[Craig MacD]

Stephen G, on 15 July 2010 - 06:17 PM, said:

My dad was trying to find something for us to bond over...to he took me to Westfield Comics and bought me Web of Spider-Man #100, with the 1 time seen (unless you count the Spider-Man TAS) Spider of Steel / Steel Spider armor.

I have been a near addict ever since'.

That's actually one of the few Spider-Man comics I still own.

[craggy]

Patrick A, on 15 July 2010 - 02:18 PM, said:

The first comic I ever bought was GI Joe #1. I was in first grade when the whole GI Joe line relauchned (1980 maybe? 81?).

There were actually television commercials for the comic.

kind of...G.I. Joe came out in 82 (I think, although the marketing may have come out first...for reasons to be explained) and Hasbro had Marvel and Sunbow knock up the comic and cartoons to promote it, but they had to have averts for the comics, because they weren't allowed to advertise toys. I think that's how it goes anyway. They did the same with Transformers a couple of years later but I guess the law must have changed at some point.

edit: oh, and I came here to post -
I grew up on/learned to read from my Dad's old 60s and 70s comics. Mighty World of Marvel, The Daredevils and a lot of imported ones too. I remember a lot of JLA, World's Finest, Brave and the Bold, Marvel Team-Up (or 2-In-1 or something) Avengers and the like. I think he had pretty much the whole run of the British weekly Avengers, and that was epic to me as a wee lad. I read the Beano and Dandy as well, but first comics I really got into were the Transformers ones. Then the 90s hit and the cartoons arrived, with the Batman Animated series got me hooked on that character (I'm sure the Burton films and Knightfall - the comic and radio drama - didn't hurt either.) and X-Men, well, X-Men was unstoppable.

This post has been edited by craggy: 15 July 2010 - 09:11 PM

[Ben the Obiwomble]

Like the rest of the Brits here: Dandy, Beano, Beezer, Whizzer & Chips, Asterix, Tintin then Transformers, Eagle, Battle, some 2000AD.

Got into comics more with DHC's Star Wars line that led me to my local then Marvels and Kingdom Come introduced me to the superheroes, but only really explored those several years later.

Has to be said growing up reading what I did, I find the idea that there was but 1 genre of comics permitted in the US to be utterly insane. Similarly I don't get how people can possibly think "comics = superheroes", as in my experience, that's totally false.

[craggy]

superheroes are a big huge part of comics. just like action films or romantic comedies are a big part of hollywood films. there's as much variety in comics as there is in music, books, film or television though. probably more.

[Ben the Obiwomble]

Yeah, but there's a major difference between it being a major genre and thinking that genre encompasses the entire medium!

[craggy]

yeah, but people are stupid

[Martin Smith]

Firestar and Captain America.

Seriously. I was 14, in WHSmith and happened to see the edge of a copy of Avengers United which had them on and, remembering them from various Spider-Man cartoons from when I was younger, I picked it up, bought and everything spiralled off from there.

[Victor C]

First time around - Marvel trading cards series one

Second time around - Millar's Ult X-men and Bendis's JINX

[Aris]

My mom and long trips in the backseat of her Lincoln Mark V. We would always stop at magazine shops in Queens and the City and I would pick up Famous Monsters, Mad Magazine, Star-log and comics off spinning racks in these great smoke shops and mag shops.

Magic.

-aris

[John Hendrick]

My brothers were mad about them so I've been reading comics since I can remember.

They've always just been there.

Started off with Beano, dandy and the like. Then Transformers UK, Action Force, 2000AD and the British reprints of DC and Marvel titles.

the first American Comic I ever bought with my own money back in the day was as far as I know a Punisher War Zone #6, the one with the Mignola cover.

[Stephen G]

Craig MacD, on 15 July 2010 - 08:15 PM, said:

That's actually one of the few Spider-Man comics I still own.

I still own it as well. Not all my books are...but this one is special...and is bagged and borded. I still read it from time to time...it's a solid read and the pencils were great.

It's pencils from that era I really miss sometimes. The constant disgraces we've been getting from ASM as of late are rubbish compared to this.

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[njerry]

My best friend in 4th grade got me started with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four in the mid-60s. Then we started making our own comics, with him influenced by John Romita and Stan Lee, and me leaning more to Jack Kirby. By the time his family moved away at the end of 7th grade, his interest in comics was waning, but mine had grown into an obsession, primarily due to Kirby's Fourth World books and the O'Neil/Adams work on Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow.

[Lyle Pollard]

Well, it's a tough one for me! My fist comic was when I was 3. It was a copy of Amazing Spider-man #248 (The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man).

I lost it, and rebought it many years later.

The comics that got me into comics for good were from Wal-Mart (they once sold comcis, believe it or not). It was a three pack consisting of Spider-Man #13 & 14, and Amazing Spider-Man #350. I also picked up a copy of "What If". Those books started my addiction! Still a Spidey fan, although I can't stomach the BND/OMD/OMIT/WTF stuff that's out now, I still enjoy buying up old issues, and I read a lot of Image (WALKING DEAD AND INVINCIBLE FTW).

[Sean Murphy]

Aris, on 16 July 2010 - 12:32 AM, said:

My mom and long trips in the backseat of her Lincoln Mark V. We would always stop at magazine shops in Queens and the City and I would pick up Famous Monsters, Mad Magazine, Star-log and comics off spinning racks in these great smoke shops and mag shops.

Magic.

-aris

Same for me. When I was wee whenever we took a long trip we would stop at the local drugstore and my sisters and I could each grab 2 or three comics. We were all about the Harvey comics in the beginning - Richie Rich, Spooky, Hot Stuff, Wendy - with an occasional Super Goof but gradually I started picking up Superman or Batman as one of my choices. Before long it was all superheroes and I started sneaking away from my parents while shopping to buy comics without their knowing.

[Travis Phelps]

Didn't realize until now that I'm young compared to alot of comic readers.

[Ron Mays Jr]

Victor C, on 15 July 2010 - 10:12 PM, said:

First time around - Marvel trading cards series one

Second time around - Millar's Ult X-men and Bendis's JINX

Second time around for me was Kevin Smith's run on Daredevil.

[Anthony Martinez]

Comics have been a part of my life since I was a boy...hell, in some respects, I still see myself as a boy, in a good way, not 'the stunted man child living in his parents garage but there's nothing wrong with that' way.

Do any of your older Staters remember Thifty's? Well, Thirty's carried comics by the bushel and they got them in weekly installments. Since the closest comic book shop with a car ride away and Thifty's was two blocks over, guess where I first read comics? I used to read all the usual superhero books - Superman, Batman, Uncanny X-Men, Spiderman. I vividly recall the Superman Exile story and just being enthralled by the narrative and the artwork that just pulled me into these glorious and horrifying worlds.

Like a lot of you, I gave up comics as a teenager for rock music and self-pleasuring.

I fell in love with the medium again after college. I don't remember how - it's like a never left. It's funny, now that I think about it. I can remember the first issues that I ever bought (or had bought by my grandparents) but I don't recall how I found myself exploring these new worlds again...

I love comics. Unabashedly love them. What they reach, how the stories and artwork shift, how they change my perceptions of the world that I live in and those that I hope to explore.

[Husamuddin]

The movies of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Awful, but I loved it when I was sseventeen, enough to check out the comic. I didn't start reading anything else right away, but I kept an eye open for the next adaptation which turned out to be Constantine, which I loved (still do, to a lesser degree) and I got into reading Hellblazer, which got me into the rest of Vertigo, and so on.

[Ben Gilboa]

Constantine was... not a horrible movie.

*runs away*

[Gary Chudleigh]

I was a late bloomer, no comics as a kid for me. I loved the characters in other mediums, but just never got into them for some odd reason. Then I got into books as well as film, then I kind of clicked "hey, a comic is kinda like, a bit of both worlds!".

I think my first comic might have been a TV or game property. It was either MGS or 24. Or it could have been Batman. Urgh, I don't remember! I just kind of picked it up, fell in love with the medium and whenever I'm not skint I eat up as many different styles and genres as I can!