Started at 8 in 1962.

Became more of a steady reader and accumulator when I was 10 or 11.

By the time I hit 12 and 13, I was in comics heaven. More pocket change and greater access to comics meant I could really start collecting. Looking back, it never got better than the years between 1965 and 1968. (not thta it got terribly bad or anythng, but those early years were so full of fun, exploring new titles, discovering the Golden Age, and developing a more in-depth knowedge of comics.

So yeah, I totally get the truth of "Twelve is the Golden Age of everything."

I leaned more towards sports cards (baseball and hockey) starting around the age of 7 and up until about 16 or so.

I got my first comics at the age of 5 or 6, but only occasionally got more here and there through my early teens. Started collecting G.I. Joe just before I turned 13, then got into Amazing Spider-Man a couple of years later before going full-tilt comicholic when I got into college in 1991.

That said, I didn’t really get into back issues (outside of ASM and UXM) until 2002, after I was married, employed full-time, and had money to spend. I calculate my collection grew from about 1500 books to over 7500 in the span of about 5 years or so, as I found shops with $1 bins and I had disposable income every month.

I voted no.

I started reading at 4. By the time I was 10, my mom decided I spent too much time reading comics and made me stop cold turkey (circa '79). The only comics I got for the next 2 years were the issues of Star Wars adapting Empire Strikes back, but we were in a financial situation where the extra 50 cents for a comic was a strain on our budget (we were barely putting food on the table). Things were a little better by the time I was 12, but not much, and certainly not enough where luxuries like comics were on the table. I had managed to scrape up enough money doing odd jobs and collecting refundable bottles and cans that I got two mail subscriptions in the summer of '81 (the park department in our small town paid kids my age a couple of bucks to clean the parks and we could keep any refundable bottles we found to turn in) to help get ready and clean up after the large "Egg" festival they held in the park every summer), but those were the only comics I was reading when I was 12, and when those subscriptions ended I didn't get another comic until I turned 16 and was making my own money to buy them. So no 12 was mostly a comic wasteland, not a golden age for me (and even if you compared the content-I liked the Avengers of 8-10 year old me the first Shooter/Perez run, so much better than the Avengers issues I got in the subscription-the beginning of the second Shooter run that got rid of all the Avengers I wanted to read about). So on al accounts, my vote would be no.

-M

Yeah, I agree that 12 is the golden age pretty much.

I was being bought comics by my mother as a really little kid before I could even properly read them myself, and by the time I was 6 I was regularly picking up Marvel UK's Star Wars Weekly and various UK Marvel reprints. So, I was certainly into comics well before 12. But when I think of the great stuff I was regularly reading in 1982-84 when I was aged 10 to 12 -- Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Tintin, 2000AD, Superman/Action, Batman/Detective, Marvel Tales (reprinting Lee/Ditko issues of ASM), Scream!, and the aforementioned Marvel UK Star Wars comic -- holy s**t that really was some good stuff.

Of course, I've enjoyed a lot of great comics since then, but there is something magical about the comics I first encountered roughly around the age of 12, yes.

I also read comics from when I was around 6,but it wa sporatic, another childhood repast. But when was 15, I bought and read Conan #1, and all the issues after that. About a year later I started buying most Marvel books off the stands, and a few DC and others as well. A year later I was buying back issues and avidly collecting. The Bronze Age was my Golden Age. From High School to College.