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

[adampasz]

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But anyways, in the 90's it was pretty much all over and nothing really new happened. Even then we had Wizard magazines to give us heads up and all. But in the 70's or even 80's how was collecting?

I don't think comic collecting has really changed that much since I was little, and these shops sprang up. I think the lack of change is one reason I like it. It makes me feel like a kid.

Obviously, back then you had to do the legwork and go to the shops. I suppose the biggest change is that it's much easier to sell your comics now.

Quote

 For example, in 1984 when the Spiderman alien suit came around or anything different did anyone know about it before or was it a huge "WOAH what's this?!" when you went to the comic stands?

By the time Secret Wars hit, Marvel Comics were HUGE. The black costume was an event, much like events today. It was on the news, and everyone was talking about it, and trying to get a copy of Secret Wars 8. People were heading to the store on the day of release, and if you weren't lucky enough to grab it, you probably had to shell out a few bucks for it.

Growing up in NYC, I was in the epicenter. Maybe it was less hyped up elsewhere.

Edited January 19, 2022 by adampasz

[Glassman10]

when I got the load in San Diego, the man selling them had put entire runs into 3 ring binders, to my horror. All those stupid holes. 

[sckao]

By the time Secret Wars hit, even as a teenager, I was already subscribing to Comic Buyer's Guide (It was a newspaper back then.) and ordering my new comics via mail through Westfield Comics. They were more expensive than some other services, but I liked them better because of their monthly, legal-size, carbon-copy order form. You could get twice a month shipping I think... but that was too expensive for me.

Half the fun was filling out that order form and deciding how many copies of a certain comic book I could afford that month.  

Edited January 19, 2022 by sckao

[adampasz]

On 1/19/2022 at 10:38 AM, sckao said:

By the time Secret Wars hit, even as a teenager, I was already subscribing to Comic Buyer's Guide (It was a newspaper back then.) and ordering my new comics via mail through Westfield Comics. They were more expensive than some other services, but I liked them better because of their monthly, legal-size, carbon-copy order form. You could get twice a month shipping I think... but that was too expensive for me.

Half the fun was filling out that order form and deciding how many copies of a certain comic book I could afford that month.  

I did Westfield for several years in college, since it was no longer convenient to go to shops. I agree, filling out the form was half the fun.
Amazing that they are still around.

[EastEnd1]

I used Westfield as well for many years... loved going through the monthly catalog and picking my order and really loved when the box of comics showed up every month!  I rarely missed an issue and could order all the multiples I wanted (which were both issues at my LCS)!

[jeffreyk]

I started in the 70s in New Jersey and it was mostly Richie Rich and Dennis the Menace with some occasional Marvels and DCs thrown in.  I remember buying like 5 for a dollar.  There was a guy who rented part of the basement of a hardware store in Ridgewood, NJ that we nicknamed the "guy in Ridgewood" and my parents would drive my brother and I to see him about one time every couple of months.  He had old books and I still remember buying a Silver Surfer 1 from him for probably about $15 back then.  I also remember seeing a stack of Star Wars #1, must have been 2 feet high for $2 each.  One book, I specifically remember that I read in the late 70s was Marvel Team-Up 61 when Spiderman fights the Super Skrull.  A great story that got me much more interested in superhero comics.  The Thing and the Hulk were my favorites. There was a comic book kiosk in one of the malls in the late 70s, I think it was the Willowbrook Mall in NJ and I fondly remember buying a Howard the Duck 1 that was marked $17.50 for $15.  My father was with me and he helped me negotiate the price.  It was a hot book and I still own it today and will never part with it.  It is probably worth what I paid for it over 40 years ago but that doesn't matter, my father was there with me.  I have sold many books over the years but that one still remains.  I so wish I could show it to my dad now but he is no longer here.  I still have that wonderful memory though.  

In 1980, we moved from New Jersey to Florida.  I was off and on with comics during that time in the early 80s.  Starting around late 1984 when I was in college through 2015, I went to comic shops for my weekly books.  I was hooked.  I doubt I missed more than 10 times during those 30-years of going in once a week.  I would use previews magazine on a monthly basis and always had pull lists but always went in on new comic book day.  I read every book I bought which was probably 15 to 20 books a week.  I would say my purchases were 75 percent Marvel and 25 percent DC.  I remember the black and white boom of the mid 80s and the Death of Superman was huge with lines wrapped around comic stores.  As of around 2015, I switched to trades as it seemed like most stories were now 4 or 6 issues in length and I preferred to read an entire story arc at once especially as I did not like the opening page summary of what was going on in previous issues.  I much preferred when the story itself would have a flashback to the prior issue to catch you up.  A few years ago, I quit buying new books and reading trades and went to the Marvel Unlimited and DC Universe apps.  I have found myself reading old storylines on them more often than reading new books.  I love comics but don't read near as many as I used to. I collect old books now and read on the DC and Marvel apps. Comics will always be a part of my life.  This truly is an amazing and rewarding hobby.

[oakman29]

On 1/19/2022 at 9:07 AM, Robot Man said:

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. 

I remember a giant book store in Los Angeles that we used to go to as teens, was the only back issue shop around. I'm pretty sure it was on Hollywood boulevard,  or maybe even Sunset boulevard.  That place had everything from back issue comics to posters,  regular books. It was huge, at least to a pre-teen me.

[Robot Man]

On 1/19/2022 at 9:53 AM, adampasz said:

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.

 

Cool video. Old school tape. Big store with lots of customers. Even had that old squeaky floor vibe. Would love to hit that place.

[Robot Man]

On 1/19/2022 at 3:28 PM, oakman29 said:

I remember a giant book store in Los Angeles that we used to go to as teens, was the only back issue shop around. I'm pretty sure it was on Hollywood boulevard,  or maybe even Sunset boulevard.  That place had everything from back issue comics to posters,  regular books. It was huge, at least to a pre-teen me.

Collector’s Book store on Hollywood Blvd probably. Cherokee Books was up the street and Bond Street Books around the corner. Between the 3 you could get just about anything if you had the money (which I didn’t…)

[oakman29]

On 1/19/2022 at 3:46 PM, Robot Man said:

Collector’s Book store on Hollywood Blvd probably. Cherokee Books was up the street and Bond Street Books around the corner. Between the 3 you could get just about anything if you had the money (which I didn’t…)

I never had money either. I didnt live in Los Angeles,  but would save up my allowance and Dad would take us there.

[Bird]

On 1/19/2022 at 1:08 PM, Eclipse said:

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.

well there you go! Clancys is on Rt 9 south of Toms River on the border of Beachwood and Pine Beach. It is on the corner catty-corner from the Beachwood Borough Hall. I am 55. I only went to Comic Relief as an adult many years later. I would make wifey and the girls sit in the car while I went in for 5 minutes and did a quick recon every time we went to see family.

There is a new (to me) comic store down there, they are members here perhaps, Conquest Comics I think it is. Rt 9 in Bayville. I have only been there once, but it very may well be the building that housed a variety of gentlemen's clubs back in the day (actually no, no gentlemen ever walked through the doors), I recall one was named Saints and Sinners. This would be the early 80s.

 

[paqart]

On 1/17/2022 at 6:58 PM, KCode98 said:

I'm curious how collecting was back then. Luckily for me I feel like I grew up in the last good era to collect anything (mid 90's). After that the internet really spoiled collecting IMO. Before the internet you had to put in the work and physically go out and find your collectibles. It really made it that much more rewarding IMO. I remember weekly going to the magazine section of book stores or even grocery stores and looking through the comics.

But anyways, in the 90's it was pretty much all over and nothing really new happened. Even then we had Wizard magazines to give us heads up and all. But in the 70's or even 80's how was collecting? For example, in 1984 when the Spiderman alien suit came around or anything different did anyone know about it before or was it a huge "WOAH what's this?!" when you went to the comic stands?

I was born in 1965, making me 56 as I write this. My first comic was Avengers #94, bought off a spinner rack in 1971 for twenty cents, a gift from my stepfather, David. Shortly after that, I had a dream about the first page, a huge splash by Neal Adams' depicting Captain America shooting a puffed up Super Skrull in the belly with a dart. It is one of my earliest memories, alongside watching the moon landing on live TV with David, and having ice cream for the first time at my Grandmother's home in Minnesota.

My mom divorced David but they remained friends. When he came by to visit, he didn't bring comics for me. Instead, he brought me to the local 7-11 and would tell me I could have one, or two, or five comics. That is how I picked up the rest of the "This Beachhead Earth" story by Thomas and Adams, including #93, thanks to a comic left behind behind after the sell by date had passed. 

At the time I got my first comics, they were gifts from the adults around me. Somehow, I managed to get comics that were several years older, like the Buscema Avengers stories from around 1968. I don't know who gave them to me but remember they were in my ever-growing stack of comics in 1972. At the time, I thought I had 800 comics. A friend challenged me to count them, so I did. I was disappointed to know I only had about 60 comics but glad to know for sure how many I had.

In the early 1970's I was totally unaware of comic book stores. To me, a "comic book store" was a 7-11 or maybe the town dump, where I sometimes found comics buried under mounds of strange magazines. I found a box of magazines in 1973, with a few comics interspersed among them. The magazines were mostly Famous Monsters of Filmland, along with a few Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella's. The comics were similar, Chamber of Horror, House of Secrets, and so on.

To store my growing collection of comics, I picked up a couple of fruit cartons from behind a grocery store. All the way up until around 1980, I had no idea that people could buy boxes. As far as I was concerned, you just had to go to the nearest grocery or liquor store and ask them for some boxes. They were always happy to oblige.

In 1976, my mom started dating a guy named Bob. By then, we lived in San Jose and were even poorer than we had been before. My mom stole clothes out of Goodwill donation bins for my sister and I, and we'd cruise payphones to find lost nickels and dimes to buy food with. Once, my mom passed out in a Denny's before the food arrived because she'd waited too long since her last meal. My sister begged neighbors for canned soup so that we wouldn't starve. Bob was the answer to that. We was successful, entranced by my mom's good looks, and was perfectly happy to pay for our meals, new clothes, and so on.

We moved in with him. Me, my mom, my sister, and my comic book collection. At the time, I might have had 150-200 comics, all of which were presents from my mom or her boyfriends. Bob moved us to El Segundo, California. While there, I saw a yellow pages ad for "Bob's Comics, a comic book store a few miles away, likely in Los Angeles. I begged my mom and Bob to take me there. They obliged. It was the first comic book store I'd ever seen. Inside, I saw very old comics for the first time. I was amazed by the Golden Age comics I saw there but they were too expensive.

Too bad Bob didn't work out. According my mom, she woke up one night to find him suffocating her with a pillow. We left Bob, and all my comics, behind.

After we left, Bob didn't want to give us our things. We no longer had clothes, toys, or comics. We slept on the couches of friends until they got tired of us and then we moved to another set of friends. One couple was Christian. They wanted to adopt my sister and I but said I'd have to give up comics. They were bad for me, they said, and my mom shouldn't let me read them.

I was mad at Bob for taking all of my comics. My mom felt sorry for me, so she bought me comics every once in a while. She didn't have a lot of money, so twenty cents or a quarter for a comic wasn't trivial for her. Back then, a hamburger at McDonald's was thirty-five cents, so she was careful how many comics she bought for me. Thanks to our Christian hosts, I was only allowed to get Harvey comics during this period.

Finally, my mom's new boyfriend, Marty, got so sick of us sleeping in his guest room that he helped my mom rent a house in San Jose. This is where my first serious collection took form.

I was constantly talking about the lost comics taken by Bob. To make me feel better, my mom stopped at a garage sale near Santa Cruz. We looked around at the junk scattered in wet boxes sagging in the rain but there were no comics. I asked a kid there if maybe he had comics to sell that weren't on display. He said he did. He brought me into the backyard and pointed to an upended wooden orange crate. Collapsed in a moldy heap at the bottom were about 25 comics. I could have them all for a dime. I asked my mom for the coin, got it, and became the owner of 25 soggy comics that had seen more than one day of rain in their lifetime.

The comics I rescued that day were a complete run of Barry Smith Conans, including number one. I hadn't seen them before but was eager to dry them out. My mom had another surprise for me: we were going to a comic book shop in Santa Cruz called "Crazee's Comics".

Crazee's was in a basement accessible from the back of a building. To get in, you had to walk down some steps from street level. Inside, the shop might have been 400 feet, or about the size of a large mop closet. Crazee, as might be expected, was a young hippie with long hair. I told him about the Conans I had just found. Interested, he aske if he could take a look. He said Conan was a popular series and that these comics were collectible. He offered me five dollars for them. I accepted. 

From then on, I did my best to find comics wherever I could find them. I started buying, selling, and trading as often as I could. I brokered deals for large collections, like a full set of Spider-man from 1-whatever it was up to that year, to nearby Recycle books. I also sold a full set of Fantastic Four for someone else, all the while building up my own collection.

As I bought and sold more and more comics, my collection grew into the thousands. I had a lot of early Golden Ages, like Batman #2, World's Finest #2, Comics Cavalcade #3, early EC's, a huge collection of Barks ducks, a nearly complete set of Silver Age Marvel and Dc's, and yet comic book bags were still a rarity.

I lived in San Jose, which had several comic book stores, dozens of 7-11's, and loads of bookstores. My favorite place for bargain comics was Curiosity Books in Los Gatos, but I also shopped at Recycle Books, sorting through hundreds of comics messily sliding over one another on shelves in the front window, where they faded quickly unless they were buried under something else. Even then, the comics had "tan lines" where a number of comics protected some parts of the cover from sun-bleaching, but the rest had lost their color. 

To get to the comic book stores, I most often took the bus. A dime for a ride or a quarter for a day pass, and I could go anywhere. The official comic book stores were Atlantis Fantasyworld in Monterey (where I bought my first Walt Disney Comics and Stories, a non-Barks issue with a Kelly cover), Comics and Comics, Comics and Fantasies, Sidebottom's Comics, and of course, the DeAnza flea market.

Around this time, I found and bought my first Overstreet price guide. The cover was by either Carl Barks, Bill Ward, or Will Eisner. I had all three but don't recall which was first. This was when I learned the importance of condition and started taking proper care of my comics. I still didn't have plastic bags to put them in, or proper comic book boxes, but I did my best with the liquor store hand-me-downs.

After making a particularly big consignment sale at age 12, I attracted the attention of the owners of Comics & Fantasies. They said they'd rather hire me than compete with me, so they asked if I'd be willing to work for fifty cents an hour plus a bonus based on sales. I accepted.

I should mention that I memorized the price guide every year. It was handy to have the prices in my head instead of a book in my hand when I went out to buy comics. It was also useful for impressing dealers at conventions. At one convention in San Francisco, I become an attraction at the booth of the Comic Detectives, a little shop where I discovered Barks. They had convention goers try to stump me by asking obscure questions out of the price guide. They didn't stop with prices by the way but also asked about artists, publishers, publication dates, and so on. I never failed one of those challenges, though I was surprised even then that I could do it. Today, it seems impossible.

At Comics and Fantasies, I was finally able to buy comic book bags. They were expensive, so I only bought them for my best comics. They also had the new-fangled comic book boxes but I didn't buy those because my liquor store boxes were good enough.

And then, in 1979, my mom forced me to sell my collection so that I could pay for a move to Las Vegas. After that, we were poor again and I had to set about rebuilding my collection. The only problem was that my fifteenth birthday was months away. That was a problem because as long as I could remember, my mom had vowed to kick my sister and I out of the house when we were 15, to fend for ourselves. She meant it and I knew she meant it. Anyway, after that, we're into the eighties, so I'll stop here.

[paqart]

On 1/19/2022 at 12:53 PM, adampasz said:

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.

 

I moved to the upper East Side in Manhattan back in 1985. At the time, Forbidden Planet was the closest comic book store to our apartment on East 72nd, so I used to make the walk down there quite often. One of their employees, John Gaffney, posed for the lead character in my first set of comic book samples. Another of their employees, Rob Simpson, became a friend. Later, he went on to be an editor at DC and then (I think) Random House. I bought an original Sunday Strip by Walt Kelly at that store, for $250. I may have met Scott Dunbier there as well, though I may be mistaken about that. He lived around the corner from Big Apple Comics on the upper west side, so it is more likely I met him there. Scott sold me about two dozen pages of original Kirby art and used to come by my apartment for dinner with me and my girlfriend at the time (now my wife of 35 years). Scott later became an editor at Wildstorm but then he went to IDW, where he works now. He is the person behind their artist's edition line of books.
I tried to become a comic book artist while I was in New York but instead made illustrations for magazines. Then I moved to Maine in 1989 and Hamilton Comics gave me my first job on a title called "Dread of Night". Marvel followed with Hellraiser, Nightbreed, Daredevil, and fill-in inks on a couple backup stories in the Avengers. After that, I did a few things for DC, Harsh Realm for Harris and got out of the comic book industry.

Edited January 20, 2022 by paqart

[catman76]

I was collecting any old comics I could find in the 80s. I had no interest in anything new then. I was out searching flea markets and antique and thrift shops for any old pre 70s comic I could find. New stuff in the 80s and especially in the 90s did noting for me. Until I discovered there was more than dc/marvel crud out there being published then I was searching out independent, underground, self published stuff as well as old 40s and 50s comics.

I remember when Mike Diana got busted and convicted for his comics in like 1990 or whenever it was. I was paranoid I would get in trouble since I owned some of his comics 

Antique store and flea market finds have pretty much dried up now. Not just for comic books, but anything. The days of going out scavenging and coming home with piles of 30s-50s pulps, big little books, magazines, old toys, is pretty much gone now or just really really few and far between and online is no fun at all. Theres no search, no discovery, now digging through dusty musty basements and attics and junk stores finding a treasure I never knew existed. I miss those days. but the internet is great for new comics. We are living in a golden age of comics making the last 20 years. More comics are being made now than every before and its much easier to get stuff thats outside the mainstream marvel/dc crud. That's great.

[Artboy99]

I started buying comics when I was 5 turning 6 in the early 1970's. When I was 8 years old I got a paper route and I would ride my bike to the convenience store about a mile away to buy comics on Wednesdays ( new comic day ).

Back then I didn't have any guidance whatsoever nor did I know there was any, I merely bought anything that caught my eye. Hulk was a favorite of mine, and when Hulk 180-181 came out after I read 181 I thought that Wolverine was very interesting and went back to the convenience store and bought all the copies the store had and after doing that I had 5 copies. The thinking behind this was that other kids would also be interested in the Wolverine character and then I would have trade value. Kids traded comics at school along with other things like hockey cards.

When X-men 94 came out when I was 10 I saw the Wolverine's head in the top left. Wolverine wasn't in the X-men before, did this mean he would be? I bought the book (the first X-men comic I bought ) and after reading it I went back to the store and bought more copies so I would have copies to trade at school. I traded for older books in titles I liked.

I generally felt if I liked a character or title, another kid would like it as well. Seemed to work.

Honestly even to this day I buy comics that have covers that catch my eye rather than going through previews or other hype publications.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Artboy99

[Cat]

On 1/20/2022 at 5:12 PM, catman76 said:

I remember when Mike Diana got busted and convicted for his comics in like 1990 or whenever it was. I was paranoid I would get in trouble since I owned some of his comics 

 

Funny you mention Diana, I was rereading about him just last night. What are his comics like? And something I wondered, does CGC grade them? 

[Glassman10]

I think that the memories of the moment, small boy, young man, older soul, are all to be cherished when you recall where you were and how you felt getting a particular comic.  For me, I recall going to what was then called "The little Store" in La Jolla Shores at about age 9 and getting a Flash comic and an Orange Crush and heading down to the beach to read it. I remember the hot sun on my back and me all covered with sticky sand absorbing the summer sun.  That was more cherishing comics than collecting them. 

[Artboy99]

On 1/20/2022 at 8:24 AM, Glassman10 said:

I think that the memories of the moment, small boy, young man, older soul, are all to be cherished when you recall where you were and how you felt getting a particular comic.  For me, I recall going to what was then called "The little Store" in La Jolla Shores at about age 9 and getting a Flash comic and an Orange Crush and heading down to the beach to read it. I remember the hot sun on my back and me all covered with sticky sand absorbing the summer sun.  That was more cherishing comics than collecting them. 

I cherished my books as well. The first comics I bought were from allowance money given to me by my Father. 25 cents here, 15 cents there, etc. I could buy brand new comics for 15 cents back then, but I found the used book stores a few miles away from me sold books at half cover so the little money I had went further in those places but I could only buy a few and there was no guarantee of the stores had for sale; I bought what I could find. Once I got my paper route at age 8 I then had my own money and began buying even more comics than I used to. By then the cover price was 20 cents, but I had several dollars I could spend. I would bring the comics I purchased to my room in the basement of my parents house and I would read them and also draw from them. It definitely developed my artistic skills that I would turn into a career for a good portion of my adult life. 

[B2D327]

Although I used to buy comics in the 70s, I didn’t consider myself a “collector” until the early 80s when I started to seek out specific books. Up to that point, one could always see the house ads to know what to look forward to but finding back issues would be tough unless you had an lcs (which was rare), knew other “collectors” or knew of an upcoming convention. Marvel and DC had their way of pointing out what back issue you needed to read with either an asterisk in a word balloon when a past event was pointed out or in the letters section (Ask the Answer Man). The 80s made it a bit easier when fanzines like Amazing Heroes and Comic Collector started popping up at a more abundant amount of comic shops and magazine stands with more shops offering mail orders in paid ads. 90s changed things when collectors started looking at books as an investment, which imo was neither a good nor bad thing but a product of increased popularity. Just my personal take. 

[Robot Man]

On 1/20/2022 at 7:24 AM, Glassman10 said:

I think that the memories of the moment, small boy, young man, older soul, are all to be cherished when you recall where you were and how you felt getting a particular comic.  For me, I recall going to what was then called "The little Store" in La Jolla Shores at about age 9 and getting a Flash comic and an Orange Crush and heading down to the beach to read it. I remember the hot sun on my back and me all covered with sticky sand absorbing the summer sun.  That was more cherishing comics than collecting them. 

I remember family road trips in the station wagon. My dad would pull into a 7-11 and we could each buy 3 comics. We read the hell out of them. I had two sisters and a brother. So we had a dozen books that we passed around. My sisters usually bought Archie’s and Harvey. My brother and I bought superhero. Didn’t matter, we read them all. Kept us quiet for a while.