Progression of comic book reading

cjv · Post by **cjv** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 12:41:25 am

Just curious how people started out reading.

The first comic book I can recall getting was mid 1980's, when someone got me a couple of X-men comics for my birthday (one of them was a X-men annual where they go to Asgard). A few years after that, I was reading X-titles, and spiderman titles from Marvel, and that was about it.

In the college years, I started adding more Marvel titles - Avengers, Hulk, Thor (to name a few). Then, I started switching from Marvel gradually to DC (right around the time the Gambit and others were being introduced in X-men). I started reading Justice League, Flash, Impulse, Green Lantern, as well as picking up some Vertigo titles - Sandman, Animal Man, Hellblazer, etc.

By late college (1992/1993), I was starting to pick up some independants - starting with Valiant. I have to admit, I was also picking up all the "hot chicks" titles - Lady Death, Vampirella, etc. But I also started reading Bone, Wandering Star, Thieves and Kings, and Ragmop. At this point I have pretty much dropped Marvel completely, and was thinning out DC stuff as well. Oh yeah, and I read a lot of the Image stuff when it first came out, but then pulled back to limit myself to Wildcats, Maxx, and Spawn. When other new universes came in, I also tried them (Dark Horse Comics Greatest World, Malibu Ultraverse, Teckno-verse, to name a few) but they never really stuck around, so I didn't keep up with them. Dark Horse was also big at this point - got a lot of the Star Wars and Terminator stuff. Some other titles I recall - Stray Bullets, Defiant stuff, Next Men.

By 1996/1997 I was starting to fade from comics, having pretty much dropped all Marvel and DC, and just kept a few of the indies. By the time I moved to MA in 1997 for grad school, I dropped all comics completely. I still don't buy any new comics, but have filled out my Valiant stuff pretty well.

So my progression sort of went

Marvel X-men stuff --> Marvel comics --> DC comics --> DC Vertigo --> "mainstream" indie's --> "real" indies --> out of comics

(Note, I am referring to mainstream indies as comics by big publishers other than Marvel/DC, as opposed to someone who goes out and publishes their own or something).

justin · Post by **justin** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 8:49:09 am

My first comics were in the mid 80's when Star Trek 2 came out. My uncle collected BWS Conan and I really liked Tarzan. I was about 7 he took me to a Comic Con in Wichita, KS BWS and Richard and Wendi Pini were there, I still have Richard and Wendi's Autograph on an Elfquest Sketch and BWS's signature on a barbarian sketch.

Bought all the Marvel junk, progressed into all the DC stuff, then onto Valiant, Dark Horse and some Image. I loved the Triumphant comics line and around late 1995 dropped comics all together.

I then got back into it about 4 years ago, just buying valiant back issues to fill the holes, then I picked up certain things here and there. I am excited to see who the character marvel plans on bringing back in the next month or so with Astonishing X-Men #4. But then again, I am only excited to see who, not necessarily going to buy it!

-A

depluto · Post by **depluto** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 10:04:26 am

I've been a big Marvel guy all along. There were times in the last 20 years where I dropped comics for a while, got back in (and caught back up at cons).

So mine goes Marvel --> Marvel and Valiant --> Marvel

Along the way I've dipped into a little bit of everything, DC, indies ... a lot of crap. But the only line I ever went after like the Marvel stuff was Valiant in the early 1990s.

wrunow · Post by **wrunow** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 10:59:52 am

depluto wrote:I've been a big Marvel guy all along. There were times in the last 20 years where I dropped comics for a while, got back in (and caught back up at cons).

So mine goes Marvel --> Marvel and Valiant --> Marvel

Along the way I've dipped into a little bit of everything, DC, indies ... a lot of crap. But the only line I ever went after like the Marvel stuff was Valiant in the early 1990s.

I can say my collecting and reading has been about the same. When I was 7 or 8 or so in the late 60's my grandfather owned a drug store and would bring me home a book to read on sundays occasionally, usually one of the marvel triple action type things with multiple stories and such, which at the time were a bargain for kids reading. I also remember getting up very early on Saturday am's and watching the old marvel cartoons where only the mouths moved made from the old comics (I think). These are now and have been availabel on VHS for a few years. I read off and on, although I didn't really start seriously collecting till my late 20's and before you knew it I was reading 20-30 titles per week.

I haven't been buying any new titles for about 4 or 5 years now!

Escaflown4 · Post by **Escaflown4** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:59:53 am

I remembered I first started comics around late 1990. Does anyone remember the first Marvel Series cards released by Impel? They were hot back then and all my friends were trading them. Everyday we would be talking bout the cards and naturally we all started buying the Marvel books. The first book I picked up was X-men #275 and it had one of the best covers I've seen to this date. My second was Ghost Rider #14 and I pretty much kept up with those two titles primarily. I picked up some Mcfarlane Spiderman, which didn't last long until he left the series. Pretty much I stuck with the X-titles and Ghost Rider until late 91 where I quit comics after buying Ghost Rider #1 and New Mutants #87 for $20 each. I thought I can hold onto those 2 primarily and let it appreciate in value for years to come......what a bad choice looking at ebay today.

I came back onto the comic scene around the summer of 93 or 94. I forget, but XO Manowar #0 just got released and the Valiant craze drew me back in. I also picked up the "Bad Girl" craze titles like Lady Death, Shi and Vampirella and some Image titles like Gen 13. After a year of collecting, I left the comic scene again. There was just too much garbage being printed and nothing solid to read. Valiant stories were all going downhill especially when they promoted the Chaos Effect crossover.

Now I just jumped back on the comic scene a month ago. For some reason I've always wanted to read the early pre-unity stuff which I couldn't afford back in the 90's. So now I'm just filling that pre-unity gap and picking up some marvel key issues which I missed out on like X-Men 266 and ASM 300. The only current books I bought so far is the Emma Frost line, stories were solid but not the good stuff I used to read. So I'm gonna stay away from the newly release stuff for now.

depluto · Post by **depluto** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 12:18:28 pm

Escaflown4 wrote:So I'm gonna stay away from the newly release stuff for now.

Tell you what, since every comic of note now is released in TPB form, you can go to any big bookstore, pick up a stack and see what you might like. There are some good comics out there ... tastes may vary.

CLA · Post by **CLA** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 1:25:23 pm

I began reading those X-Men Adventures books when I was younger. Then I picked up a Superman book by Jurgens and I became a fan of Jurgens and Superman. I stopped buying for about three years then began again with the Superman books. They sucked and I stopped buying.

Then I bought a Gen13 lot because of the popularity that Campbell had. I realized that the stories sucked and stopped collecting again.

I decided to study comic book art to understand it and I read a bunch of books on sequential art and the artists of the past. That made me realize that Jurgens wasn't a very good artist and that Campbell was a terrible artist.

I was tired of crap comics and decided to try something new. And here comes Valiant.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 11:27:28 pm

I started reading or trying to read comics when I was around 4 years old in my Grandpa's antique shop back in 68. He bought a lot of comics at local auctions and yard sales and I would sit for hours looking at each one. I really give a lot of credit to comic books for giving me the desire to learn how to read. I sure wish I had those books now, he had lots of early Marvel.. Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Thor, Hulk and Avengers. You would have to write a check with a lot of 0's on it to read those same books now.

Vault-Keeper · Post by **Vault-Keeper** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:02:37 am

(1963-1976)--Famous Monsters>>Mad>>Creepy>>Eerie>>Marvel>>Kirby & Neal Adams DC>>Underground Comix>>EC Comics>>

(1977-1990)--Heavy Metal>>B&W Indies>>
(1991-1997)--EC Reprints>>Valiant>>Defiant>>Verotica>>Chaos!>>Harris>>Broadway>>Acclaim>>
(2004)--Picked up most missing Valiant/Acclaim issues.

Brother J · Post by **Brother J** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 9:08:49 am

Let's see, earliest memories of comics was buying Marvels in like '79 or 80. I think the first book I was a big fan of was the Incredible Hulk. I remember starting a subscription through Marvel with issue #249 and I also remember trading with a neighbor kid for a beat up copy of the Hulk #181! I had no idea who the hell Wolverine was at the time, though.

Discovered a comic shop that I could walk to as a kid, which was actually quite an accomplishment since we lived pretty much out in the country. We lived near a little place called St. Peters' Village and the shop was called the Ye Village News. I don't know how many comic shops were like his, he not only was a comic shop, but also a newsstand and convenience store and probably sold more cigarettes than anything else. That was where I first started to buy back issues and learned they were worth some money. It was also about that time that I picked up that Spider-Man issue that had the Marvel Guide to Collecting Comics insert and I was hooked for life.

I also tried lots of new Marvels at the time, I don't think I even thought about buying DC's. I bought my first X-Men issue during that time, issue #151. Something about the book hooked me and I started collecting it and went back and bought the back issues. I remember getting the Byrne/Claremont issues for what would be dirt cheap nowadays, but at the time I thought was a pretty steep price. I also started collecting GI Joe with issue #1 since I was also collecting the toys and watching the cartoon at that time.

The local shop moved away at some point, so I think my comic collecting fell by the wayside for a while. My next exposure to comics came a few years later, when a kid in one of my classes brought in a bunch of comics I'd never heard of before. The kid was one of those Dungeons and Dragons playing types, so I figured the book was probably kind of weird, something called Groo something or other!

I asked where he got the comics and he told me about a comic shop in a nearby town called Terk's Comics. I went there and found out that it was the same guy who had run the Ye Village News shop from my neighborhood. This was around 1986-87. I started collecting again, I think my first purchase there was another Byrne/Claremont X-Men. It was this second period of comic collecting that I started to learn about other comic companies. This was around the time of the big Black and White Explosion with the stupid mutant critter books coming out and everyone thinking every #1 issue was going to be the next TMNT #1.

It was also around that time that I was looking for a job and the owner of the shop hired me, a sixteen year old kid to run his shop for him on the weekends. It was around that time that I picked up my first issue of Cerebus. I picked up issue #100, figuring since it was #100, it might be worth something in the future. Boy, I had no clue what the hell was going on in that book, but I sure was interested in finding out. I collected the book consistently from #100 to the recent end at #300. The shop had a real nice selection of Cerebus as the owner collected the book in the early days, but had given up on the book once it became more than a Conan parody. I probably spent most of my money at that time on buying comics than anything else!

Around that same time, the owner of the shop started organizing local shows. He had some pretty cool guests, actually. I think the biggest name was Jim Steranko for one show and Frank Thorne at another. These were my first comic shows but there would be a lot more to follow in later years!

The shop ended up eventually going out of business, mainly because the owner got involved in another business venture that didn't work out. I think the shop itself continued to do well because even if comic sales got soft, he was still selling a lot of cigarettes and the other convenience items he carried but the other business that failed must have been too much of a financial drain.

Let's see, I guess we're in the early 90's now. I remember all the hype around the upcoming Death of Superman, in fact, I remember some shop owner screwing me over when it came to those books. They were taking pre-orders for the whole Death storyline and I signed up. As soon as the book became hot, this bozo basically cancelled his pre-orders and started selling the books well above cover price. Needless to say, I didn't buy crap from that guy.

It was around that time I started buying Wizard, I think #17 was the first issue I bought. Man, Valiant made a HUGE impression on me in that issue. I remember the Top 10 list was just about all Valiant. The hype made me want those books badly. I was way too late to get any pre-Unity books at a fair price, so like everyone else at the time, I started speculating on multiple copies of the later books that were touted as having key first appearances of characters, like Harbinger #14 and #15 and Bloodshot #6. I also bought quite a few pre Unity books at shows and paid a premium for all of them. I collected Valiant until the month before the Chaos Effect, I gave up on them because I really didn't enjoy the stories that much at the time.

I went through a long period of time after that where I basically only collected Cerebus. My Valiants sat in a box undisturbed for several years. I started selling stuff on eBay and I looked up Valiants on eBay. I was suprised to see that people were actually buying the books, but you could tell it was only certain books that were fetching good money. The book that caught my attention that was going for decent money was Harbinger #0 Pink. Even then, I think they were going for at least $20-$30. I also found out about this site in someone's eBay listing. I saw the price guide and I think I was shocked by some of the prices these books were going for. I started looking for Valiants and haven't looked back since. In fact, my interest in Valiant also rekindled my general interest in comics and now I'm spending way too much on books again! Thanks, Greg!

Sorry so long, thanks if you actually made it this far!

depluto · Post by **depluto** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 10:04:26 am

That was a good read, J.

I think we all dipped in and out of comics over the years. About 10 years ago I dipped back in and I've been getting them monthly ever since.

The first comic I bought and saved to collect was X-Men 126. Like you, I went back and scooped up all the new X-men stuff, back to 94 (I wish I had picked up a Giant Size back when they were relatively cheap. I didn't because it was several bucks and most other back issue comics were 50 cents or less.

The biggest splurge I ever did as a kid was to get Spidey 121 and 122 for $15, a ton of money for me at the time. Still got 'em.

Vault-Keeper · Post by **Vault-Keeper** » Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:31:57 pm

Yes, very good read, Brother J. It's fun to recall old memories of collecting.

The issues depluto mentions I bought new off the stands. Back then, I was happy to see the X-Men come back with new stories. They had been cancelled in 1970, & only made guest appearances for five years, like in Marvel Team-Up #4. Plus the Beast had his furry storyline in Amazing Adventures.

GS X-Men #1 wasn't a huge hit when it came out. Many collectors at the time (including me) were upset with how expensive collecting Marvel had become.

When they started their Giant-Sized series, they were priced at 35¢. Then they threw an extra reprint in the back of the book, & raised them to 50¢. Plus Marvel still had their line of B&W magazines, which started out at 50¢ with Savage Tales #1, & ended up at $2 at the end of the line, with titles like Kull & The Barbarians. They also had their line of Treasury editions, which were expensive. I still have a NM copy of the first one, which was Spider-Man.

DC, with their endless resource of rare Golden Age reprints, gave a great value with their 100 page Giants, which started out at 50¢.

Anyway, alot of collectors I knew, trimmed dow their buying habits considerably by the time GS X-Men #1 came out in 1975. There was alot of speculation in the field back then also. Actually, the first comic-related speculation craze hit around 1965, which is why you can still find many High Grade issues from this era. In the early 1970's, a friend of mine, who had more money than I did at the time, would buy numerous copies of whatever issues he thought would become valuable. I think he bought 20 copies of Doc Savage #1 (Marvel), Shazam! #1 (DC--return of Capt. Marvel since the 1950's), Ghost Rider #1 (Marvel), The Shadow #1 (DC), The Sandman #1 (Kirby-DC), & even Omac, One-Man Army #1 (Kirby-DC). I think he only made a profit on the Ghost Riders, & sold them all well before Ghost Rider became popular in the early 90's.

When I started collecting comics in New York City, I could find them everywhere. Then we moved to Indiana. Culture-Shock! There weren't any comic book stores here in Richmond. There was one main newstand/magazine store, plus several drug stores, grocery stores, & a few variety stores. The nearest comic store was "The Dragon's Lair" in Dayton Ohio (40 miles away).

Anyway, it was a fun time for me to remember.

WalrusCyclone · Post by **WalrusCyclone** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 1:32:15 am

Escaflown4 wrote:I remembered I first started comics around late 1990. Does anyone remember the first Marvel Series cards released by Impel?

Series three of those cards really got me hooked. Silver Surfer is my favorite marvel character and I think it's because his power ratings on those cards made it look like he'd destroy any other marvel hero. I still have two complete sets, just missing a couple of the hologram cards, in some box somewhere. It was all about the power ratings, haha.

depluto · Post by **depluto** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 1:43:58 am

I remember that when they sold those early Marvel cards the hologram was added as an extra card, so you could lay the unopened packs flat, and the ones with the holograms were one card taller. It was pretty easy to feel.

They used to sell those in a convenience store near where I worked for 89 cents each.