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Post by hondobrode on Jun 21, 2016 0:57:16 GMT -5
My father and mother forbade them without explanation, even though my mother had bought me and my brother two of them in 1963. Every so often they would find a comic, get rid of it and restate the policy. I ignored it and just became more clever. My grandmother (father's mother) enabled me, alllowing me to keep a stash of comics at her house. I continued to defy the edict and sneaked comics into the house in my coat sleeves, under my shirt and in schoolbooks. They knew I had stacks hidden somewhere, but chose not to make an issue of it until just after I turned 15, when after a bad year in school, my mother took out my big box of comics from the bottom of my closet (This was in June, 1969, so you can imagine the gems that were in there.), and angrily tore each one in half, forcing me to do the same. I tried to convince myself that she was right, that I was too old for these and that I deserved to be punished (the destruction of my comics was only part of the penalty), and that this would help to make me the mature, successful student I was supposed to be. That's how you do things in a cultlike atmosphere: recognize your sinfulness, accept your guilt, offer it up, and loathe yourself. I began sneaking comics into the house just as quickly as I could after lying low for a bit. Soon enough they gave up or just didn't realize what I was doing. That happens a lot in a large dysfunctional (euphemism) family. Had the comic-tearing ever been brought up again, I would have been expected to laugh it off as part of family lore or risk being thought overly sensitive or unaware of what an asshole I really was. Not that it was ever mentioned. Denial, as they say, ain't just a river in Africa. I smiled as I read this and feel for you my friend. This never happened to me, though my brothers and I shimmied up the laundry chute to my parents' bedroom to where our Christmas toys were locked away. We opened them, broke one, rewrapped them (feabily at best) and were caught (not the first time). They locked up our comics again, this time in the "furnace room": a small room built around our, surprise, furnace. Thankfully we were young, and skinny, and flexible, and crawled through the ceiling to get them. There was also a stove pipe to an wood burning stove that gave great heat to the basement in the winter which burned my ear as I prowled in the confining space. I'd never thought about it til now, but no one ever asked how I burned my ear... You're mentioning of smuggling reminds me of sending packages either to my grandmother's up the road, our hated enemy on the other side of the hill, or a younger girl a few miles away with a crush on me (yes I'm horrible). It's not easy being an addict, is it ? BTW, I "liked" your post, but really I didn't like it, and cringed, but understand, of course. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2016 1:20:30 GMT -5
My own Father hated Comic Books and my own Mother and I tried my best to educate my Father the value of Comic Books and Comic Books really open a new world of learning and knowledge of the world as we know it. Painfully, as I write this and I shared this panel with him and he tells me its a bunch of garbage and that's one of the many reasons why my own Dad doesn't understand why I love Comics for all it's worth.  This is one of many reasons why I wanted to visit that place in Los Angeles and I find it to be a fascinating place to visit and my own Father dispute it while my own Mother and three older brothers loved it and I just don't understand why my own Father don't see the value of Comic Books back then. To me, it's educational beyond means and I liked the Editors Notes in those panels so that I can learn a thing or two in the many issues of DC and Marvel Comics back in the early days of Silver Age of Comics of which Editors back then do this for a good reasons alone. My own Father doesn't understand that. Sorry, being so negative Members but it's true and I did enjoy visiting LA BREA TAR PITS place in Los Angeles with my family in the mid-70's on vacation. I wished I could write it better ... but I can't. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,218 
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Post by Confessor on Jun 21, 2016 7:39:43 GMT -5
Some sad stories here, and I only "liked" them because I like that posters have shared them with us, but there are also some nice heartwarming stories too. Such is life, I suppose. But these two tales of woe... I still believe to this day that he had a hand in pitching my extensive run of the original Marvel Star Wars series, which went mysteriously missing my freshman year of college, that I have had to painstakingly and sometimes expensively tried to reassemble. My brother had his Star Wars collection locked in a basement storage at an apartment house he rented and they got stolen. Now, these are some tragic, tragic stories indeed.  As for my own father, he basically had no interest whatsoever in comics, sci-fi, fantasy or anything of that sort. He wasn't a huge reader and anything that he did read was usually non-fiction about history or sport. He did once tell me that he'd read the odd Captain Marvel comic as a boy back in the '50s, but not regularly. I also remember asking him if he had ever read The Eagle (which was a hugely popular British comic featuring adventure strips like Dan Dare) but he said "no, because it was too expensive." My Father's family were pretty much as poor as church mice when he was a youngster and besides, his #1 passion was football (that's soccer to you yanks), so any spare cash he had went on buying things like football boots, football cards, football magazines etc, etc. That said, he had absolutely no problem with me reading and/or collecting comics myself and never once tried to persuade me to throw them out. Weirdly, he did sit down with me and watch a BBC documentary about Steve Ditko a few years before he died, which he seemed quite interested in as we watched. But that was an anomaly and quite out of character really. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 21, 2016 8:38:46 GMT -5
Hal, I smiled as I read this and feel for you my friend. This never happened to me, though my brothers and I shimmied up the laundry chute to my parents' bedroom to where our Christmas toys were locked away. We opened them, broke one, rewrapped them (feabily at best) and were caught (not the first time). They locked up our comics again, this time in the "furnace room": a small room built around our, surprise, furnace. Thankfully we were young, and skinny, and flexible, and crawled through the ceiling to get them. There was also a stove pipe to an wood burning stove that gave great heat to the basement in the winter which burned my ear as I prowled in the confining space. I'd never thought about it til now, but no one ever asked how I burned my ear... You're mentioning of smuggling reminds me of sending packages either to my grandmother's up the road, our hated enemy on the other side of the hill, or a younger girl a few miles away with a crush on me (yes I'm horrible). It's not easy being an addict, is it ? BTW, I "liked" your post, but really I didn't like it, and cringed, but understand, of course. Thanks, hondo. We all probably have some unpleasant memories seared into our psyches. Mine are about comics. Coulda been worse. No, it isn't easy, but, looking back, I realize how clever I had to be to follow my "secret passion." I was lucky, really, because I never was interested in pursuing other kinds of escapes. Comics, and reading in general, were often a way out of a life that, while it wasn't as horrible as some of my friends' were, was still often -- if I may be melodramatic -- soul-crushing. Your escapades are right out of a Ray Bradbury story, hondo: drainpipes, rewrapped presents, the wood stove in the basement. I love the bit about the burnt ear. I actually thought you were preparing us for the comics being tossed into the stove. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2016 10:01:01 GMT -5
My dad started my love of comics as he bought me my very first comics. He still reads comics to this day, although they are collected editions of older stories such as the Golden Age Superman Omnibus, The Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow tpb, and other collected editions.
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Post by hondobrode on Jun 21, 2016 10:07:19 GMT -5
I too have said that I didn't have comics as a channel for my energies, I probably would've been in some type of trouble.
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Post by berkley on Jun 21, 2016 16:51:44 GMT -5
My father never read comics as far as I know. But I do remember once he brought me home a comic he bought somewhere while he was at work - he was a sales rep who had to drive around to a lot of stores, both in our town and elsewhere. He probably just picked something at random but it happened to be a good one too, as luck would have it - one of the first Frank Miller Daredevil issues, back when he was just the artist and Roger McKenzie, I believe, was writing it.
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Post by rom on Nov 22, 2016 22:48:56 GMT -5
I don't remember my father being a big comic fan when I was growing up in the late '70's - '80's. He would sometimes glance through some of the comics that I had, but not much else.
I do remember my dad telling me that he used to buy EC comics "Tales from the Crypt" (and possibly other horror comics) when he was growing up back in the 1950's & both enjoying them, and being scared by them. I had never read EC horror (or any other) EC comics due to their being before my time. However, because of my dad's praising them - I made a point of seeking them out when the EC Archives reprints came out. I made a point of reading many of these (especially the horror titles), and these are definitely the best horror anthology comics I've ever read.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2016 23:21:54 GMT -5
My dad's brother had a huge comic collection, so he grew up knowing all about them. When my brother got interested as a kid, he had that huge collection to partake in, and I was just 2 years behind. My mom wrote in her diary the first comic I picked up out of one such box was Iron Man 76.  ^ The only difference, mine had 9p on the cover where the price is and Marvel All Colour Comics at the top. When I started to buy my own books around 1993, I was still a kid in single digits so both dad and mom would send the order list. When I turned 14, I got to use a credit card (not mine but I had control of it). That made on-line purchasing fun, but I had to earn it. I got suspended from 2 different schools twice but still got a full certificate with As and 2 Bs. My books were never taken away. My dad has an appreciation for comics even though he's not a collector himself. He collects stamps, so he knows about rarities and pricing. He'd trust my instinct if I was buying a rare book. And on the occasion he'd look through one, he knows how to handle them and knows that I am the fussiest one of all. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 23, 2016 2:38:22 GMT -5
My dad was born in 1931, before comic books, on a little farm in southern Illinois. Comics were never in his sphere, as it was the Depression and southern Illinois' farmland isn't nearly as good as central Illinois (where I grew up). he had a couple of Big Little Books, as did his younger brother; but, that was about it. He did love comic strips though, and rea them daily. Peanuts was a favorite and Alley Oop was a longtime favorite, which he passed on to me. He enjoyed the adventure strips, especially the aviation ones, and Steve Canyon was a favorite. He enjoyed a good gag, so the humor strips were always favorites, with Calvin & Hobbes becoming a particular one, in his later years.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2016 9:09:36 GMT -5
He enjoyed a good gag, so the humor strips were always favorites, with Calvin & Hobbes becoming a particular one, in his later years. I loved Calvin & Hobbes! ... one of my favorite strips. |
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 7, 2017 11:54:47 GMT -5
My dad was not a comics fan at all, but he did have a handful of undergrounds which he let me read at a young age which likely warped me completely.
He also had some vague enjoyment of the Spectre, because he was so psycho. But he got the name wrong and said the Spirit. That inadvertently lead me to discover Eisner's character, which was far more interesting in the long run.
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Post by Outrajs on Sept 27, 2017 11:05:45 GMT -5
On Mother's Day, I began a thread inviting folks to share memories that involved their mothers and comics, or to discuss the role their mothers played in their love of comics. Seemed appropriate to do the same for fathers today. Whereas I had a lot to say about my mom's involvement in my love of comics, my dad had none. However, he was born in 1939, was dark/broody/mysterious, and parked his car in an underground garage beneath our home. That's right -- my father may have been Batman. My father had a "workshop" in the basement where he liked to play with acid, fire, welding equipment, and diamond cutters. Maybe he was a super-villain? |
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