What got you into comics?

[kiuju2k]

Spiderman and his amazing friends.... yes i know its a cartoon.

 

[AnnoyingSilence]

first time I've heard it put that way(newsagent)

 

[AnnoyingSilence]

Anyway... My story:

This August will be my second full year of reading comics... My wife and I and Her sister and her husband all needed a place for cheap for a while to get some bills caught up.... Her aunt bought a new house, so all four of us movved in her old one. (For those of you who do know him) JewwisHobbit is my brother in-law. One day he was telling me about this new "DTL" that he joined and some people were dropping out(at the time i had read 0 comics and only knew them from the Cartoon Series), so i figured I'd give it a try(it sounded really cool).... After joining in mid July, I was getting pounded on, couldn't defend or object for my team. (JH(JewishHobbit) wanted a friend with comics knowledge anyhow(conversational matters)) After about two seconds of talking with JH, he agreed to set me up with some stories and see how it goes.

I've read all the X-titles from 1985 to present, a bunch of minies, plus All the DC comics that i've been collecting my self(around 2,000), reading mainly the recent stories.

after reading for a year i started branching off into different types of powers(cosmic, magic, mutant, meta, etc..).

I would venture to say that i've read ATLEAST 3 to 3 1/2 thousand comics

 

[Darthphere]

I think we all have lull periods, where we all stop buying comics for a while. Its happened to me twice in my life. Once in middle school where I was worrying too much about what other people think. Comic books werent cool, hands down. When I got into high school, I started reading again. The second time was after Avengers Diassembled. I dont know what happened, it was just a pure disgust of what was going in the comic industries, however snobby that sounds, but I stopped buying comics for like 6 months, I missed them too much and came back.

 

[Whirlysplat]

I think we all have lull periods, where we all stop buying comics for a while. Its happened to me twice in my life. Once in middle school where I was worrying too much about what other people think. Comic books werent cool, hands down. When I got into high school, I started reading again. The second time was after Avengers Diassembled. I dont know what happened, it was just a pure disgust of what was going in the comic industries, however snobby that sounds, but I stopped buying comics for like 6 months, I missed them too much and came back.

Good post and true, I had 5 years off at one point.

- Whirly

 

[Darthphere]

Good post and true, I had 5 years off at one point.

- Whirly

Thtas a long time, and especially with comics nowadays, a character could be totally different when they come back. I just imagine those people who stopped buying Cap and came back and some guy John Walker was Captain America. WHAAA? When did you stop reading comics?

 

[Silver Sable]

Spiderman and his amazing friends.... yes i know its a cartoon.

That's how I got into comics also but by the 90's series

 

[AnnoyingSilence]

yea. Once i started reading comics and watched a couple of the old episodes, i realized how under played they were.

 

[KingOfDreams]

I don't remember. I think I was around 8 when I first started reading comics. I'm thinking it must have been the cartoons though.

 

[antonydelfini]

the uncanny xmen cartoon series got me into it. wolverine just seemed so cool when i was a kid.

 

[Prognosticator]

When I was 2-3 years old, I had some Superfriends action figures that are some of my earliest memories...those w/Fisher Price toys and LEGOs. To this day I still have a strong appreciation for the fun I had w/them as a BABY and I'm sure that nostalgic desire keeps bringing me back to comics and superheroes! That's the "earliest" reason i have.

 

[Rob H]

My brother and the original Flash television series/movie. Never really got too into comics until a couple of years back though.

 

[nite-owl]

I used to get comics when I was younger at the newsagents but after a while they just stopped getting them in, it was only after I saw x-men 2 I got back into comics.

 

[UK_Stu]

I got into comics way back in 1980. During the summer holidays, my Grandad used to look after me for a couple of days a week. He'd take me into town and buy me a comic book from the newsagents (probably to keep me quiet) and then read it to me in this small cafe before we went home. He continued to buy me a comic book each week - various titles usually DC. Anyway we moved house when I was about 11, one of the things my mum chucked away in the move were all the comics I owned

So I was still into comics, but unfortunately lived no where near any comic book shops and had very little pocket money. I was reduced to buying the odd issue here and there - literally one or two issues every 6 months/year or so. (I found holiday camps were a real treasure trove for old comics though, and picked up plenty of issues here for a about 5p each, though my Mum moaned i was wasting my money).

While still at secondary school - i found out about mail order, while I couldn't afford a regular subscription, I began to buy back issues when I could (Ah Justin Ebbs and Just comics).

Then I went to Uni, and my comic purchases finished altogther (generally a lack of funds) and I spend about 4 years buying no comics. (though I swore I would catch up when I got a job)

And now I have a job and have been catching up

jeeez 1980 seems like a long time ago

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

1991, was in Poughkeepsie visitin' relatives and we went to an arcade. Played Konami's X-Men and got hooked (Wolverine of course, whom I thought shot electricity through his claws thanks to his "berserker rage" special). My 'rents would later fuel that at Xmas with my first batch of comics.

 

[Sequential76]

I've been drawing for as far back as I can remember. I'd always had a small stack of comics in the Rec room and my mother seemed to pick them up from garage sales frequently. They'd be battered with the price written onto the cover with a magic marker.

I'd always been the artist kid in school then we moved and I was placed in a school with about 3 other really good "Artist kids." Honestly everybody seemed to be better than me at everything at that point. Around the sixth grade (1988) Herb Trimpe (Hulk, GI Joe, Etc,) came to school to tell the class about his job has a comic artist. I loved it and was hooked. I absolutely knew what I was going to be when I grew up from that point.

All the artist kids went crazee making up their own comics. Their's where always better than mine but I'm the only one that's still here.

I love comics

 

[Whirlysplat]

I got into comics way back in 1980. During the summer holidays, my Grandad used to look after me for a couple of days a week. He'd take me into town and buy me a comic book from the newsagents (probably to keep me quiet) and then read it to me in this small cafe before we went home. He continued to buy me a comic book each week - various titles usually DC. Anyway we moved house when I was about 11, one of the things my mum chucked away in the move were all the comics I owned

So I was still into comics, but unfortunately lived no where near any comic book shops and had very little pocket money. I was reduced to buying the odd issue here and there - literally one or two issues every 6 months/year or so. (I found holiday camps were a real treasure trove for old comics though, and picked up plenty of issues here for a about 5p each, though my Mum moaned i was wasting my money).

While still at secondary school - i found out about mail order, while I couldn't afford a regular subscription, I began to buy back issues when I could (Ah Justin Ebbs and Just comics).

Then I went to Uni, and my comic purchases finished altogther (generally a lack of funds) and I spend about 4 years buying no comics. (though I swore I would catch up when I got a job)

And now I have a job and have been catching up

jeeez 1980 seems like a long time ago

Nice story my friend. I used to clean a copper bar at the local pub before school in the late seventies and early eaighties to feed my habit when pocket money stopped being enough. Like you University meant I could not afford comics. I also used to hide comics from Girlfriends . My present partner doesn't understand but she accepts. I bet some of the comics you threw away I still have, although my Mum who was a teacher gave some to a kid she taught who was into comics when his dad died and I was at Uni, I certainly don't mind though.

Thtas a long time, and especially with comics nowadays, a character could be totally different when they come back. I just imagine those people who stopped buying Cap and came back and some guy John Walker was Captain America. WHAAA? When did you stop reading comics?

At uni and just after girls and money and buying comics wasn't something I could afford!

- Whirly

 

[Erundur]

Freshman year of highschool I had invested in Marvel's company by purchasing stock through one of my business classes. This got me excited about the MU, it wasn't until the first spidey film when I got my first comic.

ASM #350

 

[PWN3R]

What really got me reading comics every month is when I learned that loads of hot women would hunt you down and sleep with you.

So I guess since then, I've been an avid reader...

 

[twylight]

When I was 5 I meet my life-long best friend, and she came with an older brother who was an avid Btaman fan. I remember him going through the comic book rack at the grocery store and buying comics. Sometimes my friend and I were allowed to look at them, and we used to watch the 60's Batman reruns together.
I also learned a sketchy knowledge of Spider-Man from him.

When I got older I got a fuzzy knowledge of them because my brother bought the big information books like Spider-Man, JLA and X-Men, after the first X-Man movie came out. X-Men were what interested me so I used to do 'info' searches online to find out more about them.


Then I joined Hype.
It went down hill from there. I read all the Essential Spider-Man, and a friend on Hype soon turned me to DC through extensive IM 'lectures' on each DC character, team or story line. *I should have kept those*

The first DC Graphic Novel I read was Watchman, borrowed from the local Library.

My first comic I bought was JSA #79


The rest is history...

 

[Captain Kirk]

I got into comics by watching my favorite movie of all-time, Superman the movie. I developed my lifelong love of Superman because of that film. I first discovered Superman comics in 1986 in a 7/11 store. I remember it was the comic where Superman was fighting Dragga on Warworld,and I had never seen Superman with a beard before! The next event that got my interest was 1992 when Superman 'died'. I remember tears building in my eyes as I finished reading Superman #75. Now things are full circle ,and Superman is set to 'Return' to the big screen. What a great time to be a comics fan!

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

Ya know, I wanted to buy stock in Marvel when it was at $3.83 years ago, but I never got around to it. Then when it got to $37 I kicked myself.

 

[Dwarf lord]

Well, I was in Eigth Grade when the second X-Men move came out and I loved it (not so much anymore, now that I'm a fan of the comics). And me being a weird kid decided to look for graphic novels of older issues (I was so shocked to find full stories in trade paperback form). So I saw the Marvel Masterworks of Chris Claremont's first few issues in paperback form so I snapped that up quickly. I was going on the eigth grade trip, so I read that all in one sitting on the bus. It was so good I went and got the second one right after the trip. Then I started getting some X-Men comics (Chuck Austen's and Grant Morrison's). Now, I didn't have a comic book store near me, so my grandma offered to pick them up for me. A she picked up my X-Men comics, she started getting me other things that she thought looked cool. So then I started reading Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, Captain America, Thor, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, ect. There was a time when I was reading like every Marvel hero.

A year later, still being a rather stupid comic book fan, I followed Claremont and Byrne to JLA. That was a god awful storyline, but at that time I decided to try Batman and Superman too. Now those were some good comics (to me at least). That I was looking around on dccomics.com and I saw a person by the name of Geoff Johns was writing The Flash, JSA, and Teen Titans (This was after he left Hawkman). That name sounded familiar, so I looked at my collection of comics and saw that he wrote Avengers, which was my favorite Marvel title for a while. So, I started getting those three books. And they really opened me to the whole DCU. Now, I'm practically reading all DC and little Marvel.

 

[ampersand]

When I was in seventh grade, a friend of mine was at my house and he wanted to draw pictures of Spider-man. We went online and printed out pictures to copy. After he left I was still sitting there copying picture after picture from the internet. I had always loved art and drawing, but never really had any direction in it. I found my direction that day, I wanted to be able to draw like a comic book artist. Soon I wanted more pictures to look at, copy and learn from, so I started buying comics. That was around eigth grade. I collected comics for about two years then completely stopped buying them because I was frustrated by how much I hated the stories even though I loved the art.

Earlier this year I started reading comics again, mainly because a Barnes and Noble opened up down the block from me and I can read there for free. Now I read only those stories that people suggest. My brother still buys comics semi-regularly though, so I do read some stuff monthly.

 

[drastic_quench]

I remeber reading old torn up comics at the barber shop in the 80's. Jonah Hex and an unusual amount of comics featuring Modok.

During the early 90's I was only able to get my hands on one to three comics a year. I lived in a small town with no access. Mostly Marvel, Spider-Man, Hulk, random X titles and one or two Ghost Rider and Deathloks. I liked comics I just couldn't get my hands on them or follow any storylines. I'd read any one issue about a dozen times. The highlight of this era was managing to get all three issues of Batman vs Predator at a town fair.

Then, in high school (mid 90's) a teacher randomly handed me a beat to hell copy of DKR that someone had left in his classroom.

"You like comics, don't you?"
"Sure."

Well, I knew Bats from the BTAS, but I didn't have any idea who Frank Miller was or who this Alan Moore character who wrote the introduction was. I had no concept of what a graphic novel or tpb was. I could only tell my friends that I read this weird and awesome BIG comic where Batman was an old hardass and the Joker actually dies and Batman fights Superman. I loved it, but I still had limited access to comics. And I was put off by the difficulty in following a stories.

Years later I dug out DKR and re-read it. I wanted to find more great comics. Now I had the time, money, and availability of comic book stores. And more importantly I had the internet and places like this and wikipedia to read up on characters and storylines. So at this point I was ready to get into comics and I got in through the movies. First Hellboy - read all the trades before the movie came out, then Sin City (same deal), and then Batman.

From there I got into the DCU and Infinite Crisis/COIE. I really feel like there's never been a better time (in my lifetime) to be reading comics.

The Pull List:
DC
52, Action, All-Star Superman, Aquaman, Batman, Blue Beetle, Checkmate, Detective, Infinite Crisis, Justice, Superman, Teen Titans

Marvel
Incredible Hulk

Wildstorm
Astro-City