How, or why, did you start collecting comics? Here's my story.... 4 4

[BlowUpTheMoon]

Back in 1976, when I was seven, my hippie uncle @World Spin stored about four long boxes in my childhood closet.  Long runs of Conan, JLA, X-Men, etc. 

[alexgross.com]

i think i first discovered comics at the local stationary store in roslyn, on long island, ny, in the mid 1970s. i started with richie rich comics. in summer camp my parents would mail me piles of them and it was so thrilling to get each package. probably from other kids at camp, i started to discover superhero comics. at some point, i don't recall how or when, i obtained the 3 first marvel trade paperbacks, ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS, SONS OF ORIGINS, and best of all, BRING ON THE BAD GUYS. these books instructed me in jack kirby and steve ditko, john romita and john buscema. i was absolutley hooked. 

as others have said, it was all about the art for me. comics were how i learned to draw the figure without reference. for years i couldnt draw women because i had only ever drawn superhero men. 

i read all kinds of stuff in the 70s, marvel and dc, mostly superhero books. then, in the late 70s and early 80s i fell in love with john byrne and frank miller. for awhile in high school i thought i was going to be a comic book artist. then, i went off to college in '86, and totally forgot about comics. the image guys did not appeal to me, byrne was no longer of interest to me, inking himself, and miller's best work was also behind him. i lost interest in comics for decades. 

then, around 8 years ago, i felt the tug. a friend was collecting, and i started to learn about the new world of graded comics. since then, i have immersed myself in these boards, and gone to endless conventions. i've bought and sold tons of books both out of love for the medium and also as investments. the fact that comics hold their value has made it very easy to justify the kind of money i've put into this hobby since then. i love 60s and 70s comics, and every time i see a wall of them at a con, it makes me feel like i'm 8 again, at the stationary store, perusing the spinner rack. 

[zosocane]

Here's my story:  local U-Tote-Em and 7-Eleven spinner racks, both short bike ride from my home . These books on the racks in the Fall of '77 caught my 4th grade eye.  Full-on addicted.  The end.

Edited December 9, 2021 by zosocane

[mec3437]

When I was about 6 or 7, I came home from school one day and there was a small shoebox full of comics.  Various books, Marvel, DC, some indie books.  The ones I remember are Amazing Spider-Man #328, Daredevil #276, What The--?! #6, Batman #443, Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #1, etc.  I don't think my brother brought them home.  I want to say someone gave them to my dad when he was working for the post office and he brought them home but he doesn't remember it.  From there I would buy the occasional book at the grocery store.  Ren & Stimpy, Spidey, X-Men, etc.  Fast forward to middle school and I went full bore into the X-book craze of the 90s up until junior year of high school.  Then I pretty much stopped until 2006 when IDW picked up the Transformers license and published some solid work.  I stopped in 2008 when I had to decide between rent and food over entertainment.  I eventually joined the Navy in 2010 and while stationed in Hawaii, started visiting a couple of the local shops and started buying again to fill in gaps.  First started filling in the IDW Transformers gaps, then Punisher gaps, and after I got off active duty in 2014, went hard in the paint collecting X-Men and other books.  It's pretty much been that way since.  A lot of fun, a lot of money spent, a little money made, and some real misfires.  But it's been great.  I definitely enjoy the hobby even if I hate the outlandish prices since everything is a key now.  

[Galen130]

On 12/10/2021 at 8:28 AM, mec3437 said:

When I was about 6 or 7, I came home from school one day and there was a small shoebox full of comics.  Various books, Marvel, DC, some indie books.  The ones I remember are Amazing Spider-Man #328, Daredevil #276, What The--?! #6, Batman #443, Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #1, etc.  I don't think my brother brought them home.  I want to say someone gave them to my dad when he was working for the post office and he brought them home but he doesn't remember it.  From there I would buy the occasional book at the grocery store.  Ren & Stimpy, Spidey, X-Men, etc.  Fast forward to middle school and I went full bore into the X-book craze of the 90s up until junior year of high school.  Then I pretty much stopped until 2006 when IDW picked up the Transformers license and published some solid work.  I stopped in 2008 when I had to decide between rent and food over entertainment.  I eventually joined the Navy in 2010 and while stationed in Hawaii, started visiting a couple of the local shops and started buying again to fill in gaps.  First started filling in the IDW Transformers gaps, then Punisher gaps, and after I got off active duty in 2014, went hard in the paint collecting X-Men and other books.  It's pretty much been that way since.  A lot of fun, a lot of money spent, a little money made, and some real misfires.  But it's been great.  I definitely enjoy the hobby even if I hate the outlandish prices since everything is a key now.  

Thank you for your origin story.  Also, from one vet to another, you’re service is greatly appreciated. 🙂

[Robot Man]

On 12/9/2021 at 11:35 AM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Back in 1976, when I was seven, my hippie uncle @World Spin stored about four long boxes in my childhood closet.  Long runs of Conan, JLA, X-Men, etc. 

My uncle gave me a small pile of his original ECs when I was about 12. I’d never seen comics like that. Kinda scared and thrilled me at the same time.

My mom saw me reading one and tore it up. Said it would give me nightmares. She was right. But they became “forbidden fruit” and I hid them in a wooden box up in our treehouse along with a couple Playboys and a nudist magazine. 

[Robot Man]

I’m a little older than most of you people.

I started reading comics at the very end of the 10 cent era. I read my friends comics and my parents bought me some here and there. When I got my allowance, I usually bought them off the rack at the drug store. Mostly Batman, Detective, SA, MIS and the war issues my dad bought and read himself first.

One day my grandpa and I went to the cigar store. He would spoil me and let me pick out a pile. This day was pivital in my collecting journey.

I spotted a book titled Spider-Man. #3 to be exact. What a comic. Read the Hell out of it. Bought every issue from that point on every month. Was a Marvel junkie from that point on. ASM, FF, Hulk and X-Men. Never cared for Thor though.

Also that day I bought MAD Magazine #72. Never seen one before. Loved it and bought every issue from that point forward.

I was still a reader though. The collector part came a couple years later when my Dad took me to Cherokee Books in Hollywood. There, in a plastic cleaners bag, pinned to the wall was a copy of MAD #9 for $3.00. I was stunned. Wasn’t even sure it was MAD magazine since it was a comic book. Spent almost all my money on it. The first time I had ever spent more than cover price on a comic.

This soon progressed to trading to getting every back issue of MAD and Marvel comics with kids in the neighborhood. Then came hunting down used book stores, garage sales and flea markets. Then when I had paper route money, ordering through mail with folks like Howard Rogofsky and Robert Bell.

The rest is history. I was hooked and an addicted collector of comics, pulps, old toys, advertising ect… What a fun ride it has been!

And yes, I still have that original MAD #9.

[Poekaymon]

It was 1982-83 and 6-7 year old me was in the hospital for a few days.  Several family members visited me to give me toys and treats and whatnot, and one of them was a polybagged assortment of random Marvel comics.  I wish I could remember exactly what was in it, but it had at least Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange.  The stories weren't related in any way, and they were random issues, but I was mesmerized. 

When I got out, I got someone to take me to the local shop and the first thing I saw was Miller's Wolverine 1-4.  It was like going from a comic book GED to a PhD in one shot.  For the rest of the 80s, I was a comic addict, and was fortunate to have started in a transformative and historic time (and I don't think that's just my bias talking) in comics, which included stuff like Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Miller's Daredevil, Claremont's X-Men, etc--all of which I got off the racks week to week.  It probably had a real impact on shaping me as a person, for better or worse.

By 1992 I had gone full into computers and mostly gave comics up until coming back into the fold (a bit) in 2019.

Edited December 11, 2021 by Poekaymon

[nmtg9]

My dad collected. Had read comics since he was a kid and collected them since he discovered Marvel in 1962.

So they were there before me. The first I remember are cover dated October and November 1976. I was 4 and comics helped me to learn to read. I wasn't allowed access to dad's collection, only the ones he passed to me, but I was in. 

I remember being at a market stall and asking if I could buy a particular comic. Power Man 23. My first back issue, I would have been 5 I suppose. 

My parents split in 1980 and the collection went with dad and he ended up selling and losing the real gems. My mam moved us away and I had no comics in my life for maybe 3 years. Visiting dad over the summer got me back into them. He moved the collection to my house. I was 14 with over 5000, mainly marvel, dating back to the 60s. I realise now lucky and amazing that was. 

Dad stopped buying in the late 80s so by the time I left school I was buying around 30 titles a month plus back issues when I could. The early 90s frenzy put me off, especially variant covers, and I stopped collecting. I sold the lot in 1995, a day I'll never forget (I try not to regret it but...). 

Got back into collecting in 2008 because I had more money now and because I was looking them up on ebay and seeing how cheap Marvel 2 in 1 were 😂 (Always loved the title and it was the first one I completed when I started back up). 

I am glad that my dad got to see my collection before dementia took hold in the last few years. We had a complicated relationship but comics always united us. I think this collection is my way of replacing the original one he started back in 1962 with AF15. 

[Randall Ries]

Mine is simple: As an 8 year old, I could NOT figure out how Superman's cape stayed "tucked in" as he flew at hypersonic speeds. I couldn't run around the yard without my bed sheet coming unstuck.

Then my father bought me a copy of Bat 244. The rest is history.

[PovertyRow]

My first exposure was finding a cardboard carton in the cellar that belonged to my oldest brother (he was 10 years my senior). It contained a small selection of war comics and EC comics along the lines of Tales From The Crypt and Haunt of Fear. This was about 1954 which would put me somewhere around I was 4-5 years old. The war comics held little interest for me but the EC horror books fascinated me. I would go back to that carton and peruse those ECs time and again. I didn't get much out of the words but the pictures were very compelling! An interesting side effect was my having developed a recurring dream of the Old Witch cackling as she chased me up the cellar stairs. I feel this was a key moment for me as we shall discover.

When I was around 12 or 13 the Marvel Age was gearing up. I distinctly remember borrowing, in addition to Superboy comics, a comic about four scientists that went into space and came back with strange powers, and a book about a frail looking man (I actually remember his being named Donald)  who found a stick in a cave that, when struck it against the rock wall, turned him into a warrior and the stick into a large hammer. Obviously I know now these were FF1 and JIM 83. I started actually collecting around 1980 with my godson asking if I would collect comic books with him. Luckily we were a short distance from Million Year Picnic in Cambridge, MA. I basically followed his lead and picked up copies of the new releases he chose so we could discuss the stories etc. 

After a while he lost interest but I continued with the modern books for a year or so. I then ventured out to various comic shops in the Boston area (this is still early 1980s) of which there were many. I soon discovered The Outer Limits in Waltham (still run by Steve Higgins) where I got my first SA books (early Daredevils).  I clearly remember my first interaction with him. He had an X-Men 1 on the wall and there was a loose staple floating in the bottom of the bag. I pointed to the book and said "There's a loose staple in the X-Men 1". Steve thought I was being critical of the book's condition, shrugged and said something along the line of "Well that's how it is."  So I realized I sounded like I was complaining and clarified "No, I mean there is a loose staple floating around the the bag that might cause some scraping on the cover." He quickly and deftly removed the staple from the bag and thanked me. I did a lot of business with Steve and the other shops. I really started getting into the pre-Hero titles that had the heroes (post JIM 82, post TOS 38 etc) and stated getting into the various Marvel heroes. But I was also greatly enamored of the, often Ditko, backup stories that were like SF with a touch of social commentary. I remember discussing them with Steve and he pointed to a few short boxes under the back issues and said "Take a look in those."

Well, what greeted me was three short boxes of pre-code horror. As I was looking through them my interest really started to get piqued and I suddenly remembered that carton with the ECs in my childhood cellar. From there it was pre-code horror mixed with a few pre-hero Marvels before the heroes appeared. 

So that is a longish brief intro to MY intro to comic collecting.

[hippiecop]

      I love every one of these stories, whether they date back to the 1950s, or the 1990s.

MUCH more interesting to me than the latest GPA of the latest hot book.  Or who is upgrading their collection from 9.4s to 9.6.

Keep 'em coming gents...!!

[Laszlo the Mudjar]

I used to take guitar lessons on Saturdays.  When I was done, I'd have to wait for my Mom to pick me up, and while I waited there was a shop immediately next door that sold comics.  I'd go next door and read a few, but the owner would get cross and make me buy one so I could read the others.  After a time I realized I liked the stories and wanted to read the next issue so I started buying some, and then I discovered that a nearby Thrift Shop had back issues of my primary interest, and so I started buying back issues as well, but then High School and girls took over, and that was the end of my collecting until much much later.

[universal soldier]

On 12/8/2021 at 9:51 PM, universal soldier said:

There were a few moments in my life that really defined the comic collector I am now. I've always been a voracious reader. Anytime we went to a department store when I was a kid, if I disappeared, my mom knew she would simply need to find the book section and there I would be. 

When I was 5, I fell and broke a previously fractured arm that had a bone cyst in it. Initially it was diagnosed at the age of 2+ but my arm needed to grow and develop so they held off until I officially broke it.  Anyways, I remember a boy in a neighboring bed at Children's Hospital in Boston had lost a leg. He always had comic books and can recall being fascinated and wanting to read my own. At this age, my parents would only allow the cartoon books but you take what you can get.

Fast forward to around 9 years old at summer camp. One of the older kids had a suitcase full of older ASM. I specifically remember ASM #73 and wanting soooo bad to be able to read them. Being a little kid, they wanted nothing to do with me. This was the key point led me to really start buying books off the rack. We would go on camp trips to the Cape Cod mall and there was a grocery store that I would buy books off the spinner rack . For years after this, I would write (yes write) letters to a kid I collected with about what books we had bought recently. I can even recall picking up Iron Man 100 at Penn Station on a family trip and reading it multiple times on the train ride.

The third noteworthy part of my collecting story came around the age of 19/20. During high school I stopped collecting. I was more interested in the party and girls so comics got put on the back burner. I would still pick up the occasional comic but it was random. In college I met a great friend that is the owner of my current LCS. When he put the Perez run of the New Teen Titans in front of me, I was hooked again. I've been mostly non stop since 1985 with the exception of 88/89 -93 where I needed to choose paying rent over comics .

 

I had another memory come to mind. I wish I could remember the book but we (family) would go to the library on a regular basis. I had to have been around 8 or 9 but there was a book that chronicled the first appearance of everything from golden age to silver. I would read this over and over again. GA Green Lantern, WW, Flash Batman, Superman and all the silver age Marvel stories. Good lord I was hooked. 

[Ken Aldred]

Good to see that several boardies were lucky enough to have their first exposure to comics being ECs; genuine apex, A-list material.

 

[Mercury Man]

7-11, Slurpee then comics rack.  If you know, then you know. 

 

 

[Galen130]

On 12/11/2021 at 11:11 PM, Mercury Man said:

7-11, Slurpee then comics rack.  If you know, then you know. 

 

 

That was the expected 'norm' growing up in Arizona.  What better way to deal with AZ summers than this???