Frank Miller (whom I knew as the Daredevil guy) doing a new Batman comic called "The Dark Knight Returns". 

I read it, dug it, and have been hanging around in one form or another ever since...

 

Edited May 11, 2017 by jools&jim

[Ken Aldred]

I've only ever had one significant break from comics, lasting barely six months or so, in 1983, when I stopped buying while I was starting out at college.  Hadn't got the obsession out of my system at all, and I couldn't help but return to collecting with Marvel Graphic Novel 4, the first appearance of The New Mutants, and the Creepshow film adaptation GN by Berni Wrightson.

Edited May 11, 2017 by Ken Aldred

[Jayman]

Only one significant break for me also. It was only a couple of years after school and getting a good paying job. One day I passed a comic shop and decided to check out what they had. I saw my old favorite Swamp Thing looking like a spider with a castle on his back and jut had to know what the heck was going on! These books below grabbed me back into the hobby.

[Brian48]

I had a 30 gap between collecting.  After watching the Dark Knight, I got interested again, but was not really motivated.  Then I played Arkham Asylum on PC in 2011 and was blown away by the game.  What I thought was really interesting, was that I was unfamiliar with most of the characters in the game.  This got me interested in getting some trades to catch up.  Once again, was blown away at how good and mature the writing was compared to what I was used to as a kid.  Decided to just get *one* book for the sake of old times with no intention of buying any other.  Well, it didn't turn out that way.  Once I got my first Adams Bats book,  the bug caught and i had to get all of them.  Once I completed the Adams Bats collection (combination of raw and slabbed), I had to get the Barry Smith Conan run, then Miller Daredevil run, and now Kirby's 4th world epic.

This is the book that restarted it all for me.     

[joe_collector]

I quit buying new comics when Phoenix died, bought the last of the Byrne X-Men issues and then drifted off. Comics were going through a lot of changes them, from Bronze to Copper, and I didn't like a lot of them. X-Men sucked, ASM sucked, MTU sucked, and Avengers really sucked.

Then a few years later I was in a 7-11 and saw this sitting on the spinner rack - it reminded me of a classic Green Goblin cover and it hooked me back into the hobby until the trio of Spider-man 1, X-Men 1, X-Force 1 + Wizard turned out to be the straw the broke the camel's back (I just hated going to a comic shop back then) drove me out for good.

[lizards2]

25 minutes ago, joe_collector said:

I quit buying new comics when Phoenix died, bought the last of the Byrne X-Men issues and then drifted off. Comics were going through a lot of changes them, from Bronze to Copper, and I didn't like a lot of them. X-Men sucked, ASM sucked, MTU sucked, and Avengers really sucked.

Then a few years later I was in a 7-11 and saw this sitting on the spinner rack - it reminded me of a classic Green Goblin cover and it hooked me back into the hobby until the trio of Spider-man 1, X-Men 1, X-Force 1 + Wizard turned out to be the straw the broke the camel's back (I just hated going to a comic shop back then) drove me out for good.

 

JC!  Where you been?

[grayzr]

Stopped collecting in 2009 because of financial issues but stared back up with this bad boy in 2014. It was also the book that got me into collecting moderns.

 

 

[Azkaban]

I was collecting in the 70's and 80's early 90's got married and started a family and just couldn't afford it any longer and Marvel was driving me away with the renumbering and turning Tony Stark into a kid  so I dropped out cold turkey, around 2012 read about the Billy Wright collection and was sucked back in, these are two of the first one I picked up after coming to the fold

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2017 by Azkaban

[marvelmaniac]

[thechon]

I collected as a kid (I bought Knightfall and The Death of Superman, and thought DC vs Marvel was the coolest thing ever--don't judge me). Girls, sports, and guitar took over. I walked into my LCS after a few years hiatus and saw Batman 608. I've been picking up a few books every month since. 

[chrisco37]

13 hours ago, jools&jim said:

 

I started reading comics in 1972, and was very much a self-conscious collector (on a VERY limited budget) from 1975 - 1978, but dumped out of the hobby ca. 1979/1980 at the start of high school.

What lured me back in was a Rolling Stone article I read in college about Frank Miller (whom I knew as the Daredevil guy) doing a new Batman comic called "The Dark Knight Returns". 

I read it, dug it, and have been hanging around in one form or another ever since...

 

Similar story for me, just 15 years later.  I collected pretty good from middle thru HS.  Quit right before HS ended.   Got back in around 2001 when I saw an article (maybe even in RS) that Frank Miller was doing a sequel to DKR.   There was a local shop near me, so I'd poke my head in once a week or so asking if DKSA had come out yet.    

First "big book" that I bought when I started collecting again was a Hulk 181 off eBay.  

[Jeffro.]

I never stopped!  

The closest analogy I have would be starting to seriously collect superhero comics in 1981. Prior to that, I read comics but didn't try to keep them in nice shape. 

Edited May 12, 2017 by Jeffro.

[Jayman]

2 minutes ago, Jeffro. said:

I never stopped!  

In my heart, I never stopped either. 

[ComicConnoisseur]

2 hours ago, marvelmaniac said:

Loved that series! One of the most underrated characters ever created.

[ComicConnoisseur]

Couple of times I got brought back.

In the late 80s I had discovered girls,cars and rock n roll,so was out of the comics stage for awhile until one day when I happen to see this comic book on a spinner rack at a gas station.

It blew me away with it's art work which started me on another run until the mid-90s.

I quit in the  mid- 90s right around the Deathmate and late comics became an issue.

Came back around 2005 when a friend introduced me to The Walking Dead and tons of new series..

 

Edited May 12, 2017 by ComicConnoisseur

[Artboy99]

I started buying comics when I was 5 with allowance money. By the age of 8 I had my own money from a paper route. I quit in 1990 when I was 25. At the time I was a completist, and I really did not like the trend I was seeing: variant covers and other ridiculous things to make a guy buy multiple books.

I then sold pretty much every comic I owned and focused on others things ( mostly girls and cars ).

I returned to comics in 2004. I had been playing a card game called Magic the Gathering since it came out in 1993. I sold almost all of my MTG and used the money to get back into comics. My goal in 2004 was to re-acquire all the books I used to own, and the first comic I bought was an Amazing Spider-man 14.

Later that year I purchased an Iron Man 1 CGC 9.2 western penn pedigree. It was my first CGC book and is why I joined these forums.

 

The original thread I started on the book:

Eventually I learned that collecting wasn't as interesting to me as it was pre 1990, as with the advent of the internet every book is easily found and I discovered what I like is the chase/ hunt. I switched to golden age in September 2009.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Artboy99