I’ve been reading comics a very long time, so the notion of remembering my ‘firsts’ with any degree of certainty is remote, but there are a few things that I can recall quite well.
First Comic I Ever Bought or Got:
Like any kid of my generation, I was a huge Star Wars fan (obsession might be the right word for it). I can remember going to the corner store next door to my friend’s mother’s consignment shop (which was, technically, the store on the corner) and buying this. I think we were tearing her shop up, so she sent us next door with some money to buy some candy or something. Instead, I picked this up off the stands, setting off a hobby that exists to today. I would have been about four and a half at the time (alright, someone must have bought it for me).
I still have the comic somewhere, but have no real memory of what happened in it. I remember thinking that Stormtroopers were the coolest thing in the world, so that would explain why this cover appealed to me so much (although let’s be honest – that one on the right looks horrible).
Firsts of Something:
I don’t remember when I became a regular comics reader. I think the build up was gradual from that point on. There are a few comics from the early days that I remember cherishing more than others.
First X-Men Comic:
What could be cooler than having your first exposure to Marvel’s mutants be from their highpoint, as the X-Men face off against Proteus, and everyone looks remarkably 70s.
I just realized that this came out in the same month as my first Star Wars comic. It’s becoming more obvious to me now that I didn’t have a chance of not getting hooked.
I can’t really remember many other ‘firsts’, in terms of when I started to seriously collect comics instead of just randomly picking some up. I do know that I was blessed to start reading comics during the era of Miller’s Daredevil (which I read in back issues), Byrne’s Alpha Flight (and Fantastic Four), and others that make up the best of Marvel’s output.
It took a while before I began buying DC comics, and I’m pretty sure that the Legion of Super-Heroes was the gateway drug there (around about issue 50 of the ‘Baxter’ series). I have no idea when I made the jump to independent books.
