Was anyone here collecting Marvel in the 70's or 80's? 7 7

[kav]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:55 PM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

You know I love your work, baby. 

who wouldnt?
 

[oakman29]

I've been collecting comics for 50 of my 57 years of life. My buddies and I would go to the corner 7-11 and grab 3 comics and a slurpee for a dollar each when we were  knee high to the curb. What great memories , lucky for me I had saved nearly all my childhood comics, and financially did pretty well too! I cant imagine buying the books I do have at today's prices, thank God I did it when they were .20c.

Edited January 19, 2022 by oakman29

[oakman29]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:57 PM, kav said:

who wouldnt?
 

Another kav masterpiece. 👍

[kav]

On 1/18/2022 at 10:41 PM, oakman29 said:

I've been collecting comics for 50 of my 57 years of life. My buddies and I would go to the corner 7-11 and grab 3 comics and a slurpee each when we knee high to the curb. What great memories , lucky for me I had saved nearly all my childhood comics, and financially did pretty well too! I cant imagine buying the books I do have at today's prices, thank God I did it when they were .20c.

only old timers know what it was like to go to corner store and hit the spinner rack.  magical.  the store I bought my first comic had candy in glass case-if ya wanted snickers or red licorice ya pointed at it.

[oakman29]

On 1/18/2022 at 10:44 PM, kav said:

only old timers know what it was like to go to corner store and hit the spinner rack.  magical.  the store I bought my first comic had candy in glass case-if ya wanted snickers or red licorice ya pointed at it.

Awesomeness personified. 🥰

[kav]

On 1/18/2022 at 10:41 PM, oakman29 said:

I've been collecting comics for 50 of my 57 years of life. My buddies and I would go to the corner 7-11 and grab 3 comics and a slurpee for a dollar each when we were  knee high to the curb. What great memories , lucky for me I had saved nearly all my childhood comics, and financially did pretty well too! I cant imagine buying the books I do have at today's prices, thank God I did it when they were .20c.

[EastEnd1]

On 1/19/2022 at 12:10 AM, kav said:

My character was Nebulan.  I was abt 11.  I wasnt good at drawin and I drew the guy too big so I made the title change:

 

Ha, that's great!  Looks very similar to mine!

 

[namisgr]

I read comics as a little kid in the early '60s, mostly Archie and Harvey funny books with a bit of Superman, Batman, and Fantastic Four mixed in.  But I wasn't a regular reader, and the books were stacked in with the newspapers and thrown out after being read.  It wasn't until my senior year of high school in 1972 that I became a regular reader and collector, driven by the wonderfulness of the Marvel comics of the day along with a few DC titles from great creators like Wrightson and Denny O'Neil, plus the joy of the reality of Underground Comix of the time.  Graduate school started in '76 and along with my first serious relationship took all my time, but in 1981 I began reading and collecting again for another four year stretch, finally giving up on new mags in 1985.  New books were bought initially off the spinner racks at 7-11s, and while at college at the local news agency, which had tiered wooden shelves for comics.  In the eighties we lived in So Cal and I bought mostly from the local Circle K.  For back issues into the Silver Age, I subscribed to The Buyer's Guide For Comic Fandom, and used mail order to buy books at no more than a few dollars each, focusing especially on Thor, Spiderman, and the FF.

Being old enough to learn how to read and store them carefully to preserve condition, I made out well when beginning to sell some of the collection 35 years later.  Hulk 180 and 181 bought for a quarter each, and after paying a lot more to have them slabbed selling them as CGC 9.6 copies.  The collection included sweet copies of many of the Bronze Age keys published after 1971.  ASM 121 and 122, Marvel Spotlight 5, Hero For Hire 1, Defenders 1, Warlock 1, Special Marvel Edition 15.  I missed Ironman 55, thinking at the time that the title was lame and so not becoming a regular reader of it until ish 57.  But it wasn't until the early '90s that my wife and I had enough money to support my itch to collect high grade Silver.

Bought in the summer of '74:

Edited January 19, 2022 by namisgr

[Glassman10]

I stopped collecting in 1974. I used to stop at the bus station on the third thursday of every month a put five bucks down. I had the opportunity in the late sixties to buy a lot of books in San Diego very cheaply and did. The AF 15 bus story is well circulated. I sold the whole collection to Bob Storms about four years ago now. I did keep all the JIM and Thor as well as a mess of Dr Strange. Thor never went up in value as did the others. I'm sort of stupid when it comes to Thor.   I don't miss it at this point . I can occasionally live vicariously right here

[Bird]

I still remember going to the local corner store in Beachwood NJ, Clancys. Pharmacy on one side and newsstand on the other (then Disbrow's Butchers). When I was very young I remember the comics were not in spinners but on the wall with the magazines, one book per slot. I wasn't tall enough to get to some books and I remember getting a book out and wait, whats that...another older comic stuffed down into the slot! I checked deep down in the pockets after that. Soon enough they went to the spinner not too far from the soda (my target in any store back then), then the newsstand closed and the pharmacy expanded and the rack went over by the cards. That would have been from 1969 or so to 1985. Clancy's is still there but much smaller, a shell of its' glory.

 

[Robot Man]

On 1/18/2022 at 5:24 AM, ThothAmon said:

My love for comics really took off in grade school c. 1975 when I discovered Overstreet and Empire Comics on Mt. Hope Ave 4 or 5 miles from my house. This article will give you a good feel for what it was like. The picture is of the owner Jim and the interior of Empire Comics.  He was a comic assassin  

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/recent-updates/building-an-empire-from-flea-market-dealer-to-helping-sell-a-1-million-dollar-comic-four-decades-of-empire-comics/

Personally I wish that I’d taken all my hard earned newspaper carrier earnings and bought old books and not new. 

Great pictures!

[Robot Man]

I bought most of my comics as a kid at the local drug store off flat racks. Very early 1960’s. I eventually worked out a deal with the owner to stop by after school to rack his new comics on the day he received them. I got first pick and was paid in comics. So I pretty much got them for free.

As far as back issues went there were a few alternatives. Used book stores, garage sales, swap meets and buying and trading with friends. We got comics by putting up a card on the local super market bullitin board and even riding our bikes through the neighborhood with our red wagon simply ringing door bells and asking for them. Often I we had to cut lawns for them or often people would just give them to us. One of my dad’s friends once gifted us with a footlocker of his WWII era comics. Up to then, we had never known about characters like The Black Terror, The Shield or Catman. 

Then came the Overstreet guide, The Buyer’s Guide, Rockets Blast and being able to connect with other collectors all over the country.

Then came comic cons like SDCC, actual comic book stores, the internet, eBay, and big auction houses.

By the early ‘80’s, I was married and a father. Money was a lot tighter but I managed to keep collecting and have never stopped.

Been a long fun ride! 

[Glassman10]

Anyone remember buying from Howard Rogofsky? One of very few outlets for back issues of anything in the late sixties. 

[Robot Man]

On 1/19/2022 at 8:57 AM, Glassman10 said:

Anyone remember buying from Howard Rogofsky? One of very few outlets for back issues of anything in the late sixties. 

Yep, one of my first along with Robert Bell. Howard “tape is not a defect” Rogofsky. Have to admit, the guy was way ahead of his time.

Got my first MAD #1 from Howard. One of the best packages I ever received. 

[MattTheDuck]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:57 PM, kav said:

who wouldnt?
 

Is that a light saber or something else?

[MattTheDuck]

On 1/19/2022 at 8:57 AM, Glassman10 said:

Anyone remember buying from Howard Rogofsky? One of very few outlets for back issues of anything in the late sixties. 

I posted elsewhere (there was a thread about mail order in the "old days") that I never used these services, despite my early puzzlement on where to get back issues.  At the time I thought things like, "I'm not going to pay $25 for an FF #10!  That's expensive."  It's inexplicable in hindsight but made perfect sense at the time.  

[universal soldier]

On 1/19/2022 at 12:26 PM, MattTheDuck said:

Is that a light saber or something else?

She's just happy to see you.

[adampasz]

Supersnipe was my first comic shop in New York. It was always a bit intimidating going in there. The owner had a Simpsons Comic Book Guy vibe. I think he was more interested in selling to adults, and I'm sure he was annoyed by a bunch of little kids pawing around his shop. There were unorganized stacks of comics all over, and enticing Treasuries, and top dollar books hanging on the walls. I remember digging through un-bagged comics in the ¢10 bins. (I think there was even a ¢1 bin with a bunch of coverless comics...)

If I had a time machine to the 1970's this would be one of the first places I'd visit.

https://www.scottedelman.com/2014/11/15/r-i-p-ed-summer-owner-of-supersnipe-comic-book-emporium/

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by adampasz

[adampasz]

In the mid-1980's we got Forbidden Planet, which was the precursor to the 90's-style shops like Midtown Comics. It was very well-organized and clean, with tons of copies of everything.

I could only find a video of the downtown location, which was a bit grungy. The mid-town location (227 East 59th Street) was an amazing 2-level store. I would visit every Wednesday with my friends after school, walking past the expensive toys and art books, heading down to the basement level to check the new comics. It seemed like everyone was into comics at this point, especially X-Men. I was buying more Indie stuff, like Nexus, American Flagg, and Cerebus, of which they had plenty.

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by adampasz

[Eclipse]

On 1/19/2022 at 8:55 AM, Bird said:

I still remember going to the local corner store in Beachwood NJ, Clancys. Pharmacy on one side and newsstand on the other (then Disbrow's Butchers). When I was very young I remember the comics were not in spinners but on the wall with the magazines, one book per slot. I wasn't tall enough to get to some books and I remember getting a book out and wait, whats that...another older comic stuffed down into the slot! I checked deep down in the pockets after that. Soon enough they went to the spinner not too far from the soda (my target in any store back then), then the newsstand closed and the pharmacy expanded and the rack went over by the cards. That would have been from 1969 or so to 1985. Clancy's is still there but much smaller, a shell of its' glory.

 

I grew up in Toms River, never went to Clancy's but Garden State News was great for comics and later Steve's Comic Relief, which is still in TR but moved around a bunch.