In the JLA Revisited thread I made mention that I had stopped reading comics around 96. So Chris asked the question:
Jason, if you dropped out of comics around '96, what brought you back?
I ask because I suspect that many of us have similar stories. I dropped out around '86 (moving on to "real books" like novels) but came back in '94 thanks to the Age of Apocalypse.
So here's the answer. I've always liked comics and super heroes. I remember my parents me buying comics off and on growing up. We always got the new issues at the grocery store and would get an old back issue if we happened to go to a comic shop. My brother and I were really into collecting trading cards; sports cards and the comic book cards. Comic books were more of a secondary thing but I still loved them. So we'd get comics every now and then but never got a full story arc. Around 96 we stopped getting the cards and comics as much as we got more interested in other things. I'd get a comic now and then between 96 and 98. But I decided it was time to grow up.
I would still check comic websites now and then to see what was going on in the comic universe. Around 02 when I was a freshmen in college I got excited about reading comics again because of the Spider-man movie. He was always my favorite character. I found a comic shop and bought some issues. I started reading more comic sites to get a clue as to what I may like. 2002 and 2003 I would go once a month and pick up a couple issues of Ultimate Spider-man. Then it was Ultimate War. I was also reading free digital comics on Marvel.com. I was working so I could spend money on what I wanted and I was able to start completing story arcs now. Around '04 I had a enough I was interested in that I created a hold file.
The short answer is I've always loved comics and when I was able to start buying stuff for myself I decided to get back into. It also helped that characters like the X-men and Spider-man were jumping to the silver screen which inspired me more to pick up comics.
This thread doesn't have to be about me. Did you leave comics at one point and then decide to jump back in? No? Then what kept you in all this time?
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I already shared the short version of my story, which you quoted above. As I suspected, our stories are fairly similar. My mom bought a bunch of comics for me and my brother when we were kids- usually as a way to keep us quiet during long car rides and family vacations. I always loved reading them, first the kiddie stuff like Caspar and Richie Rich, then the slightly older stuff like Archie,. When I was finally old enough for my mom to buy me superheroes, I got into them in a big way (Batman, Spider-Man, Titans, X-Men).
Eventually I stopped reading them because I thought I should move on to more grown-up stuff. I got into Stephen King and James Clavell and Leo Tolstoy. That was around '86, when I was 12. For a while, my philosophy was "the bigger, the better" because I had an insatiable appetite for reading and bigger books lasted longer. However, I was still considered the "comic book expert" by my classmates even though I wasn't reading them anymore.
Well, I should say "even though I wasn't reading new comics anymore" as I would still pull out my old comics and read them once in a while. Plus, I borrowed a few from a good friend who had the good sense to not give up on comics.
When I got to college, I had a couple of roommates who had comic book collections. I read all of their comics, and discovered that they were a great break from the big books I had to read for school. They were like dessert after a big meal. Finally, having devoured all of their comics, I started buying my own. That was in '94 with the Age of Apocalypse. I've been a pretty steady collector ever since.
However, even though I took a break from comics from '86 to '94 (or age 12 to 20), I'm still very familiar with the comics from that time span as those are the comics that I read from my roommates before getting back into comics myself.
You're right Chris. Our stories were pretty similiar. 94 was the height of my comic reading, when I was 12. When I got back into comics I was 20. I would pull out and read my comics from time to time during my "away" period. In my time back I've tried to catch up with what I missed while I was away.
Thanks to Mark and Rich for sharing their stories as well.
I loved comics as a kid, but never had a large collection. I especially liked Green Lantern, Flash, and Spider-Man. I don't ever remember buying a new comic; I got them at yard sales, and in those multipack plastic bags that had three slightly back-dated comics in them for the price of one (or thereabouts). Anybody else remember those? The big question mark was the comic in the middle, which you usually couldn't see until you'd bought the pack.
I had completely stopped reading comics by the time I started high school. In college (1970) I got interested in underground comix like Zap Comix, but I bought those in head shops. Later some friends showed me The Cartoon History of the Universe, which I loved (and still do). When I bought those it was the first time I had ever seen a comic shop.
That was it for several years. Flash forward to the mid-1990s, when my son Stephen got interested in collectible sports cards. I would take him to various collectibles shops in Charlotte. There were several then, and many of them included comic books in the mix. So I started checking out the comics while my son was shopping for cards. I remember being shocked at how much current individual issues cost: two bucks for a comic book? But there were used comics & bargain bins, too. The thing that really got me started was a sale at Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, with overstock going for as little as a dime a piece if you bought a large enough quantity. I bought a ton of Spider-Man, Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, & Batman comics. That made me both a reader and a collector again.
After reading a bunch of Spider-Man comics :) At least, that convinced me that Spider-Man was no longer for me. These included some greatly loved things, like the Todd McFarlane issues. And all pre-Clone Saga, so that's not the reason. But I'd always been more of a DC guy, so I kept on reading Green Lantern, Flash, and Superman. I went back a few years on all of them, so that kept me busy for a couple of years, mostly in bargain bins. Superman was the first to go: I just got tired of the endless death/rebirth cycle (literally, in this case: one of the first things I picked up were the "Death of Superman" issues). I was buying a Superman title a week, and they didn't seem to be going anywhere. At that point I added Batman to the mix, which was better at first. I got to collect nearly the entire run of Legends of the Dark Knight, which was terrific for the first couple years, and still well above average after that. But eventually event fatigue set in, coupled with unemployment. I couldn't afford two Batman titles a week, and it was becoming increasingly unsatisfying. That was ten years ago, in 2000.
So I was looking for something new, and again my first taste came from a clearance sale, this time at Rebel Base, which had become my regular comic shop. I tried things like Sandman Mystery Theatre and David Mack's Kabuki, and wanted more. When they had a sale, I bought trade collections of Transmetropolitan (also Ellis's Authority), Preacher, and other things, and never looked back. I kept up with Green Lantern and Flash for awhile, but switched most of my monthly pull list to Vertigo fairly quickly.
I found it pretty easy to drop the superheroes, but I'm sure the fact that I hadn't been collecting them continuously for years was a big factor. They end up a blip in my adult comic reading habits in the end. Although I still read standalone things like All Star Superman occasionally (especially when there's a favorite writer involved). I haven't totally lost interest in those kind of stories, but I've definitely lost interest in continuity.
Chris Fluit said:
I quit cold turkey in the early '90s when I moved to a new town, had a lot of new responsibilities and little time for reading. In a way, it was a good break. I found I missed hardly any of the books. Many of my old-time favorites were at low points then -- DeFalco-Ryan were on Fantastic Four, Marvels was mostly meh after the Image defections, and most DC books never grew on me. I was faithful to a few titles, such as Neil Gaiman's Sandman, but I found myself spending more time and more money in the back-issue bins reading stuff I didn't when it first came out -- the Simonson Thors, for example.
Flash forward about eight years. I made another move, had more time on my hands and found my thoughts drifting back to comics. I would look at trade paperback collections in bookstores but never bought anything. I
discovered an older version of this message board in 2000 or '01 and lurked for a while, and I also found a couple of sites that discussed Sandman. One day, by accident, I read something that spoiled the end of Sandman. The next day, I headed to a bookstore and bought the volumes I hadn't read. I was back.
But it has stayed on my terms. I haven't gone back to monthly reading. There are too many so-so titles out there for me to invest my time in that; I'd rather see what's buzzing and trade-wait. That's how I found All Star Superman, a book that's one of all-time favorites, and Brubaker's Captain America. And I still buy some occasional TPBs online. For example, I've just started reading Volume 1 of Simonson's Thor.
I love comics.
Trades brought me back. I quit comics in the mid-'90s, when the industry (especially the superhero mainstream of Marvel and DC) was at a low point: the clone saga, Liefeld inflicted on Capt. America, Hal Jordan replaced as GL, the very disappointing "Marvel vs. DC" miniseries, the Punisher and Wolverine in seemingly every other magazine, and silly, overhyped stunts like "The Death of Superman" and "Knightfall."
Through trades, I can catch up with the best of the past (much of which I missed the first time around), and keep an eye out for anything new that looks interesting. But I've never gone back to pamphlets. That ended around '95 or '96.
I stopped reading cold turkey (for about six months) in 1976 simply because I decided I was getting too old. Later that same year I helped my brother and he then-new wife move across country. I was just there for the heavy lifting. I was too young to drive, so I needed something to read while crammed in the back seat of his '69 Mustang in lieu of listening to Elton John and Kiki Dee singing "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart," the Beach Boys sining "Rock and Roll Music" or the Starland Vocal Band singing "Afternoon Delight" for the zillionth time.
After that, I took out subscriptions to Avengers, Hulk and Captain America, the only titles I was to follow for the next three years. By the time those subscriptions ran out I did have my drivers license, and a shop specializing in comics books took out an ad in the school newspaper. I don't know how much that ad cost, but they more than made their money back through me over the course of the next few years until I went to college.
I've been reading them ever since, except for those six months (and three titles via subscriptions for three years), I've been actively collecting for as long as I can remember.
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