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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 1, 2015 22:29:38 GMT -5
At some point in September of 1975, I walked from Mrs. Pfeiffer's house, where Mom helped her occasionally with her switchboard to Harry's Heyburn Food Center. I'm not sure where I got the money, but it was probably from pulling weeds or straightening up for Mrs. Pfeiffer. It wasn't a super far walk...I don't remember how far exactly, but not over six or eight blocks.
I don't think I planned to buy anything in particular. Chances are I was planning to buy candy or a pop. But at some point my eyes went to a spinner rack of comic books. And ultimately I purchased a copy of Detective Comics #454. It was purchased solely for the fact that Batman was on the cover. That was the start of 40 years of four-color excitement.
I learned a lot from those books. They helped my vocabulary. They led me to science fiction. They led me to science fact. They entertained me and still do. There are at least a few people who moved into comics because of me. And I hope it was a good journey for them.
40 years...and still going.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 2, 2015 4:26:15 GMT -5
Never occurred to me to celebrate these moments like birthdays. I honestly wish I could recall what month it was when I got my first comic.
Happy Comicsversary, Slam!
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Post by Spike-X on Sept 2, 2015 5:20:06 GMT -5
I started reading around the same time (maybe a year earlier), but I was a bit younger.
From memory, my first comic was a B&W reprint of the Justice League story where they all turned into trees.
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 2, 2015 5:38:03 GMT -5
I started reading around the same time (maybe a year earlier), but I was a bit younger. From memory, my first comic was a B&W reprint of the Justice League story where they all turned into trees. That's the origin story, but I can't recall where it might have been reprinted in black and white. Was it a European edition? |
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 2, 2015 5:41:17 GMT -5
Never occurred to me to celebrate these moments like birthdays. I honestly wish I could recall what month it was when I got my first comic. Happy Comicsversary, Slam! Not that you probably already haven't, but if you immerse yourself in "Mike Amazing's" Newsstand feature for a while, you may find the elusive petite madeleine.(BTW, good luck, Shax! You must be heading back to school soon, right?) |
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Post by tingramretro on Sept 2, 2015 6:28:15 GMT -5
I started reading around the same time (maybe a year earlier), but I was a bit younger. From memory, my first comic was a B&W reprint of the Justice League story where they all turned into trees. That's the origin story, but I can't recall where it might have been reprinted in black and white. Was it a European edition? Most DC reprints in continental Europe would not be in English. And the only British DC reprint publication I can think of that would have been in black and white and reprinting JLA stories would be an early 80s anthology called The Super Heroes Monthly, which I don't think ever featured that story. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 2, 2015 7:52:03 GMT -5
Never occurred to me to celebrate these moments like birthdays. I honestly wish I could recall what month it was when I got my first comic. Happy Comicsversary, Slam! Not that you probably already haven't, but if you immerse yourself in "Mike Amazing's" Newsstand feature for a while, you may find the elusive petite madeleine.Good point, but then there's the question of how long that book had been sitting on the spinner rack. There's also the matter of which anniversary to celebrate -- my first comic (1985), the first comic I read and enjoyed (1988) or the book that turned me on to reading regularly (1989). Even with that last one, I stopped reading five years later and only picked the habit up again in college when going through my old collection (2001). Already two weeks in. Getting a lot less reading done, but enjoying being back! |
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 2, 2015 8:20:08 GMT -5
Not that you probably already haven't, but if you immerse yourself in "Mike Amazing's" Newsstand feature for a while, you may find the elusive petite madeleine.Good point, but then there's the question of how long that book had been sitting on the spinner rack. There's also the matter of which anniversary to celebrate -- my first comic (1985), the first comic I read and enjoyed (1988) or the book that turned me on to reading regularly (1989). Even with that last one, I stopped reading five years later and only picked the habit up again in college when going through my old collection (2001). Already two weeks in. Getting a lot less reading done, but enjoying being back! I would celebrate them all: it's like first date, first kiss, and falling in love. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Sept 2, 2015 8:29:28 GMT -5
Good point, but then there's the question of how long that book had been sitting on the spinner rack. There's also the matter of which anniversary to celebrate -- my first comic (1985), the first comic I read and enjoyed (1988) or the book that turned me on to reading regularly (1989). Even with that last one, I stopped reading five years later and only picked the habit up again in college when going through my old collection (2001). Already two weeks in. Getting a lot less reading done, but enjoying being back! I would celebrate them all: it's like first date, first kiss, and falling in love. My first date was a rambling and incoherent weirdo, my first kiss was strong but morbid, and my first love was more interested in money than content  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 2, 2015 8:32:37 GMT -5
Shax, Sounds like you must have read comics from ACG, EC and Todd Macfarlane, respectively.  |
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Post by Rob Allen on Sept 2, 2015 10:44:06 GMT -5
My comicsversary is coming up next week. According to Mike's site, Spider-Man #7 went on sale September 10, 1963. At some point in the next month, six-year-old Rob picked up a copy at a little neighborhood newsstand/candy store on Belleville Avenue in Belleville, NJ, halfway between home and my second-grade classroom. I've been celebrating on the 10th for a few years now. Fifty-two years later, I still have that Spider-Man comic, coverless since '65 but still the most precious item in my collection.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 2, 2015 12:33:00 GMT -5
Not that you probably already haven't, but if you immerse yourself in "Mike Amazing's" Newsstand feature for a while, you may find the elusive petite madeleine. There's also the matter of which anniversary to celebrate -- my first comic (1985), the first comic I read and enjoyed (1988) or the book that turned me on to reading regularly (1989). Even with that last one, I stopped reading five years later and only picked the habit up again in college when going through my old collection (2001). Already two weeks in. Getting a lot less reading done, but enjoying being back! If Mike's "on-sale" dates are accurate it's very likely I picked up my first comic in October of 1975. I'm just not sure how accurate his dates are for books that old. And I know I picked up Amazing Spider-Man 151 after Detective 454 even though Mike says it had an earlier on-sale date. I don't think the spinners got culled or cleaned up that much during that time period and I know that some books hung out on the racks for quite some time. But I'll go ahead and claim September 1975 as my time since the first two books I purchased came out in that month. |
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Post by dbutler69 on Sept 2, 2015 12:34:46 GMT -5
Nice coincidence, Slam! I think the first comic I ever bought was Road Runner #55, which would have also come out in September 1975. My first superhero comic would have been World's Finest #236 (with that Batman guy on the cover, also) which would have come out in December, 1975.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2015 14:16:36 GMT -5
I started reading around the same time (maybe a year earlier), but I was a bit younger. From memory, my first comic was a B&W reprint of the Justice League story where they all turned into trees. Could it have been in the Tempo Books paperback collection?  It had B&W JLA reprints, but not sure which stories. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2015 14:19:37 GMT -5
The first comic off the newsstand I remember was Batman #250 on sale April of '73, which was a couple of months shy of my 4th birthday. I may have had some before that but those would have been either strip reprints or Saturday morning cartoon properties by the likes of Gold Key that I didn't have for long and don't remember which at all. Batman #250 was my first (super-hero) comic that I remember having and reading over and over again.
-M
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