I started reading comics when I was pretty young - about 6 or 7 I guess. I'd seen the Thundercats cartoon on the telly and was enthralled. Next to She-Ra, it was probably the most exciting thing I'd ever seen.
I must have been very observant about when the comics came out, (or their advertising must have been really strong) because I got them from issue one. And I fell in love. I mean, I really adored these comics. And not only did I have a Thundercats story to look forward to every 2 weeks (yes, they came out bi-weekly, how lucky was I?), there was this other unrelated, story called Power Pack in the back. I had never heard of these. But my gods, this story was nearly as exciting as the Thundercats one! It was about 2 brothers and sisters who had been given powers by an alien race that resembled horses (I also loved horses so this was even cooler), and had to fight evil green lizardy aliens, amongst other things.
I stopped buying the comics when I was about 9 or 10 (they'd got pretty shit by then) and then when we moved house my folks threw them out. I have never forgiven them. So I bought them all off ebay (mwa ha ha ha ha ha!) and they are still good! Would you believe it? There are two panels that I remembered, all through my 15 year life without the comics, which is pretty impressive because I remember fuck all form being young.
One was of Cheetara using her staff to pole vault from one part of her garden to another - giant moles were destroying her garden. The other was a Power Pack one where some other kids (2 of them) were on a sled in a New York park. It was winter and they were heading onto the frozen river, (there was some problem with steering) and were unwittingly going to their death, as the ice wasn't as solid there as it should have been. The girl on the sled was Alex Power's love interest so he was panicking and had to use his and his siblings' powers to save the girl and her male (love rival) friend.
These panels stuck with me for so long. As far as I was concerned they were the best things I'd ever seen or read. The worlds of the Thundercats and Power Pack were the most imaginative, rich, textured worlds I'd ever come across.
Then I got older and turned to DC. But I still have a special place in my heart for each of these series, and I occasionally pull out the comics and re-read them. I will pass them on to various kids when my family and friends' sprogs get old enough.
How did you all get into comics?
4 comments:
I was 9,I had been watching and had fallen in love with the xmen cartoon show,I got videos(showing my age) and toys for christmas and needed more,it was my 9th birthday andas a treat my mum and dad took me shopping.I bought two things that I remember to this day, xmen adventures-the comic book collection of the animated tv show,and xmen god loves man kills-this second volume in particular has had a MASSIVE impact on my life.if you are going to jump in,jump in at the deep end!
Ive been hooked since?after discovering the comic shops in town a little later,I became a full fledged comic book geek!
I was born in the US, and although I do not remember it fully, I do have a distant memory of having read kid comics like Archie, Richie Rich and Casper. We moved back to Ireland when I was 7, and I got into the UK kids comics: Beano, Dandy, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee, Cor, all those comics that had exclamations as titles lol. I moved on from that to sports comics like Roy of the Rovers and Tiger. I sort of stopped reading comics in my early teens when I started reading adventure books by the cartload - must have gone through all the Hardy Boys books at that time!
When I started college, the first Batman film was just coming out. I remember watching the old TV series and luckily, the newsagents had the Titan reprint magazines, which were starting to reprint the early Wagner/Grant/Breyfogle tales. At that time, they also had a Superman/JLI reprint magazine, and the Giffen/deMatteis/Maguire tales had me hooked. Through college, I found a place in town that sold US originals and was hooked on DC characters ever since.
When I was a kid, I bought and read the Care Bears comic every week, then my mother decided I was reading them too quickly and "upgraded" me to Mandy and Judy and the associated teen romance graphic novels, (remember the Debbie books?). Again, they stopped when my parents decided I wasn't getting enough reading out of them. For a long time afterwards I had this weird veiw of book-buying economics: that a book's value for money should be judged on how long you spend reading them for each pound spent.
Fast forward through my comic-less teen years to 25 year old me, the year after Buffy the Vampire Slayer finished, and I was missing the show. I was vaguely aware that spin off comics existed, but comic snobbery prevented me from reading them, until I bought Tales of the Slayers and Fray for a friend (and luckily, those were by far the best Buffy comics in existence pre-season 8).
I fell instantly in love with Melaka Fray and become actually involved in fandom for the first time, bringing her into online roleplaying games, where she met such characters as Stephanie Brown, the turtle Michaelangelo and Fables' Snow White.
I actually go into DC comics when my now-roommate brought in Barbara Gordon.
"Wait," said I, "Batgirl is in a wheelchair, now?"
"Yes," he said, "and she's WAY MORE AWESOME. You should read these comics." And he thrust on me (pirated, digital) Birds of Prey.
Fifty comics later, I told him, "yeah Babs is awesome, but I wanna talk about this lady in the fishnets!" And then a complete love affair with the DCU was born. I started my first monthly subscription when I was completely caught up with BoP and wanted to complete reading on day of release. My pull list has only increased since.
When we would visit my grandparents, there always seemed to be comics upstairs in the bedroom we would sleep in. There was a convenience store down the street and one time we noticed a spinner rack....
8,000 comics later....
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