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The Top 3 that started you on collecting
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26 posts in this topic

Since we have such a varied and eclectic bunch of collectors on this forum, I was wondering what comics when they were kids (or big kids) got them started into this wonderful hobby. My Top 3 were G.I. Joe 39, Transformers 8 both at the Bookstore/LCS and a DC Blue Ribbon Digest I begged my Mom to buy me when we were at the grocery store checkout.

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Amazing Spider-Man #189

Star Wars #6

Fantastic Four #251-256

I read the hell out of the first 2 entries as a kid, and the FF run I picked at random the first time I was ever in a comic shop. That began my 35 year love affair with the FF.:x

Edited by Chip Cataldo
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The Mickey Mouse was the first comic I ever owned. Picked it up one day at the drugstore on my way to the barber shop in the '80s. The Web was the first Spider-man comic I ever owned, which my mom brought me when I was home sick from school one day. I remember not initially liking it very much and it took me a while to get another Spider-man comic. The Hulk was in a stack of comics my grandparents gifted me from a flea market, and it's probably what initially got me into seeking out back issues. I still have all 3 comics. The rest is history. 

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Bit of an odd lineup, but these guys spring to mind immediately....

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MOKF 17 is the earliest comic I can remember buying (not really sure it was the very first, but it's the one that sticks out). Mom used to take me to a used bookstore with filing cabinets full of comics that I'd browse while she shopped for books. I latched on to MOKF and Rom immediately (Rom 38 and 39 still warm my soul when I see them). I bought whatever back issues of those titles they had and it drove me nuts that I couldn't find the first 16 issues of MOKF, also couldn't figure out why there were two Rom #1's (one was the Annual). I was pretty young, probably 2nd grade.

GI Joe 4 was the first Joe comic I bought off the rack (3rd or 4th grade at this point) and that became my passion for years. I'd already been buying the few figures I could find and saw a poster for issue #1 in the window of another local used book/comic shop (I don't think I realized there was a comic that corresponded with the figures until then). I stuck with GI Joe up until about 8th grade (1987) when I got out of both the figures and comics.

Just a year or so after I quit following GI Joe (and, IIRC, dropped out of comics altogether), Batman: A Death in the Family was creating a huge buzz among my high school friends, so my next trip to the same bookstore where I'd been buying GI Joe (I still shopped there every week or so for Doctor Who stuff) I managed to grab a copy of Batman 427 (426 was long sold out and commanding a decent price). That book got me into "grown-up" comics and I was blown away by how much more mature comics were compared to things like GI Joe, Groo and Spider-Ham that I'd been reading before (that's not a knock on GI Joe, it's an excellent series, but my friends were turning me on to stuff like Kraven's Last Hunt, Killing Joke, Dark Knight, etc., so it shocked me that comics could do all this stuff that seemed taboo to me -- like the time I first heard 2 Live Crew and I was like "Um, isn't it illegal to say that stuff on a record?"). Along with Batman, I jumped big into ASM, X-Men, Wolverine and Punisher until I got out of college.

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I was an abnormal child who hated Marvel's Amaz Spider-man the most circa 1975. Only had 50c , so bought the thickest and greatest DC 100 Pagers: Superman Red and Blue, JLA vs Royal Flush Gang, and read Neal Adams/ Giordano's Batman and Detective Comics 

Spoiler

:cry:

so much, I ripped the cover off !

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I got most of my first comics at yard sales.The ones I remember first really grabbing my attention?Tragg and the Sky Gods,Boris Karloff Mysteries and the Many Ghosts of Dr Graves.Those painted covers and the Dikto art(not that I knew artists at the time lol ) really sparked a love.

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Batman 207

ASM 97

Detective 377

Really, it was because of the Batman TV show and the Spider-Man cartoon. I was only 3 when I got the Batman books, but I distinctly remember getting these at the local Acme market. The Spidey was from a corner candy store. I loved the Green Goblin and had to have the book. 

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My early 3 books were a treasury my dad brought home, a free secret wars 1 given to me by captain america himself from some secret wars promo thing at a mall, and this amazing gi joe 3-pack (#21-23) I got at a Target.  I wasn’t a collector yet because I didn’t have my own $ yet and I didn’t really understand when books came out and where to get them, but by this point I knew I loved comic books.  Cool thread.

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4 hours ago, porcupine48 said:

I got most of my first comics at yard sales.The ones I remember first really grabbing my attention?Tragg and the Sky Gods,Boris Karloff Mysteries and the Many Ghosts of Dr Graves.Those painted covers and the Dikto art(not that I knew artists at the time lol ) really sparked a love.

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The first three that I remember buying from the local bus station news stand...

As 6p UK copies...

 

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Edited by Ken Aldred
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Got a bunch of "young uns" posting here.  :preach:

The book's that got me interested in Marvel Comics were F.F. 25 and F.F. 26...

(Do not remember where I first saw them)

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But, the first three that I remember buying myself with my weekly allowance at the local pharmacy, super market or 7-11 would be...

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With honorable mention to...

JIM 117, TOS 61, TTA 61, X-Men 8

Edited by marvelmaniac
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The first book I remember buying was an Australian Uncle Scrooge from 1971, which reprinted the Paul Bunyan machine story.

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I had 100s of comics by 1975, then lost interest. I sold off my collection in about 1980. Then in 1987 I saw this one in the local newsagency. The rest is history... My tastes have changed a few times, but I still really love the ducks.

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The three most influential, which turned me into a diehard comics fan, and collector...

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The first comic I ever saw. Given to me by my parents when I was 3 years old.

Lifetime X-Men fan as a result.

 

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Not an original US copy, but a British reprint from the 60s, handed to me by a relative.

Classic SA story.  Lifelong Legion fan.

 

 

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Found a copy on holiday in 1973.  First time I really understood that comic art could look quite stunning, and my introduction to the genius of Neal Adams.

 

Honourable mentions...

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As a kid I absolutely couldn't get enough of these 100 pagers to read.

The best-considered selection of reprints, and new stories, for me, were in Archie Goodwin's Detective Comics.

His Batman / Manhunter team-up is a Bronze Age masterpiece.

 

 

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The first comic I ever bought, and paid a premium for, via mail order, summer 1977.

A somewhat overgraded VG copy, but still exciting to see an original US copy 'that old'.

Molecule Man's one of my all-time favourite characters.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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Can only remember my first newstand purchase. My mom let me buy 1 comic a week to keep me quiet during my sisters dance lessons. When I picked this issue, I could tell she wasn't exactly thrilled (but I stayed quiet so the bribed worked). I read it until it fell apart.

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