Your reading history: how you got into comics and what now.

[redapples]

I started reading Star Lord in 1979 which merged soon there after with 2000AD bringing Strontium Dog and ABC Warriors (kind of) with it. This led to many years of weekly doses of Megazines.

Around that time I started reading Doctor Who magazine too. They had Alan Moore and Alan Davis among others doing the stories. One in particular I remember was a story (without the Doctor) of a Cyberman who had emotions who assisted a human resistance.

I stopped reading comics for a couple of years in about until the mid 1980's when I started reading a lot of Marvel Comics. This was kind of a return as I had read some Captain Britain team ups with Captain America versus the Red Skull. Some of the Marvel stuff I picked up was X-men, X-Factor, Strikeforce Morituri (which was a great read for about the first year) and the New Mutants. I began back issue collecting some of these (Bill Sienkiewicz's issues were especially good irrc).

This was a good time to be hitting comic shops. Watchmen, Dare Devil, Dark Knight were all coming at that time and there was also a raft of indie producers. The more I read the more I shifted towards some of these other publishers. Titles like MR. X, Love and Rockets, Grendel, Mage, Dark Horse Presents, Concrete, Flaming Carrot, Cerebus, Silent Invasion, Eddy Current, Rocketeer, American Flagg were in my pull list. Around this time I started working in a comic store so my access to comics increased a lot.

Comics were changing in the way they were delivered too. Trade Paper backs became available and this meant reading missed series was becoming easier (fast forward to today and popular titles seem to hit TP editions as soon as the last issue of a story line is complete). Apart from Dare Devil I really stopped reading Marvel and read much more DC. Hellblazer, Sandman, Doom Patrol (Morrison was a favourite of mine since Zenith in 2000AD), Shade the Changing Man Animal Man all of which paved the way for Vertigo along with JLA, Doctor Fate, George Perez's Wonder Woman and The Spectre.

Production values were changing too so the likes of MoonShadow, Blood, Elektra Assassin with Kent Williams and Jon J Muth Bill Sienkiewicz pushing the boundary of what could be done in comics. But this led to the high colour comics we see today and titles like Marshal Law, The Light and Darkness Wars were early precursors to these.

I drifted in and out of reading comics through the 90s but titles I enjoyed were Sin City, Hellboy (both in DHP to begin with), The Invisibles, From Hell, Bacchus, Animal Man, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 300 (I have the hard cover version), Lucifer and Stray Bullets.

Today I mostly read Vertigo titles but will stray into murkier warters when I get the chance. I'm not really up with what remains of the Indie comic scene - so tips please.

All time top [strike:3gkcs47t]10[/strike:3gkcs47t] 11 in no particular order
Miracle Man - we can only hope Gaimen eventually gets the rights.
Watchmen
The Sandman
Transit-Eddy Current - Metropol - Metropol AD - Faith (Ted McKeever in effect carries the story through these different comics)
The Silent Invasion
Hellboy (and related BPRD)
The Invisibles
The Spirit (I have an origional from a Sunday comic supliment but read most if not all of the Kitchen Sink Press editions including a collected edition of The Spirit in Space with Wally Wood doing the art to Jules Feiffer's words)
Cerebus - went way out there after Church and State 2 but what a project a 300 issue story with no resets or retcons or messing with the characters.
Deadworld - the best Zombie comic of all time helped by Locke's art.
Concrete - now when with we get some new work in this nothing since 2004 and a cliff hanger(Maureen Vonnegut pregnant by Concrete at the end of the last arc!!!!!!!!!)

 

[Fun Size]

I only read trades I can get at the library, where I discovered the Sandman series. After burning through all those twice, I moved onto a couple trades of Walking Dead, Y, 50 Bullets, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Watchmen (which I had to buy when I moved so I could reread it) and Hellboy. I find it tough to stomach most superhero fare because I didn't start reading until I was an adult, and I can only suspend my disbelief so far. That said, my new library just got the Wolverine: Origins stuff, and I must admit to being tempted, just because I know I'm eventually going to rent that movie no one liked, if for not other reason because I must support other superheroes with chest hair.

 

[redapples]

Non super hero comics: you might try to get hold of some of the Daniel Clowes books (Ghost World-ISBN 978-0224060882, David Boring - 978-0224063234) or some of Peter Bagge's stuff espicially 'HATE!'. I'd also recommend Black Hole by Charles Burns.

EDIT: Amazon has ISBN numbers for the Silent Invasion books so I thought I'd stick em up.
ISBN-13: 978-0918348500
ISBN-13: 978-0918348555
ISBN-13: 978-0918348661
ISBN-13: 978-0918348753

 

[Shegokigo]

Honestly, I got into comics because I couldn't stand how long my mother would take with her grocery shopping. So I'd go and plop myself down at the magazine stand and just start grabbing comic after comic. As she would go weekly, I was always up-to-date with the latest issues of whatever was available at the time.

Time went on and when one of my sisters got married, her husband had a HUGE comic box filled with all kinds of "older stuff". I'd visit "them" every chance I got, but spent all my time in the backroom reading through the boxes.

When I got older, and had my own funds to spend, I'd go down to the local comic shop and pick up whatever was interesting. The very last comic series I collected "sequentally" was Gen13. I own the entire original "mini-series" and then started with the monthly paperback when it went mainstream. Since then the only time I really read a comic is in graphic novel form, with stuff like The Man Who Laughs and Killing Joke.

 

[Shannow]

A Spiderman comic featuring a Venom fight as a little kid, then immediately moved on to anything and everything else. And to this day, no matter how bad they are, I will read anything with Venom (I loved the whole long write up on all the issues from all the mini series on 4thletter...i think i am the only other person than Gavon that read all those).

I read probalby 30 or 40 books a week, but I will always go out of my way for a Venom story, no matter how terrible. And yeeeeeeesh, they can be horrible.

I love a lot of comics, but for some reason, that character always brings me back to being 8 or 9 years old, and is my favorite besides Doom. (Also the reason I have the Venom symbol as a tattoo on my back)

 

[twitchmoss]

i started reading comics... damn. i can't quite remember. i guess with stuff like asterix and tintin really. then i found the comics section in my local library, and haven't stopped since

 

[@Li3n]

I don't remember exactly, but my aunt had a pretty extensive collection of Tintin and Asterix comics, so that's probably how i started. Also, i remember also having a Batman comic with the first appearance of Anarky, that also had a preview of Chroniques de la Lune Noire / Black Moon Chronicles. Might have been part of a Pif et Hercule comic or something...

 

[redapples]

Ok I completely forgot Tin Tin and Asterix. I used to love those books and they probably predate my reading of Starlord and 2000AD.

 

[drawn_inward]

It definitely started by reading the comics in the Sunday paper, as a small kid. It moved onto a few Archies, but I never could get into them. When I was around 10, my folks took us on a road-trip. We went into a shop and my sister bought a book and my mom suggested that I do the same. I picked up an Amazing Spider-Man and Batman, but even those didn't have much draw at the time.

Then, a few years later, I start reading my friend's Wolverine and Uncanny X-men stash. The X-men cover with Wolverine crucified caught my eye. He filled me in on all of Wolverine's past, and I was intrigued. So, I start collecting Uncanny X-men. Then, Jim Lee starts the X-men book, and I go after those.

I continued to collect The Amazing Spiderman, Xmen, Uncanny Xmen, and a few Batman and Superman here and there until Image started. I then went after those with a frenzy. I read Wildcats, Spawn, Stormwatch, Gen13, Wetworks, and even Savage Dragon.

I haven't collected books for about 6 years. I read trades and graphic novels from time to time. Last time I picked up an Xmen or Spidey book, everything was messed up. Beast looked like a cat, and Spidey just wasn't the same -- maybe I just grew up.

 

I always loved superheroes and such (what kid didn't?), but officially got back into comics thanks to the Death of Superman, back when it actually happened in 1992. I asked for that issue for Christmas, but my parents couldn't find it, so got me the Death of Superman trade, instead.

From there, I picked up the Funeral for a Friend trade and started collecting the monthly issues for the Reign of the Supermen. I collected the Superman comics for awhile after that, as well, and started branching out into other spin-off books like Steel (probably my second favourite superhero) and Superboy. Also bought some Batman books, such as following the whole Knightfall, KnightsQuest and KnightsEnd stuff.

Marvel: About the same time, a friend of mine told me about Venom in the Spider-Man comics. I started with the issue of Amazing Spider-Man where Venom and Spidey make a deal to leave each other alone...which spun off into Venom's limited series. I started buying everything I could on the symbiote-related stuff, which included Maximum Carnage. Started buying Spidey for a bit after that, too. Also, not too long after this (I think), X-Men did their Age of Apocalypse story, which was my first and favourite X-Men story. I collected a couple of X-issues afterwards, but really loved X-Man.

My first big event, which I bought up just about as much as I could, was Zero Hour and I loved it. I started loving the annual events DC would do every summer, like Underworld Unleashed and Final Night. I started branching out into other stuff from there, like Manhunter (which didn't last very long).

So, it basically went like that for a few years, trying different Marvel and DC series, following Superman quite a lot, but also really digging Chuck Dixon's run on Nightwing and, as I said, mostly superhero titles. Tried some Image stuff, really dug the first volume of Savage Dragon, but went through three copies of the second volume, that kept literally falling apart on me. Used to own some Spawn and kinda dug it.

I think it was Preacher that was my first real mature title or at least non-superhero title. Then, I started branching out into other stuff, a lot of which was introduced by a friend of mine who was a bigger geek than I was. He had an entire room full of comics, graphic novels, statues, figures, etc. Thanks to him, I tried out all sorts of new stuff, like Hellboy, Astro City, Starman, JSA, etc, and really growing to have an appreciation for the history of comics, in general. It was around this time that I read Watchmen for the first time (this was about 1999 or so, I think).

Then, thanks to reading his work on Batman: No Man's Land, I was introduced to the work of Greg Rucka. This led me to reading his Atticus Kodiak novels, which then led to reading Whiteout and his independent series, Queen & Country. I kept reading about all these great independent or non-superhero titles and couldn't get enough. 100 Bullets, Fables, Y: The Last Man, Maus, etc. I started picking up all sorts of different stuff, while still kind of keeping up on superhero stuff here and there.

Just this last year, I took a course called Comics & Cartoons and learned about the history of comics from the early 1900s right up to about the 50s. I grew to have a great appreciation for Jack Kirby around this time, as well, thanks to DC putting out big omnibus volumes of his work. There's a second half of C&C that I didn't take for various reasons, but it really opened my eyes to how cyclical comics are and how unoriginal so much of the crap is these days.

These days? I don't know, I can't seem to care much about the majority of either DC or Marvel's mainstream output. Even though it was the shock deaths and events of the 90s like Superman's death and Zero Hour that pulled me in, I can't stand it today. Now, you've got characters that have been dead a good 20+ years like Barry Allen coming back, which I think is ridiculous. Nothing moves forward in comics and in fact, it's moving BACK. The multiverse is back, a lot of Silver Age characters characters that were removed to simplify the characters are now back and it's just not fun for me, anymore. I don't care about who's dead, what new costume Character X is wearing or who came back.

It's not to say that there aren't some good runs or iterations of the mythology. All Star Superman is absolutely fantastic, as was New Frontier, Iron Fist and especially Captain America. Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman was amazing. Most of what Geoff Johns writes is good, though after his runs, it pales in comparison (I fear for the creative team that has to take over after his run on Green Lantern).

But honestly, my love for comics these days has been the creator-owned properties that have just one writer or one creative team. Invincible, Walking Dead, DMZ, Northlanders, The Unwritten, etc. I cannot WAIT to read the first trade of Chew, which I hear is amazing. Thanks to my parents near two decades ago now, I buy pretty much trades only, because I like to get a volume with a complete, self-contained story within it. I really feel that the floppy monthlies is going the way of the dodo and more companies should produce full, self-contained graphic novels with a complete story.

I still love superhero stuff, but it feels like a lot of these characters aren't really acting...heroic anymore. I can't really put my finger on how to explain it, but Marvel especially, it seems is overrun with dark and bad guys, you know? DC is too busy killing off and bringing back characters to tell many decent stories.

 

[redapples]

I really feel that the floppy monthlies is going the way of the dodo and more companies should produce full, self-contained graphic novels with a complete story.

I'm old enough to remember reading comics when the floppy monthlies were all you got an partly for nostalgia reasons I still love em. I don't think they will ever jettison them as they provide a pre trade revenue and double revenue from those nerdy collector types who buy both. For me the single issues provide more than story. One of the shop keeps at my local store only reads trades partly due to lack of adds. I think he's missing out. The ads form part of the history of the comic. No longer the spidey /twinkie ads but that's OK now we have online gaming ads instead. This history helps me place comics and adds to a sense of time and place I dig about comics. So I will, I suspect, continue with my monthlies. In addition what's the fun of trawling back issues when your looking for trades? I spent many a happy hour in other cities' shops and markets pulling from the back issue bins. No amount of glossy packaging will ever give me that level of happiness.

 

[Cajungal]

I read the stuff my brother got in the mail when we were kids. Then I didn't read them for a long time. Now I have money I can spend on comics, so I buy a few from time to time. It's not my primary hobby, but I enjoy it very much. I'll give most things a try.

 

[callistarya]

I never got into comics myself but when I was pregnant with my oldest son (who is now 18), I thought it might be cool to start a collection for him.

I had Spawn #1 which had no color printed on the pages. I guess it was some kind of mistake printing had made on a few copies. I also had the first 15 copies of X-men. Those were really cool cause you would read them one way forward then flip the book and read another story the opposite direction heh. I had a bunch of others as well.

I moved to another state for a while and had to put some stuff in storage for safe keeping and all ended up being stolen by the storage manager. Kinda long story short. Soo, that being said I never got back into it. It was too depressing.

Those comics sure were cool though.

 

[Simfers]

I first started with Astérix and Tintin when I was but a wee lad (so I'm talking around 1982-83, qhen I was old enough to know what a book was and not tear it apart or 85 when I actually started to read instead of just looking at the pretty pictures) and other European stuff (Léonard, Blake & Mortimer, Luc Orient).

However, I only really got into comics in 2002 when, on a lark, I got The Dark Knight Returns and Grendel: Warchild. Never looked back. Now I barely even read prose novels any more. I'm not sure why, but I lost the taste for it when I started working as a translator.

Currently, I'm following (through the TPBs, as I don't like the single issues) BPRD, Ex Machina, Fables, Jack of Fables, John Constantine: Hellblazer, Powers, The Punisher (Max version) and the entirety of the Ultimate Marvel line. I also buy random stuff if it seems interesting or I hear good things about it.

My current top ten series, in alphabetical order (because I won't even attempt to rank it otherwise):

Ex Machina
Fables/Jack of Fables
Hellboy/BPRD
John Constantine: Hellblazer
Lucifer
Powers
Preacher
The Sandman
Sin City
Transmetropolitan

 

[Foxfiree]

I used to deliver papers when I was a kid and we'd always stop in 7-11 on sunday mornings after we were done with the route. Picked up a Ninja Turtles comic, started collecting those, then wound up trying Batman since I enjoyed watching the re-runs of the old 60's show on TV. Been hooked ever since. I run a comic shop now, so I pretty much try to read everything I can, my personal tastes have changed, and I enjoy a list kind of like what Sim has above.

Only comic i've continually read all these years is Usagi Yojimbo. Yeah, the rabbit from Ninja Turtles. The book is amazing though and I can't recommend it enough

 

[HCGLNS]

I got into comics when I was five at summer camp. There was a camp library and it had a copy of Fantastic Four #25, and I was hooked.

 

[Frank]

A Spiderman comic featuring a Venom fight as a little kid, then immediately moved on to anything and everything else. And to this day, no matter how bad they are, I will read anything with Venom (I loved the whole long write up on all the issues from all the mini series on 4thletter...i think i am the only other person than Gavon that read all those).

I read probalby 30 or 40 books a week, but I will always go out of my way for a Venom story, no matter how terrible. And yeeeeeeesh, they can be horrible.

I love a lot of comics, but for some reason, that character always brings me back to being 8 or 9 years old, and is my favorite besides Doom. (Also the reason I have the Venom symbol as a tattoo on my back)

You must've LOVED that new Anti-Venom nonsense lately.

Anyways, I got into comics when I was kid because I was a boy and weirdly enough, most boys of that age were into comics. I know, fucked.

 

[Hailey Knight]

I bothered my dad until he brought me to a comics store. I started digging into Spider-man, not realizing that the Clone Wars were beginning and that meant buying all four Spidey titles every month.

The habit died within a year and I only read graphic novels now.

 

[Wasabi Poptart]

When I was a little girl, I would go with my dad to the barber shop when he'd get his hair cut. The barber did not have many female customers, let alone little girls in his shop, so all of the reading material was geared toward young boy and men. I used to read Hulk and Batman comics while I was there. Eventually, I asked for comics of my own at home. That got me Archie comics which I didn't like as much.

I stopped reading comics when I quit going with my dad on his trips to the barber.

 

[Tiq]

I started off reading a lot of sonic the hedgehog comics as a kid... go figure.

I used to buy the X-men comics religiously, when I was a kid... moved onto 2000 AD as I got older, thanks to a massive back catalogue of comics that my dad's best friend owned, when he was just about to start his own comic shop.

Now.. I usually read whatevers good, but I'm a massive incredible hulk fanboy.

 

[chakz]

Its bruce tims fault.

Personally I never liked his original designs for superman and batman. They grew on me after a while but they were always so low detail and superman never seemed to have any actual eyes.
When I picked up my first comic book I was blown away but how much more there was artistically and narrativly. The stories were way more mature than the cartoons and I was hooked.

Also, I suppose the real clincher is I've just always like superheroes. I can't even remember not liking superheroes and I was always disappointed by the slim pickings offered by tv. Weird.

 

[Silver Jelly]

I probably started reading spanish comics, specially 'Mortadelo y Filemón'. I even remember asking my granpa to read them to me when I still couldn't read... Considering he hates with a assion everything he considers "stupid" and that this is the basic word to describe these comics, I had to insist a lot for him to read them to me...

As a six year old, just before I got my first gaming console, my father bought me one of the many disney comics that are published weekly in italy. I soon got all the old "Topolino" from a cousin of mine and, for some years, my father would buy my brother and me italian disney comics in every trip he took (and he travelled a lot for job reasons).

More or less at the same time, I got my first Tintin comics, and in the following years would get a lot more as presents from my mother because I had to be in bed because of a health problem, just as she had to as a little girl, and she used to read lots of Tintin comics to keep her company.

A little later, my uncle gave me my first Asterix comic.

As far as american comics go, when I was around 12, I bought (in italy again) an anthology book with the best classic popeye strips. I absolutely fell in love with the character.

Probably next year, in italy again, some uncles bought me as a christmas present a book from the same collection of anthology books about Spiderman. It had it's first story, the first appearence of dr. octopus, of Venom, and other stuff. I think It was the first time I ever read a superhero comic.

(I can't find the specific cover to any of those two books)

And, from that moment, I started reading some of my friend's superhero comics, and during the years, I started buying "important" comics. (you know, Watchmen, Batman Year One, and all that stuff).

My first webcomic was probably "That's my sonic", wich I found looking for sprites. (this was when I was a begginner spriter).

 

[TotalFusionOne]

Look, I don't want to talk about it. But I will say one word: Archie.

Please don't hate me ;\

 

[Bowielee]

New Mutants was the first comic I started reading on a regular basis, so I pretty much cut my teeth on the X-titles. Then moved on to Spider-Man, which became my favorite. Then I pretty much read whatever I could get my hands on in the small town I lived in.

Nowadays, I mostly pick up trades.

 

[chakz]

.

That is one badass version of mickey. What is that?

 

[Silver Jelly]

.

That is one badass version of mickey. What is that?[/QUOTE]

This weekly magazine usually does several one shot stories with disney characters, but sometimes it has some more elaborate story arcs in wich the usual characters take part in stories in various settings.
I haven't read this story, but I have read some pretty awesome sci-fi and fantasy stories with the disney gang doing pretty cool stuff! (always PG, but cool nontheless)