The Early Days
Although I didn't start buying comics until I was 11, I have fond - but somewhat vague - comic memories going back as far as I can remember. There was always a pile of well-read comics in a chest at our family summer house on Cape Cod. I can recall happily flipping through comics such as Archie, Richie Rich, Sad Sack, The Phantom, Tarzan, Batman, Fantastic Four and Master of Kung Fu. I never really thought about where they came from or where they went. They were just there every summer. Most of the comics had been so thoroughly read by my cousins that they were typically wrinkled and coverless.
To this day, I'm thrilled when I buy a back issue and realize it's a comic that I read 25 or 30 years ago that I didn't recognize because it didn't have cover when I first saw it as a kid.
I don't have many specific memories of those comics, mostly general impressions of the idyllic and carefree life of Archie and his friends in Riverdale, the mystery and adventure of the jungle in Tarzan and The Phantom, the danger of Gotham City and dark righteousness of Batman, and the strange, violent and exciting world of Shang Shi. As I've bought various back issues over the past 20+ years, I've actually found that the appeal of many of those comics has not stood the test of time for me. Not surprising given that some of those comics were written specifically to captivate the minds and imaginations of young children. However, some of them still make for great reading today and are treasured pieces of my comic collection.
My brother Bill, who's six years older than me, was certainly a significant influence when it came to comics. I emailed him the other day, trying to figure out why two particular Fantastic Four stories - A House There Was and The Power & The Pride - are still so indelibly etched in my brain. He replied back and he told me that he used to read aloud to me from the Fantastic Four reprints that appeared in Marvel's Greatest Comics in the 70s. Best brother ever, no? He and his friends also had comics like Captain America, X-Men, Silver Surfer, Suberboy & The Legion of Superheroes and so many others. From that era, I most clearly recall those two Fantastic Four stories as well as Captain America's Bicentennial Battles and X-Men #113 - all comics with great characterization, plots and art that have clearly stood the test of time.
My family moved to West Newton, MA in the Fall of 1982, shortly before the school year started in September. I remember pulling into our new house for the first time and seeing a kid my age and his mom standing in our driveway. It turned out that he was going to be in my grade at the school I was attending that Fall and that his mom thought it would be nice to introduce themselves. Good call and good timing on her part as it turned out! Spike - yes, that's actually his nickname - and I became fast friends and spent all our free time together as kids tend to.
Now I was 11 years old, I had an allowance, a bicycle and a co-conspirator. It was time to get serious about comics.
Spike had three comics at his house that he must've bought during the Summer of 1982. I remember picking up Fantastic Four #247 and thinking that the FF were still fighting Dr. Doom, just like the last time I'd read the title. Much more interesting than the FF were Uncanny X-Men #162 and Wolverine #4. Last time I had seen the X-Men, they had just escaped Magneto's volcano base, so it was nice to see these familiar characters in a whole new adventure. Wolverine #4 was a whole different can of worms. I was fascinated. Picking up the last issue of the limited series, I was trying to figure out what had happened in the earlier issues of the series and how this all related to the X-Men being on some alien planet at the same time.
In any case, I was hooked. The characters, the stories and the art in these comics set in me a desire to figure out what had happened before and what was going to happen next. In some respect, I imagine that I'd always wanted closure or at least a better understanding of the continuity of the storylines of the comics I'd read in the past. But, I either didn't care enough or was powerless to do anything about it. I was just a kid. Hey, after 5 years I still didn't have closure on what happened to the Fantastic Four after the Mole Man burst in and blinded them at the end of A House There Was! But now I was 11 years old, I had an allowance, a bicycle and a co-conspirator. It was time to get serious about comics.
