I just REALLY REALLY..... 0

[Darth Corgi]

I just REALLY REALLY.....

....REALLY LOVE  COMICS! 

And always have as long as I can remember. ?

Earliest memory I have is reading a Fantastic Four 1-5 digest sized reprint in the late 1970's. 

Those drawings.... it made me want to be an artist with my life. Then it was Star Wars.... But those comics... They never go away....even in segments of my life where things cool off and I do other stuff, I always return to comics. This place helps that. Another name for these boards should be Comics University. A 24/7 convention  

So why do you love comics?

Edited May 20, 2017 by Darth Corgi

[Artboy99]

I started to draw when I was around 3 years old. I was drawing things I saw and experienced. My Mom had a drawing I did of my dog pulling me on a sleigh, stuff like that.

We lived on a farm, and one day my Dad told me we were going shopping in the city. In those days, if you wanted to buy Rye bread and lunch meats you had to go to a bakery and a meat shop you couldn't buy it at the super-market type stores.

Anyways, once Dad had arrived at the baker to buy his rye bread, he reached into his pocket and handed me a bunch of change. He pointed at the used book store across the street named Paul's Book Store and told me to go buy some comics. He just wanted me out of his hair while he did his thing.

Inside Paul's store, he had shelves with piles of comics on them that he sold for 1/2 cover price or you could trade 2 for one.

I didn't have a lot of money but I had enough to buy 10 or so. While I don't remember exactly what books I picked I do know one of them was Fantastic Four 112.

After reading the comics I became very excited to try to draw these characters I was reading about. Eventually I started creating my own comics, mostly of my own characters.

My Dad even bought me a stapler designed to staple extra long paper/ documents so I could staple in the middle and then fold the paper ( just like the way comics were made! Also because the ones I made were falling apart and my Dad said you should never put tape on a comic. )

Some early stuff:

Then my own character creations ( as a side note: while Neron Man resembles Nova he was created a few years before Marvel released Nova )

The character fighting Neron Man is called the Mercenary. He came from a Mego creation/mutilation of putting Spiderman's head on a Green Goblin body!

The Defender was created in 1980, I was 15 at that time and it was the last comic I made in my youth, high school was approaching and interests were changing. Before I went to High School I had continued to collect comics using money I earned from a paper route and I had a complete Hulk collection. 1-6, all the Tales to Astonish, and 102- whatever the current issue was + everything he appeared in. I really liked the big green guy in the Fantastic Four 112 I had bought and decided to collect his comics.

I like comics, because they have truly been a part of who I am.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by Artboy99

[marvelmaniac]

When I was a kid and I went with Mom to the grocery store or pharmacy in 65/66/67 and I saw the new issues of Avengers, D.D., F.F., X-Men, JIM. TOS, TTA it gave me a sense of Euphoria and Excitement, had to have them, but which ones, can't get them all right now, what can I do to earn an extra .25 or .50 cents and get these books?

Then when I got them sharing the excitement of the new books with my other friends that collected.

When I got back into collecting in 79 it was the same excitement all over again with back issues being tough to find (27 years before the internet for me).

When I was able to find back issues again either at the used book store in the local farmers market, (I LOVED digging through the piles and piles of remainder copies and coverless books,10 cents each, 12 for $1.00), mail order (Got all excited when the new list from Howard Rogofsky would arrive), LCS (starting in the mid 80's for me) local cons (Holiday Inn in Phila, National Guard Armory in Bordentown) etc. I would feel that same sense of euphoria I felt as a kid.

Even now where the books I am looking for are a little on the expensive side (for me) and do not show up often for auction if I am able to get a book I am looking for at the price I am willing to pay I still feel like that same kid all over again.

I never want that feeling to end..

And that is why I love comics.

[lizards2]

Comics have defined a large part of my existence for the past 50 of my 56 years, so I can really relate to almost everything being posted here.  I love them deeply!

[Get Marwood & I]

24 minutes ago, lizards2 said:

Comics have defined a large part of my existence for the past 50 of my 56 years, so I can really relate to almost everything being posted here.  I love them deeply!

Ditto that liz, ditto that 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Artboy99 said:

I started to draw when I was around 3 years old. I was drawing things I saw and experienced. My Mom had a drawing I did of my dog pulling me on a sleigh, stuff like that.

We lived on a farm, and one day my Dad told me we were going shopping in the city. In those days, if you wanted to buy Rye bread and lunch meats you had to go to a bakery and a meat shop you couldn't buy it at the super-market type stores.

Anyways, once Dad had arrived at the baker to buy his rye bread, he reached into his pocket and handed me a bunch of change. He pointed at the used book store across the street named Paul's Book Store and told me to go buy some comics. He just wanted me out of his hair while he did his thing.

Inside Paul's store, he had shelves with piles of comics on them that he sold for 1/2 cover price or you could trade 2 for one.

I didn't have a lot of money but I had enough to buy 10 or so. While I don't remember exactly what books I picked I do know one of them was Fantastic Four 112.

After reading the comics I became very excited to try to draw these characters I was reading about. Eventually I started creating my own comics, mostly of my own characters.

My Dad even bought me a stapler designed to staple extra long paper/ documents so I could staple in the middle and then fold the paper ( just like the way comics were made!

Some early stuff:

Then my own character creations ( as a side note: while Neron Man resembles Nova he was created a few years before Marvel released Nova )

The character fighting Neron Man is called the Mercenary. He came from a Mego creation/mutilation of putting Spiderman's head on a Green Goblin body!

The Defender was created in 1980, I was 15 at that time and it was the last comic I made in my youth, high school was approaching and interests were changing. Before I went to High School I had continued to collect comics using money I earned from a paper route and I had a complete Hulk collection. 1-6, all the Tales to Astonish, and 102- whatever the current issue was + everything he appeared in. I really liked the big green guy in the Fantastic Four 112 I had bought and decided to collect his comics.

I like comics, because they have truly been a part of who I am.

 

 

These are just brilliant. Me and me brother did the same, making our own comics to read when we went on holiday as kids. I wish I still had some of them.  I created the super hero "Clumsy" when I was about 7. His power was to drop or break everything. Sounds silly now, but I really believed in him. 

[Artboy99]

3 minutes ago, Marwood & I said:

These are just brilliant. Me and me brother did the same, making our own comics to read when we went on holiday as kids. I wish I still had some of them.  I created the super hero "Clumsy" when I was about 7. His power was to drop or break everything. Sounds silly now, but I really believed in him. 

Thanks!

I love your idea, the best form of creativity from the mind of a kid. Clumsy defeated evil by being in the wrong place at the right time!

My stuff you can clearly see the "Marvel" influence; the way they talk, the type of action it is "Marvel" all the way. In issue 7 of Neron Man, which I think I made when I was 10 or 11 I killed off a character in an explosion. Clearly influenced by the Amazing Spider-Man 121-122 stories I read a year or 2 earlier.

I made 14 Neron Man comics and a cover to issue 16, and an annual. Fun times with all the time in the world and no "must do"

Edited May 20, 2017 by Artboy99

[Get Marwood & I]

2 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

Thanks!

I love your idea, the best form of creativity from the mind of a kid. Clumsy defeated evil by being in the wrong place at the right time!

Spot on @Artboy99 ! Long live Neron Man!

[Artboy99]

1 minute ago, Marwood & I said:

Spot on @Artboy99 ! Long live Neron Man!

re-reading these Neron Man comics are a hoot. Poor Neron Man always got the tar beat out of him, yet somehow in the end would be victorious.

[Get Marwood & I]

11 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

re-reading these Neron Man comics are a hoot. Poor Neron Man always got the tar beat out of him, yet somehow in the end would be victorious.

Only because he never came up against Clumsy @Artboy99 ?

[Artboy99]

8 minutes ago, Marwood & I said:

Only because he never came up against Clumsy @Artboy99 ?

LOL! In a fight against Clumsy Neron Man would still get the tar beat out of him because he would somehow be injuring himself.

[Get Marwood & I]

2 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

LOL! In a fight against Clumsy Neron Man would still get the tar beat out of him because he would somehow be injuring himself.

We need to do a cross over. A Battle of the Century treasury edition type affair 

[Artboy99]

1 minute ago, Marwood & I said:

We need to do a cross over. A Battle of the Century treasury edition type affair 

I can just see a few panels:

Neron Man flies with great speed directly at Clumsy BUT Clumsy falls down tripping on his own feet in his attempt to avoid being hit so Neron Man misses him completely but plows into a wall!

Laying dazed amongst the broken wall with pieces of brick everywhere Neron Man struggles but begins to rise. Clumsy moves forward to finish Neron Man off and grabs at a brick still stuck in the busted up wall. In taking out the brick, the rest of the wall falls on them both, the battle ending in a draw!

[Get Marwood & I]

4 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

I can just see a few panels:

Neron Man flies with great speed directly at Clumsy BUT Clumsy falls down tripping on his own feet in his attempt to avoid being hit so Neron Man misses him completely but plows into a wall!

Laying dazed amongst the broken wall with pieces of brick everywhere Neron Man struggles but begins to rise. Clumsy moves forward to finish Neron Man off and grabs at a brick still stuck in the busted up wall. In taking out the brick, the rest of the wall falls on them both, the battle ending in a draw!

Perfect! I like you @Artboy99. Nice chatting with ya. I'll see if I can find any of my old stuff. Will let you know. ?

[thehumantorch]

My first introduction to comics was a friend of my mother's.  She had hundreds of Archies and Richie Rich and the like.  They were ok but didn't grab me.  I was about 12 on that fateful day when I found a trashed copy of Fantastic Four 50 in a second hand bookstore called Mini Lane.  That silver guy floating on a surfboard on a brown background was irresistible, I had to have it.  Reading it I was blown away, a giant sucking all the life out of earth and all of us as important to him as bugs.  

Shortly after that I met a Chinese kid who said he had old Fantastic Four.  Took the bus to Chinatown - god I was more than a little scared, Chinatown was in the worst area and somewhere I never went - and found his house.  His parents and grandparents didn't speak English but I went upstairs and there they were, a stack of FFs between 15 and 60, maybe 15 books, absolutely trashed with rips and felt pen all over the covers.  Paid him 25 cents a book, got out of there and found a bus. 

I'll never forget that ride home, devouring that stack of comics, it was pure heaven.

[tv horror]

That issue 7 cover? Freud would have a field day with that. Actually you have hit it on the head (not poor Neron's) comics and the love of art go hand in hand. I also spent my time drawing as a child however unlike yourself I never kept any.  

[Artboy99]

24 minutes ago, tv horror said:

That issue 7 cover? Freud would have a field day with that. Actually you have hit it on the head (not poor Neron's) comics and the love of art go hand in hand. I also spent my time drawing as a child however unlike yourself I never kept any.  

I can't take the credit for keeping the art I did, my Mother did. She passed away a few years ago and when I went to do the duties of executor I found a lot of it and brought it home. Stuff I had not seen in more than 35 years.

[ADAMANTIUM]

3 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

I can't take the credit for keeping the art I did, my Mother did. She passed away a few years ago and when I went to do the duties of executor I found a lot of it and brought it home. Stuff I had not seen in more than 35 years.

Sorry for your loss. At least the memories can comfort  

[Artboy99]

8 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Sorry for your loss. At least the memories can comfort  

Thanks. My Mom was a great person. While she always appreciated my art, she always asked me to "draw something nice" so I found myself on occasion doing water color paintings for her. While I did do those nice things she wanted, my true passion was comic art and monsters and the like.

Here is a sample watercolor I did for her:

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by Artboy99

[kav]

Wow Neron Man is better than most of the current Marvel titles.