The Secret Origin Of YOU

88-90, can't remember what sparked the decision to quit ("more of my budget spent on records", mostly). Started again when I bought a couple of random X-Men comics on a whim as a stress-buster after University interview. They were rub but I was reminded of THE HABIT and soon picked it up again.

98-03/04, pretty much quit after stopping working at a comics shop where I'd been reading everything free anyway, realised there was almost nothing I actually wanted to pay money for. Bought a few Essentials-style graphic novels in 03 for "old times sake", then after ILC was set up discovered the SICK WRONG WORLD of .cbr files.

When I was twelve we moved to a new state. There was a used book store a block from my middle school that doubled as a comics shop. That's when I first learned about subscriptions / pull lists and started hitting the store every week. Also around this time I realized that DC wasn't necessarily bad. I really liked the Giffen/DeMatteis League, Alan Grant's Demon series, etc. That lasted up 'til I was 17, in '94, by which time every book I liked had either been cancelled or started to suck, and I decided to spend my money on expensive Dinosaur Jr and Pavement bootlegs instead of comics. My store also shut down around that time. So complete abrupt end right about then.

I've had two relapses. In 2003 I was living in a small, boring town in northwestern Georgia. One day my wife came back from the town's 50% vacated downtown with a bunch of comics. Apparently there was a comics store on the main street. It was Free Comic Book Day, so she grabbed everything they had. I didn't really like any of it (Stray Bullets was well made but about the most depressing thing I've ever read), but I really liked the thought of reading comics again. So I headed down to that store, liked what I saw, and fell right back into it. I really liked X-Statix, 1602, Mark Waid's Fantastic Four, and I forget what else. Three months later we moved to Boston, and I could no longer afford it. Another abrupt end.

Last Christmas I dug out a lot of my old comics at my parents' house. I reread the twenty or so issues I had of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, Sebastian O, some of the old Milligan stuff I had (Shade, Enigma, Ronan Gosh), and Gerard Jones' Wonder-Man (a book I loved when I was fourteen that does not hold up at all). I went out and bought League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I got home to Boston and realized I could now afford comics. I started off just buying trades, catching up on stuff I missed, and the occasional monthly issue. By March I started up a subscription. Now I'm spending between fifteen and fifty bucks a week. I just fell back into it. I Love Comics definitely played a big role in this. Also I think what slutsky says applies for me too: "at age 28 I got really bummed out and need serious escapism."

No comics through high school/most of college.

As an adult: Maddie gave me the entire run of the Invisibles in singles. Then I found out that the same guy was currently writing New X-Men and it was all over.

My break came in 92 or so(same old story: tired of multiple covers and summer crossovers and crap stories, burgeoning music((buying)) obsession) and I haven't truly come back yet. I was never into the indie/'deep'/non-action side when I was a teenager and I don't see that changing so my alternative would be to pick up where I left off with Marvel and I don't think I can afford the energy and time needed to fill in the last 14 years of (probably mostly crap)backstory, which would probably be my compulsion. I'm not with all that alternative universe-reloaded bullshit I've heard about anyway.
I've downloaded a few old Steranko Nick Furys and Alan Moore's The Watchmen(which would be my first 'Serious' title like, ever) but haven't gotten all the way through either yet. Could be a new origin, but it's doubtful. I'm content reading about comics here for now.

But I'd always been more into baseball cards and the speculation thereof, so the one comic book that I purchased pre-2000 was soem X-Force or X-Factor that kicked off the Legion biznass. When the street price of that issue failed to hit triple digits, I gave up on the medium in toto.

Jordan, I also have The Dark Book! Or had. Carnage looked like such a mother on the cover.

I need this.

Yeah, breaks seem to be axiomatic in most fan's lives.

BREAK 1 - 92-95 - (AGES 12-15)

Sandman and various vertigo titles brought me back into the direct sales fold. These led to indie comics and a condescending disdain for superheroes.

BREAK 2 - 2001 - 04 (21-24)

Whedon did the trick this time - I heard about his coming run on astonishing, decided to check it out whilst steadfastly avoiding the lure of other comics. Unfortunately, that didn't take - here I am today with a 20% off pull-list. Alas...

I also remember one which opened with Ben in a fly white large-collared suit, doing pointy disco dancing under a mirrorball. That image is so powerful that I have no recollection of the rest of the story, or even who the guest star was.

xpost

a trip to a chicago comic book shop in 2000 got me a little interested again, to the point where i resubscribed to Spiderman (but didn't resubscribe). was bewildered by all that had happened to the industry in the interim. since then, have thrilled to the new spiderman movies, trades of good stuff, Chabon's Kavalier and Clay, stuff my old housemate lent me, and ILC.

i grew up reading brit comics like battle and whizzer and chips et al RELIGIOUSLY as a child, and have always loved peanuts, but for some reason those are seperate in my mind from COMICS

First Marvel I remember buying was an issue of the Inhumans which I think had Kraven The Hunter in it, although I might be mixing things up. First DC was an issue of Metal Men. Started a pull list during Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing, I think during the Jason Blood/nightmare monster story.

Got married and was "encouraged" to stop, and spend my money on other things. Round about the end of Grant M's run on Animal Man.

Got divorced, remembered how much I loved comics on re-reading the ones that survived her house clearances, and started buying them again. Roughly at the same time as the ABC line started.

Aside to Richard, who started this thread: that Spider-Man/Man-Wolf comic/record, when the record reached the end of a page, was there a >ping!< sound-effect to remind you to turn the page? The few record/comic combos I have do.

First hiatus: when I started secondary school at age 11 - "I must now put away childish things" - and didn't go back to em until I was about 15/16 - for some reason an early Miller Daredevil caught my eye in a newsagent, and I was quickly re-hooked. This was also the Dark Phoenix era of the X-Men, a gd time for my beloved Marvel (tho I did start reading some DCs at this point, partly inspired by picking up one of Fred Hembeck's humour comics.) Until I was about 17 I didn't really have any friends who were into comics at all, so that was part of the reason behind my initial 'retirement'.

Over the next few years I assembled - mostly in low grade condition - an 80% complete Marvel collection (could NEVER afford to that again, even if I wanted to) plus LOTS of other titles. Got heavily involved w/ comics fandom, co-organised some comic conventions etc. until I experienced a MAJOR burn-out/crisis towards the end of the 1980s (again this sorta coincided with me becoming a 'mature' student at Goldsmiths). Sold off pretty much all of my collection, original artwork etc. From then on I've read comics, bought em sold em, but nothing on a regular monthly basis, and there were periods where I wasn't reading 'em at all. (I also went through an ultra-snobbish Comics Journal-inspired period of hating on superheroes, and I still think it's a shame when ppl only ever read capes)

In the last cpl of years I've had a little bit more spare cash (gave up smoking 20 a day) and started to get back into comics big time, in part inspired by ILC fun, curse you. Made the WISE decision not to buy floppies, only GNs and am starting to build up another gd collection that way. The Euro album format was always my ideal, titles kept constantly in print in affordable editions, and we're getting there, here in English language land.

Amadeo, are you 11??!

Aye - if I recall correctly. I can't imagine my pre-pre k comprehension would have managed the experience without the "ping!".

From the age of 13 I pretty much stopped reading comics until at 17 (in 1987) a friend of mine lent me a run of Uncanny X-Men (the Claremont/Byrne ones) and I was hooked again.

It was about that time the "Comics ain't just for kids!" stuff was going on so I bought collections of DKR and Watchmen to see what the fuss was about and back issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths which got me hooked on DC.

Was a trendy (ha!) Sandman buyer at Uni (although, to be fair, I did actually enjoy reading it) and have been vacillating between stupid superheroics and worthy Graphic Art since then...

Roundabout 4th grade ('79-80), I started to put the pieces together of both DC and Marvel Universes, and learned that I should keep quiet about this enthusiasm if i wanted to avoid mockery of older kids on the school-bus.

Kept at it singlemindedly until three things intervened in 1987…

1. Wanted to spend $$$ on rekkids more…

2. Similarly, I thought that learning how to play music might be more effiicient vis-a-vis socializing with young ladies (also wanted to learn how to play for its own sake).

3. Watchmen kinda make me think there super-hero comics could only go downhill from there.

Since then, I'll pick up Essentials or trades that pique my interest. 52 is the first one I picked up regularly since 1987. and I kinda like the new JLA.

I think my parents bought them for me intermittently when I was a wee lad. Think my first book was NEW TEEN TITANS #4 - I made up a song about the blurb on the cover ("The Justice League of America Vs. ..."), & would sing it into a Fisher-Price stethoscope incessantly. I also remember some DC COMICS PRESENTS where Superman's hypnotized into thinking he's a circus strongman, & Robin saves him from some nonsense. This was when I was five (1980).

I rec'd a few more books every so often - the drugstore in the center of town had a slew of great stuff, including (god bless) the MARVEL TALES reprints of old Spidey books. I forget if I got a paper route before or after I found out there was a comic store in the center, too, but when I was making my own $$$, I went crazy go nuts. Every weekend (weather permitting), I'd bike up to the center to pay off my paper route bill, then bike to the bookstore for a couple of hours of browsing & wishcasting, then take my stash to the Baskin-Robbins next door to the store & drink a sody pop while reading, then bike home & continue reading.

I did this all through high school, but then forgot to tell the newish owner of the store that I was leaving for college. Never mind that I was poor-ass @ college - I still got my fix from the local shop a block from my dorm. But then, when I went back home, I found out that the store owner had saved about 6 months' worth of crap for me to buy. I bought some of it, but then never went back. The store closed a few months later.

Not having money, & wanting to be all grown-up, & getting kicked out of school to move back in w/ moms, & there being no more local store, kibboshed the hobby for me the 1st time around. This was in 1995. I think I picked it up a little when I moved back near my former school (living off-campus in '96-'98), but money was still an issue, as well as being grown-ass, so no go. Ha - this was also when I began getting into music like CRAZY. Any fun funds I did have went into the CD shops w/out haste. Also, insufferable music geekery is an assload more "mature" than insufferable comic geekery. Obviously. (Sometimes, I'd like to that the me between the ages of 20 and 26 and introduce him to highway traffic.)

I think it was some confluence of learning that Grant Morrison was hoping on board NEW X-MEN, coupled w/ the new Spidey movie (which I LOVED, flaws & all), coinciding w/ the very first FREE COMIC BOOK DAY deal, that sucked me back in. I was making good money, too, so wahey! Then I lost my job in 2003, & my savings were et up quick-like, so intermittent hobbying resumed. Then I got a super-fancy co-op / paid internship a few years ago, which turned into a super-fancy job thanks to my super-fancy college degree, and now I make aldo look like a comic teetotaler.

I was, however, really into comic strips in the newspaper. Had an older cousin who was really into Bloom County. Somewhere around age 13 I decided I should figure out what the hell this Doonesbury thing was about, and starting poring through the old books at the library.

In my early 20s I became aware of indie comics while dating a guy who went to the comics shop to get, as I recall, Sailor Moon stuff. Got into Ware and Kochalka and whatnot.

Nowadays I feel like I really love the medium of comics and am not so interested in most of what gets produced in it. (Which is actually how I feel about poetry as well, and is sort of the opposite of how I feel about music.)

There was a break for a few years before I really got into actually buying comics and following the stories, by which time I was totally in the Marvel camp. This was about the time titles went from 15¢ to 20¢. Early memory: getting Avengers #103 (Sentinels + cliffhanger ending), loving it and being determined to get #104 to find out what happens next, and successfully hassling my mom to take me to Von's once a week until I actually found #104.

1972-1978: bought every Marvel superhero comic I could find. Pretty much ignored the Western and war titles and stuff like Night Nurse. (Hooray, I now own Night Nurse .cbr's.) Easter weekend 1975: first comics shop. (Stumbled across it in San Francisco during a visit to relatives.) 1976: First Overstreet, with the Eisner "Spirit of 76" cover. Bought Overstreet every year until about '93 or so. An ad in the Price Guide prompted me to subscribe to The Buyer's Guide starting around August '76, when Alan Light still owned it and the Thompsons were just columnists (and with cat yronwode writing, not even the most interesting columnists).

1978, first convention: Atlanta Comics & Fantasy Fair. Stan Lee, Starlin, Chaykin, Steranko. For some weird reason, Robert Conrad was hanging around the lobby on Saturday night.

Maybe I'm just revising my memories to suit me, but when Shooter was made Ed-in-Chief, I remember thinking things were getting slick and soulless, so when I discovered Cerebus and other independents it was a happy day, and I gradually started cutting back on Marvels.

1981: went to college and started getting my comics via a subscription service. 1983: at a Memphis con, traded a longbox full of what I thought was crap at the time for Cerebus #20 & 21 and FF #48-50, still the best and most inexplicable deal I've ever made. 1985: was going to Memphis often enough that I started a pull list with the then-new Comics & Collectibles, which is still my "local" comics shop to this day.

1989: Joined the waitlist of CAPA-Alpha, the first comics APA. Finally joined the roster in 1992 or so, ran for Central Mailer when the APA was tearing itself up with personality conflicts mainly between J03l Th!ngv@ll and C@rl Gaff0rd (yes, the ex-colorist). I was boring and uncontroversial and got the mailings out quickly during 1993-1994.

Burned out on K-a and comics in general and pretty much quit both in early 1995 after my term ended, though I never quit buying Cerebus, Love & Rockets and the Complete Crumb Comics series from Fanta. Also, disgusted with the rise of Image and an industry that would drop to its knees and suck off Liefeld, McFarlane et al for a few dollars more. Hated the idea of pinup-pages-as-comics, and none of these assholes could even draw, etc etc. "Back in my day, Don Heck could lay out a page so's you could follow the story even if there weren't any words in it!" "Shaddup Granddad, I've got variant covers to bag and board!" "Ehhh, you goddamn kids..."

Last year: rediscovered comics and the fact that actual WRITING had made a comeback via the wonder of .cbr's. Buying what I can when I go to Memphis, but following a lot of what I don't buy via the evils of peg-leggery.

Holy shit, this is long.