The sparks!

What are the five to ten comics (individual issues or titles) that sucked you into the habit? Which stories made you say, "Hey, I wanna read more of these!"? For me: Disney comics (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Mickey Mouse): These probably started it all. My parents would buy the Whitman 3-packs and I would read those things until they fell apart. Archie Spire comics: These were the Christian versions of Archie and the gang written and drawn by Al Hartley. My mother was the head of our church's Sunday school department when I was little and I often had to go with her to a large Christian bookstore to pick up materials. They had a spinner rack of Spire comics there and I was able to pick out a comic each time to keep me occupied. They're interesting. Archie, Betty, and Big Ethyl are the religious role models. Jughead often asks the "tough" questions. And poor Reggie and Veronica made the boo-boos that became the life lessons for the readers. What's funny is, in these comics, it was shown that some of the Riverdale High students actually drank (drove and had accidents!), did drugs, and had sex. Yikes! Now, these were never the main gang and they almost always came around to Betty's way of thinking by the end of the title...but you'll never see a kid do that in a regular Archie book. Werewolf By Night, Tomb of Dracula, Man-Thing, and Frankenstein's Monster comics released by Power Records (presents!) with 45s: I was a total monster freak as an elementary student. There was a book series in my school's library which consisted of separate volumes featuring a different Universal movie monster in each. I think I had one or more checked out at all times. And every time there was a monster book for sale in the Weekly Reader (now Scholastic), I begged Mom to order it for me...and she usually did. By the age of seven or eight, I had an entire bookshelf of monster lore. I knew how to recognize and kill a vampire multiple ways, what stops a zombie (salt), and how to build a Golem. Looking back, I know why I was like this...I was petrified of the evil things that might be out there. I was sure the rapture was going to happen at anytime and I would be left to fend for myself in a hell-world. These books and the knowledge I gained from them was my little way of preparing myself and dealing with these fears. Marvel Star Wars: The whole Jaxxon thing brought all this back. I haven't thought about those early Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, Howard Chaykin stories for a long time, but I loved those comics as a kid. Of course, I and every kid my age were devouring anything and everything Star Wars at that point. When my mom was shopping, she would often leave my brother and I at the public library. While I loved all books, I was an aspiring cartoonist and gravitated toward the comic strip reprint books. The local library had a nice selection of Peanuts, Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie and other collections. I just fell into those pages...tracing poses and making my own comic strips. Interest in Thor (another religious crisis hits little Doc Beechler!), Batman (thanks to reruns of the 60s show), and The Avengers soon followed, but talking ducks, Christian Betty Cooper, Rachel Van Helsing, Jaxxon, and Fearless Fosdick were the crew that really ushered my into the comics world. Next!

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  • 70s Flash -- Cary Bates & Irv Novick knew what they were doing. I didn't know who the Elongated Man was, but when I was introduced to him as a hero and then he turned into the villainous Molder and turned Flash into a glob of putty, I knew I had to see what came next. And Following that two-parter with the surreal begining to the next story, where Flash's assembled villains present him with "the Roscoe Award," named after their dead comrade The Top? Yeah, I was hooked.

    The Legion from about the same time were my X-Men. They bickered, they wore great, sexy costumes that didn't look like other superheroes', and they had a whole universe to explore. The double-sized Klordny/Immune issue was my first, and it really imprinted on me. I'd buy Fantastic Four intermittently, but it wasn't until John Byrne took over that I started being a regular fan. (Probably the Ego issue did it -- it helps that I bought it at the beach, where everything is better).

    I only picked up Marvel occasionally, but the Captain America annual where he fought Magneto and his evil mutants was one I read to death. Kirby!

    Swamp Thing introduced me to a whole world of darker, horror-based comics -- and they moved me on to independent titles of all stripes. Blame Alan Moore & John Totleben's Swamp Thing 22, the one after The Anatomy Lesson. It *still* blew my mind.

    As for true indy comics, I think my interest in them can be traced to my friend Jim lending me some issues of Jon Sable: Freelance in high school -- boy, did they knock me out. Wasn't long after that that I was reading Mage and Elementals, and eventually Grendel and Miracleman.

    Strangely enough, there hasn't been one thing that's drawn me into webcomics yet -- even Order of the Stick doesn't pull me back again and again. I expect that to change any day now, though. It's only a matter of time.
  • The main way I was exposed to comics as a kid was via those old bagged three-packs, which always had a romance comic or something like that in the middle (the surprise comic you couldn't see until you opened the bag). I was drawn to DC superheroes early on, especially the Flash and Green Lantern. I also liked Superman, and Batman to a lesser extent. I recall being shown some old EC comics by the older brother of a friend. I thought they were great, and really scary; I suppose that might partly explain my later near-instant attraction to Vertigo once I saw it. But it was a casual habit, and I'd stopped reading them by high school. Then late in high school I got exposed to underground comix, which were like Mad magazine on drugs (literally!). I was such a babyface then, I remember getting carded at a head shop buying a Zap! comic. Stopped reading comics again, until a friend introduced me to The Cartoon History of the Universe, which blew my mind, and still does. I went into a comic shop for the first time seeking the current issue of it--comic shops hadn't existed when I was a kid. And that's the whole story until much later, when I took my son shopping for sports trading cards. At the time Charlotte had several shops specializing in them, and some of them also carried comics, which I finally started looking through while my son looked at cards...and so it begins.
  • Star Wars was my first collected series but that was it for a long time. Oh, I'd end up with an issue of this or that once in a while but Star Wars was IT. When I was done with Star Wars, I picked up two titles: G.I.Joe and Transformers. I went on to superhero comics from there but it was all Marvel. Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, New Mutants, Avengers, Captain America, and Iron Man plus the very excellent Marvel Saga & OHOTMUDE to teach me all about what had come before.
  • The Legion, natch.

    Marvel Team-up and DC Comics Presents were both great series to introduce me to all of the other characters of both universes.

    Justice League of America was the first team book I remember reading, and it got me hooked on the whole concept.

    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the very original series and my intro to independent comics. When I first started to actively collect comics we (my brother and I) ordered them from a place in New Hampshire. They sent out a little newsletter with their order form, and on the very bottom of the first one we got was a note about a new series whose first 2 issues had sold really well. It was TMNT of course, and I decided to give it a shot. That in turn led me to Badger, Elementals, etc.
  • I loved the Grell Legion issues, and stuck around for Earthwar and everything beyond. Superboy and the LSH was the book that got me hooked on superteams.

    I read Batman mainly because of the TV series. It didn't bother me at all that the tone of the comics was quite different.

    What really turned to spark into a flame was Marvel's reprint books in the 1970's, especially Marvel's Greatest Comics. When I saw those Lee/Kirby stories for the first time, my mind was blown.
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