When did you start reading comics and what were some of your earliest?

I started at the age of 11 in 1986. My older brother was visiting one of his friends and he left me there for a couple of hours with a box of comics. The box was full of X-Men and Legion of Superheroes comics. The one that stands out as my first was Uncanny X-Men #175. I read that and was hooked. My earliest 'modern' comics were Uncanny X-Men #210, the prelude to the Mutant Massacre, the Ann Nocenti/Art Adams Longshot miniseries, and the Nebula/Dr. Druid storyline in Avengers. I didn't get into DC for a couple years, but I started with Flash #1 (Baron/Guice), Crisis On Infinite Earths, JLI, and two Batman storylines - A Death In The Family and The Many Deaths of Batman.

I remember being 8 years old or so, and sitting in my brother's car. He handed me a Spider-Man comic book. The cover featured him sliding down a wall because his powers weren't working anymore. The Tinkerer was looking on. I don't remember anything about the story, but I'll never forget that cover.

Spider-Man immediately became my favorite. Two years later, I used my allowance to buy a copy of Nova #1. That got me hooked on comics for good. I still remember the thrill of my brother taking me to the comic book store (Comic Vendor in Torrance, CA) every week. I loved going in and looking at the new comics on display. I still have every comic book I have ever bought.

Houston

My earliest comics memory: I remember a trip in which we were moving from one state to another (Illinois to Missouri, not ambivalence to apathy) when I was five years old and to keep me from being depressed about the move my mother told me I could buy five dollars worth of comic books (this was in 1969 -- five dollars worth of comics was a crapload). I know I had read comics before this, but I don't remember what it was. My treasure trove included a large number of Gold Key Uncle Scrooges, Huey, Dewey and Louis, and Little Lulu comics. I remember asking my mother if I could get a Batman comic, but she wouldn't buy it for me because there were men using guns on the cover. I remember arguing that Batman didn't have a gun and wouldn't use one, but she insisted (again, this was '69 and my mother was -- and still is -- quite the peacenik).

I remember reading a buddy's Detective or Adventure comic a couple of years later because it had an Aquaman story in it, and I loved Aquaman from the '60s cartoon.

The first super hero comic I ever bought was the first issue of a two-part JLA-JSA team-up in Justice League, involving Cary Bates from Earth Prime being the villain. I bought it because I saw Robin on the cover had a costume that looked like a fusion of his and Batman's and I wanted to know about that. I was not at all confused by the whole multiple Earths thing once it was explained to me, but I didn't read the second half of the story until it was collected recently in one of the trades. I think I was about eight or nine.

I remember reading a couple of Spider-Man comics and a Fantastic Four around '74-'75 and being really turned off by the fact that you had to have read previous issues to know what was going on and had to read later issues to know what was going to happen -- since getting comics was a rare event for me at the time, I was really soured by the fact that the stories in Marvel were like soap operas. I wanted the complete story, and at least with DC's stuff at the time, odds were good that you'd get a complete story or even the second part of a two-parter. Plus I liked the DC characters more from their respective cartoons (though I really liked the old '60s Spider-Man cartoon and was disappointed that he wasn't much like he was in the cartoon in the comics).

I really started using my spending money to get comics when I was, oh, 11 or 12, '75-'76. Mostly DC. I really loved Mike Grell's work on Green Lantern and Legion of Super-Heroes, I enjoyed Bob Rozakis's stories, particularly on Teen Titans, and the big treasury editions DC (and Marvel) were putting out that had reprints of old stories from the '50s and early '60s. I really loved those older stories.

Still do.

I got these black and white digest sized reprints of some Marvel stuff in a Christmas stocking when I was five (Hulk, Spider-Man and Man-Thing), and I was already hooked on the 'limited animation' cartoons of Namor, Iron-Man, Thor and The Hulk, as well as the old Ralph Bakshi Spidey cartoon, so I was a goner. I just went Marvel crazy. I sold my collection a little over two years ago (sob!), but I had every comic I'd ever got up until that point, even those first three (dog eared though they were). I've never been a big DC fan - though I was into John Byrne's version of Supes - as I was just Marvel obsessed.

Here in Australia, they had B&W Marvel reprints of the sixties stuff available from the newsagent when I was a kid. The FF, Spidey, The Avengers, Tales to Astonish, Hulk, the whole lot of them.They had several issues in a row in them, and my folks thought this was better value for money, so I was only allowed to get the reprints (which were printed here in Melbourne, and cost less than the actual colour imports). I had a few colour comics as a kid (Gold Key - again, cheaper), but didn't start collecting 'proper' Marvel comics in earnest until I was fourteen - when I went berserk and collecting became my life, essentially.

Then I got married, various financial and health disasters followed...and I had to sell my collection and my '75 Fender Strat (nobody ever believes this, and of course, I never did photograph it, but it looked just like the one Ritchie Blackmoor smashed in Deep purple's California Jam video). And lots of KISS memorabilia (another obsession) and my Star Wars figures (still another obsession). I suppose if that's the worst that's happened to me, then I've been exceptionally lucky...but I felt pretty unhappy about it at the time, let me tell you.

The comics hurt the worst, though. That was not a good day.

When I was young I loved the Harvey comics, and had huge collections of Richie Rich, Casper, what have you. My superhero comics were limited to a few scattered Superman books, and digests. I still have many of the digests, though my Harvey comics are mostly long gone.
Most cherished comic from my childhood? A small Fantastic Four digest collecting issues 1-6 I think of that mag. I read that thing sooooo many times, and I wanted to be the Human Torch, since he was the youngest one. The Batman and Superman digests were also read and reread many dozens of times. I could seldom bring myself to buy single issues of superhero comics because they were so often continued and I preferred getting the whole story at once...hence, comics digests from the checkout stand at the supermarket.
I didn't become well versed in comic lore until the late 80s when I came back to comics as a teen, picking up trades of all kinds of old stuff.

You guys might want to add to this poll:

http://www.imwan.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7007

I was getting comics regularly before kindergarten in 1970. My older brothers had comics and sort of passed on the interest in the hobby.

The first one I remember buying was the second JLA appearance of the Queen Bee, the one with Batgirl as a guest star. JLA #60, IIRC. This would be about 1967 or so.

I had read my brother's books before that.

The kid accross the street from me read comic books, and whatever he did, I wanted to do. He was about 6 years older than me, and I was really glad to have him as a friend. I can remember a Brave & the Bold with Batman and Man-Bat. that seems to be the first one I can remember. I was about 4 or so I think and it was around 1976. Superfriends were in their second season or so as I remember, and Batman reruns were still airing on this one channel that we could get once in a while depending on the weather. I also remember the giant treasury editions, the on with the JSA on the cover in particular. First ones that I can really remember using my allowance on, would be around the time where Cyclops was holding Phoenix on the cover and the one where Kitty Pryde was joining the X-Men. Other than that I remember the reprint issues that Marvel was doing of X-Men and the Avengers. I really loved those issues. I figure I came along at a rare time when there was some really great new stuff coming out, and the old stuff was pretty easily available in reprints.

My memory is foggy at best, but some of the first comics I recall having were Treasury editions, one of the Star Wars releases, specifically. Those were purchased for me by my old man, who was a collector. For a lot of my earliest comic-reading days, I simply read from my father’s collection.

I don’t know for sure what the first comic I bought myself was, though I vaguely recollect that it might have been that “Who Is Terminous?” issue of Fantastic Four. That was the era during which I began to buy my own comics. That, some of the Paul Smith X-Men, and the Avengers of the day were all yanked from the shelves of my local 7-11 and Foodtown.

I sold my first collection when I was 17/18 to buy a car. (Mustang.) All those comics are now gone.

as long as i can remember, there had always been comics of some sort around me...one of my aunts would entice me to help with her chores by promising to buy me an Uncle Scrooge or Richie Rich comic...of course those never seemed to show up...

it wasn't until i was 5 or 6 and had a nasty case of the chicken pox(i still have a couple of scars) and my mom brought home a Marvel Team-Up for me...it was the second part of Spider-Man and Captain Britain with the heroes on a giant pinball machine on the cover...from that point on, when i was promised a comic book, it had to be Spider-Man and it had to actually be given to me...

later on when i was in 5th grade, a new kid in school brought a stack of comics to free reading day...he had comics i had never seen before: Carmine Infantino Flash issues, JLofA, some Charlton cartoon comics, and a bunch of DC Weird War comics...the stack was huge and i wanted to read them all! in hindsight, i know he probably ripped me off, but when he offered to sell me the stack of comics for $5, i went home that night and scrambled to find the money...a few weeks later, he said he had more he could sell me if i'd give him another $5 ahead of time...that next stack was even bigger and had more characters than i had ever seen: the Avengers, the Defenders, Legion of Super-Heroes, a fist full of Archie comics and some more Charlton cartoon books...

when my source dried up at school, i started to convince my mom to take me with her on shopping days so i could haunt the racks at the grocery store and drug store...my grandmother would buy old comics at rummage sales or if i was with her when she went to the store she would tell me to get whatever comics i wanted...i would come home from grandma's house with stacks and stacks of comics...

very few of my early comics still survive as they were read and re-read over and over...i carried an issue of The Hulk folded in my back pocket for months because it had The Avengers and She-Hulk in it...i miss those days of magic, but i know that my son will have that feeling someday thanks to my collection...i plan to dole out the comics sparingly at first to keep them special...it makes me happy to think of one of my comics being folded down the middle and stuffed into my son's back pocket some day...

The first comic book I followed was in forth grade, it was Chuck Dixon's Robin, unfortunately local grocery store stopped carrying it, I still don't know how that story ended.

Was also reading Superman around that time.

Jeez Jacob, way to make us feel OLD!

That's what I'm good at.

I remember my parents buying me Spiderman comics when I was really young (i realize now that they were the Roger Stern issues of Spectacular Spiderman)...I was lucky enough to have a comic store near my house and when I was old enough to wander in it was Shangri-La...i remember buying Secret Wars #3 (Spidey Vs the Xmen!)..it blew my mind..i loved that we had tons of heroes vs tons of villains...

That in turn got me hooked on Uncanny Xmen..the Claremont/JRJR run..The Kulan Gath issues, Nimrod, etc..cool stuff. Then I started buying back issues of Spidey and Xmen...I was really excited about Spidey getting married and the whole Hobgoblin mystery...fun stuff. I got into DC via the Crisis..loved that mini..all those characters made me want to know more about them..got into Conway's JLA, Wolfman/Perez Titans, etc..

Later on as a teen I ended up working at that LCS and devouring tons of tons of comics..discovering more of the mature titles: Grell's Longbow Hunters, the Question, Hellblazer, etc.

Been an addict ever since..love this hobby!

I was a HUGE Harvey Comics fan from about age five to ten.

My first SooberZero comic was New Mutants 14, I think. It had Illyana sitting in a pentagram with demons flowing out of her. I've been hooked ever since. My first JB book was the issue of FF where Reed and Sue battle Mephisto and he breaks Reed's arm. I was amazed that this could happen. Not even Sue's mullet could turn me off to that book.

Man..............digging thru the deep pit of cobwebs that is my memory.....
I remember a Batman comic, that reprinted several stories, one of them was the Origin of Alfred. It must have been an annual. (this was about the time the show was on the air originally), I remember a Popey comic, and a couple of Mickey Mouse comics. And a couple of Caspers, and Richie Rich as well. These are my earliest memories of comics.
A few years later I remember my cousin giving me some Marvel comics. The Spider-Man comic was the issue with Morbius (Spidey had 6 arms), and the Other was an FF that had Medusa as one of the good guys, with the Frightful Four attacking the FF.

I've always had them around it seems like.

This one?

I was "reading" comics before I could read by sneaking into my brother's room when he wasn't there and going through them. He had a great collection but didn't want to share because I colored in them.

The first ones I began buying were Secret Wars with a three issue collection at Toys R Us. It was spotty when I first began buying. Now, I began collecting with Web of Spider-Man #1.

This was my first superhero comic. It was January 13, 1966. I remember the exact day because it was the morning after the Batman TV show premiered, and I suddenly noticed the Batman comics sitting amongst the racks of magazines at the local stationery store.

(<~~~~~~ Like it says in my sidebox, the day I joined Comicland. )

YES!, But I've never seen the cover. I guess the one on my copy fell off early on. (I was probably teething on it!)

So, when did you stop doing that?

Or, more importantly, did you ever stop doing that?

The first comic I ever bought was an Archie.Its funny because I quickly realized that he had been around for a long time due to the different style of clothes that appeared in the digests.(and the Jalopy,that he drove) I understood pretty quickly that comic book time was different from real time.......and I thought it made perfect sense.