It's too difficult to kick oneself

Robinson's Starman... I thought it was too pretentious when I checked it out as it was coming out, I didn't realize was more just a great respect for DC history.

The Bronze age Superman's. I love them now.

There are definitely a few books that I passed over until someone -- usually someone from this community -- convinced me to give them a go and it turned out that I loved them. Notable examples of series that I now love, but which I ignored at the time would be, The 'Nam, Fables, From Hell, and The Rocketeer.

I think the one major series that I had exposure to as a kid, via my friend's comics, but which I dismissed would be Charley's War. As a young kid, I thought that it was as dull as dishwater, but I now consider it to be just about the greatest and most important war comic ever written. In my defence, I think that as a 8, 9 or 10-year-old, I was simply too young to really understand what the series was about, but as an adult I can appreciate those comics as they should be appreciated.

70s Kirby was a major one, until I hit college and beyond. I had been weaned on the Neal Adams look of 70s DC and Kirby, at that point, was an abrupt shift. 60s Kirby wasn't a problem. Once I was old enough to appreciate what Kirby was doing thematically, and saw more than the late run DC books (when he was churning out material just to meet his quantity quotas). Apart from Eternals, the 70s Marvel stuff was just really bizarre and it took a while to appreciate them because they were so bizarre and also see some of the satire in them. Now, I'm writing reviews of Kirby's 70s material and I am loving the heck out of the bulk of these stories. Even the lesser ones have moments of greatness.

Corben was one I had to come back to, later, after first seeing his work. My first reaction was that it was just sex, nudity and violence and little more. It took the right material and a bit os seasoning to appreciate the deeper elements of his work. Much the same is true of a lot of the undergrounds. My first reaction was"Dope and sex, big deal!" Then, I flipped through Spain Rodriguez's Trashman collection and saw some of the Freak brothers and Crumb and some other stuff and came to appreciate the better stuff. It was enough to get me to try both Hate and Cud/Eno & Plum, which I loved, in the 90s.

Guido Crepax's work was another. i first encountered it in the World Encyclopedia of Comics and another book about comics and I was way too young to probably be seeing it (11 or 12); it was very disturbing (and that was just a couple of panels, not whole stories. Later, when I was an adult, I came across the NBM reprints of his work and could examine the artistry involved, even if some of the subject matter was a bit much for me.

Love and Rockets would be the most obvious one that comes to mind for myself. It wasn't that I disliked it, just that it seemed so strange, almost alien, I couldn't really assimilate it. I was always intrigued, though, and would buy the odd issue now and then, but it wasn't until 1988 when I picked up a collection of Gilbert's stories that it clicked with me and became my favourite comic for many years afterwards.

Like Raider, I did not care for the The Spirit when it's first came out and when I saw the movie back in 2008 - I borrowed some of the books from my friend that cartoonist Will Eisner created and enjoyed it then.