I no longer have JLA #143, so I don't know if I would recall any of the interior pages. Even as a child, though, I remembered this particular issue as being my first comic, and that JLA was the first series that I followed with any regularity. I'd bought JLA simply because it had the most recognizable heroes in it (Superman, Batman, etc.) which I was probably familiar with from merchandising and other media, such as the Superfriends cartoon. (Incidentally, the TV show is apparently spelled as two words -- Super Friends -- but I always spelled it as one word, and old habits are hard to break.)
I was born in November 1970, so I would have been 6 years old
when I obtained this comic, sometime in either March or April of 1977. I
was not yet a comics fan or collector, and most of my comics purchases
would be bought around the time of their release at the local drugstores and convenience
stores like 7-11, as well as local bookstores (my hometown had two
bookstores for most of the 1980s). I wouldn't learn about comics shops
until around 1980. The only way that "old" comics could be obtained back then was either from an older acquaintance (hand-me-downs) or in one of the bagged comics, usually 2 or 3 for $1, that could be found at supermarkets and some department stores. Such bagged comics were usually only a couple years old at best -- most were fairly recently published. Prior to visiting a comics shop circa 1980, the "oldest" complete comic book that I had in my possession would generally be no older than 1975. The first Marvel comic that I ever bought, if my memory is correct, would be WHAT IF? #5, which presented a parallel universe story about Captain America. (Therefore this is also the first Captain America comic that I ever bought.) This double-sized issue went on sale July 26, 1977 (cover-date Oct. 1977). I'm not sure, but I may have gotten this at a local drugstore, Chuck Gerlach Drugs, which for some reason I associate with some of my earliest comics purchases. (I don't recall the store carrying comics in later years, or even recall my family going in there much at all.)
My first real exposure to Superman comics was in March 1978 when my oldest brother gifted me a copy of the hardcover Superman from the 30s to the 70s book. As the title suggests, this book consisted of reprints from the earliest Superman stories in 1938 to the more recent (early 1970s) tales of note. My awareness of cultural/societal changes through the decades can be traced to this book, and its Batman counterpart volume (which I was gifted with the same month, according to the front inside cover's inscription, shown above). I was given the Shazam! from the 40s to the 70s book the following year (Feb. 9, 1979, as the red image above shows). These books not only helped make me a comics fan for life, but also increased my interest and awareness of history, with their focus on how each decade affected the comics.
Being only 7 years old in 1978, I didn't understand that an advertisement asking readers to request the Superman comic strip in their local newspaper was reprinted from Superman #1 (in 1939), and thus no longer valid. Not realizing that I was nearly 40 years too late, I dutifully filled out the form (I've edited-out the street address here) but thankfully didn't cut up the page and mail it in. Although I greatly enjoyed the Superman and Batman stories in these books, I wouldn't begin to regularly buy new issues of either series until 1985 (age 14). I assume now that the reason for that is my drift toward Marvel partisanship at this time. Marvel titles were generally viewed as more "serious" and "realistic" by the kids on my street, and since I couldn't buy everything, I decided to focus on Marvel over DC.
Another inducement to buying Marvel was their reliance on continuing
stories. To keep up with the latest developments and not feel left out,
a reader had to buy the next issue -- and sometimes even another series
(if there was a crossover). My discovery of The Avengers happened to coincide with a multi-issue story arc that would later be called "The Korvac Saga" where members of the team began to mysteriously disappear. I think that I missed both Avengers
#171 and 173 when they were released, but I recall getting #172 (on
sale March 21, 1978). The thing I remember about this comic is that one
of my sisters showed me how the lettering inside comic books use
all-caps instead of a combination of upper and lower case letters as
most printed text uses (such as this blog entry). Upon learning that, I
would try to emulate comic book style lettering in my own amateur
comics. The first issue of Cap's solo series I bought new was #229 (Jan. 1979). I may be wildly misremembering all this (I had just turned 8, after all), but here goes: I was angry because I'd wanted a Star Trek toy at K-Mart the previous day and my mom hadn't let me get it. So my oldest sister took pity on me and took me with her to West Grange Drugs -- at its new (present) location by this time, I believe -- and let me get any comics I wanted.
I think I may have gotten 7 comics that day, which would have been the most comics I'd gotten at one time. (This was back when new comics were 35 cents each, so she spent less than $3 total on them, but at the time I was greatly impressed by her generosity!) I believe that I got the 3 comics shown here on that November day, plus Avengers #180 as well. No wonder I became a comics fan! At the impressionable age of 8, I was thrown into the middle of a crossover between Cap's series and the Hulk's comic (far from being confused by the concept of a crossover, I found it thrilling), plus got a reprint of a classic 1968 Cap comic (also guest-starring the Hulk) drawn by the innovative Steranko!
The first issue of Daredevil I ever saw (not counting the reprint of #1 in Son of Origins, which was at the local library) was #155 (Nov. 1978), shown below at left. I found the character intriguing and began buying DD regularly with (I believe) #156 (the middle cover shown here), which would mean that I bought my first issue of DD the same month I bought my first new issue of Cap (#229, Jan. 1979).
DD's writer was Roger McKenzie, who was also writing Cap at the time. DD would soon guest-star in Captain America #234-236 (June-Aug. 1979) at the same time that DD was acquiring a new penciler, Frank Miller (beginning with DD #158, May 1979). I bought DD regularly until #164 (May 1980) when I abandoned DD (except for buying #169) for the next few years -- not buying it again until #189, when Miller's run was ending. Why did I drop DD? By 1980 (age 9), I'd decided to "collect" Captain America and traded away most of my DD issues to a neighbor in exchange for some of his 1975-77 Kirby Cap issues. I'd picked Cap over DD, Kirby over Miller, and figured there was no reason to keep buying DD after having traded away those issues. Ah well!
By the summer of 1979 (age 8), I was buying more comics than ever. For example, I know that I bought new at least six Marvels cover-dated Sept. 1979: ASM #196, Avengers #188, Cap #237, Defenders #75, Iron Man #126, and X-Men #125. The month before, I'd bought Cap #235-236 (perhaps in one purchase), the last 2 parts of the team-up with Daredevil (which I was also still buying at this time).
The first 8 pages of #236 (Aug. 1979) showed Cap plummeting thru the sky while DD was in a WWI plane that was likewise crashing toward earth. This scene showed that a comics page could be as thrilling and unpredictable as any movie (and, in fact, anticipating the thrills of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I saw at age 10 when it came out in June 1981).
The Falcon was the first mainstream African-American superhero, debuting in Cap #117 (Sept. 1969). Ten years later he finally had this try-out issue of his own solo comic. Falc had shared billing on Cap's series for most of the 1970s, but the team-up ended in 1978. In Avengers #181 (March 1979), Falcon was recommended for membership in the team for affirmative action reasons (causing Falc to sarcastically refer to himself as "The Token"). Falcon returned from his Marvel Premiere solo adventure at the beginning of Avengers #189 (Nov. 1979), but left the team in Avengers #194 (April 1980). It seems like Marvel didn't know what to do with the character. He had a 4-issue solo mini-series in the early 1980s, but has mainly been a supporting cast member in Cap's comic for the past 30 years. I've long thought that Falcon deserved his own regular solo series, though (more on that perhaps in a future post).
One of the cool things about comics is that if you remember when and where you bought an issue, you can pinpoint the date of purchase fairly easily. To me, the two comic books shown above will always be "the new issue" because I bought them the day that they were first released at the local Lawson's convenience store.
According to The Comic Reader #177 (Feb. 1980), Avengers #196 and Incredible Hulk #248 (both cover-dated June 1980) were released the week of March 18, 1980. (No DC comics were released that week.) I was only 9 years & 4 months old that week when I walked up to Lawson's with some friends to buy comics.
But the clerk had a surprise for us. As we were looking at the comics on the spinner rack, he informed us that the new comics had just arrived and were still stacked and bundled on a back counter. He cut open the bundles and let us buy any that we wanted before they had even had a chance to be put on the racks! We felt like we would be among the first people in the country to read these brand-new issues.
Shown at the bottom of the above image are TCR's list of other comics that came out that week. The only other issue on the list that I know I bought new was Tales to Astonish #7 (an unusual photo-backdrop cover); I probably bought that issue on this day as well, although I don't know for sure. (I may have bought Hulk #247 that day, too, since I seem to recall getting both #247 & 248 together.)
Thanks to the dates printed in the published comics, one can confirm one's memory of a notable day in one's distant past.
Looking
at a cover gallery of Amazing Spider-Man issues online, I was struck by
the fact that I became a regular buyer of that series (and many other
Marvel titles) at such an early age -- this information made clear by
the fact that the dates were listed below the covers on the website I
was looking at.The first issue of ASM I ever recall buying was #184 (Sept. 1978). I seem to recall buying it at Gerlach's Drugs, which would mean that I was 7 years old. The next issue I bought was #185 -- pretty unusual for me back then, to happen to buy two issues in a row, when it was more common for me to somehow miss large numbers of issues in a run. I bought a few issues of ASM after that, although the only one of these early acquisitions I still have in my collection (my original copy, that is, and not a replacement bought later) is #196 (Sept. 1979; age 8) which I seem to recall getting at Page One bookstore.
The ASM cover gallery at left shows the starting point of my more dedicated buying of the series. I bought ASM #209 (Oct. 1980) and did not miss a single issue of the series for the next few years, until around #253. What prompted this new dedication? I was only nine years old, soon to be ten, and had finally begun to self-identify as a comics fan. In Sept. 1980 (age 9), I wrote a letter to my older brother (who had helped foster my interest in comics) letting him know what comics I was collecting, all of them Marvel titles. I considered myself a collector, but was really just a little kid buying comics off the spinner racks at local drugstores, with only an occasional trip to a comics shop when I was lucky. But being a "collector" means that I still have most of the comics that I bought back then. How many people still have things that they bought when they were nine years old?
Another explanation for my increased interest in comics, as I look at the cover dates, could be that 1980 (or late 1979) was (I believe) the year that the Lawson's convenience store opened, located only a few blocks from my home. Lawson's was the place that I bought comics the most through the 1980s, so if Lawson's happened to carry a comic, I'd be less likely to miss an issue. (I seem to recall that Byrne's FF run was not available at Lawson's, and I had to get that when I could at the 7-11 which was further away, and ended up missing issues as a result.)
I had a mail subscription to ASM by #219 (Aug. 1981, age 10) and would continue to get the series in my mailbox every month until I finally let it drop with #251 (April 1984, age 13). I had grown bored with Marvel superheroes by this point and was branching out, trying other companies and genres. The month after I let my sub lapse, however, I went to Lawson's and saw the cover of #252, showing the debut of Spidey's new black costume on the cover. That issue went home with me.
However, I stayed away from picking ASM up again semi-regularly until 1986, after I'd acquired some recent issues in a trade with a classmate. But once again, my interest soon waned and I was picking it up less frequently in 1987 and 1988. Todd McFarlane began his ASM run with #298 (March 1988, when I was 17) -- two issues after I'd dropped ASM again -- and I gave it a try with #301 (June 1988). But the novelty wore off quickly, and I didn't buy another issue of Spider-Man again for almost 10 years. Another factor may have been my lack of spending money after high school graduation (and the increase in the price of comics), but my lack of enjoyment was also a big factor. Also, the local Lawson's store, where I had bought so many comics over the years (and which had been renamed "Dairy Mart" in June 1987), closed down in mid-1989. New comics purchases became less frequent and didn't generate the excitement or wide-eyed wonder that they had ten years before, when it was all new to me.
Everyone has their Golden Age when they first became a fan of something, first loved it, and then gradually became disillusioned and moved on to something else. Sometimes I forget how early it was that my interest first began (which would be at 9 years old, if we cite #209 as the starting-point of the "never miss an issue" mentality) and how early that interest fades (dropping my sub in boredom with #251 at age 13). Sometimes that interest can reoccur, but sometimes (as with, for me, Amazing Spider-Man), that interest peaks around age 11 and never returns.
One
difference between then and now was that you could be a "comics
collector" and still get the majority of your comics at the local 7-11
rather than a comics shop. The spinner rack of new comics at the local bookstores (my local hometown had two bookstores for most of the 1980s) received their new comics a week or so before the local convenience stores did, so it was a way of getting a jump ahead of one's friends about what was happening in a title that we followed. (This was back when I was around 10 to 12 years old. After that, reading comics was primarily a solitary activity. But before age 13, there was always some excitement on the block whenever a new issue of Avengers came out, especially to see what was on the cover.) It's hard to believe now, but in the 1980s, almost every town in my Downriver neighborhood had at least one bookstore.
Comics shops in the 1980s tended to be much further from home and sometimes short-lived enterprises. The first comics shop I went to as a child, a store called Book Bin, was actually a used paperback book store which had comics as a sideline, on one side of the room. That store was still in business until just a few years ago, but was not really a "fan" hangout or anything. Comics were just a sideline there, not the main business. But it had more comics than could be found elsewhere around here at the time, including some new independent titles (like Cerebus) and a small back issue section.
Comics shops in the 1980s tended to be much further from home and sometimes short-lived enterprises. The first comics shop I went to as a child, a store called Book Bin, was actually a used paperback book store which had comics as a sideline, on one side of the room. That store was still in business until just a few years ago, but was not really a "fan" hangout or anything. Comics were just a sideline there, not the main business. But it had more comics than could be found elsewhere around here at the time, including some new independent titles (like Cerebus) and a small back issue section.
 |
| (BOOK BIN in 2006, a few years before it closed.) |
By
the end of the year (Dec. 1980, shortly after I turned 10 years old), I
had a letter published in Captain America #255 (cover-dated March
1981). The letter asked a question about Cap's origin and made
references to previous depictions of his origin in #109 and #176, so clearly I had already started buying old comics at a comics shop
(which, at this time, was still the half-a-comic-shop Book Bin).
In
1983, a new comics shop appeared in the neighborhood, one called Comics
Galore. This was a full-on comics shop, with a wall full of new
releases, boxes of bagged back issues, and on the floor the cheap bins
of unwanted comics (25 cents each or 5 for $1.00). It was in the cheap
bins there that I discovered the "pre-Marvel" 1950s/early 1960s horror
& monster comics, via 1970s reprints in Weird Wonder Tales, Chamber
of Chills, etc. On the new comics shelf there, I discovered the Red
Circle (Archie) comics which were a welcome respite from the Marvel
comics that I'd grown bored with. You can read more about my purchases at Comics Galore at this previous blog entry which explains in detail how I first became a fan of Steve Ditko. (In fact, you might want to go read that entry now and then come back here to read this one, since it helps fill the gap of an important year, 1983, in the evolution of my reading tastes.)
Comics Galore had a copy of Tales of Suspense #4 (July 1959) under glass by the register.
If I recall right, the price was $18, a huge amount of money. As a
collector of Captain America, I knew that eventually I'd have to get
every issue of Tales of Suspense as well, so I saved up and eventually
had enough money to buy TOS #4. But I had waited too long. During the
next family outing, sometime around late 1983 or early 1984, when we went to the place where the shop had been located, we found that it
had been replaced by a pizza shop.
In
1985, I ordered from Mile High Comics for the first time, through the
mail. I'd gotten my hands on mail-order comic catalogs before, but this
was the first time that I finally ordered from one. They had been
advertising comics in Marvel at the time for cheap prices, so I bought
several issues of indie titles that I had not yet seen -- Jon Sable
Freelance, Destroyer Duck, Twisted Tales -- as well as 1970s titles like
Where Monsters Dwell and Shade the Changing Man. Getting a box in the
mail from Mile High was quite an event; those comics still feel "new" to
me because I remember what it was like getting them in the mail.
By
1987 (age 16), a new shop arrived in Wyandotte called Comic Gallery which
epitomized why the late 1980s was such a great period for comics. I bought my first issues (#3 and #7) of Yummy Fur there
(a comic that I sought out after learning about it in the January 1988 issue of Comics Buyer's Guide when Mark Burbey praised the series in the letters page). I bought Murder #3 there (edited by Robin Snyder), my first issue of Love & Rockets (#20), even my first issue (#37) of Gene Kehoe's It's a Fanzine (a small-press fanzine normally available only by mail). I
bought The Killing Joke there, and read it on a bench near the store,
waiting for my family to finish their shopping in lovely downtown Wyandotte before we went home.
(Wyandotte Record Exchange was nearby, too, and Stoner's Hobby Shop was on the next block, both of which were also highly influential to me.) Unfortunately, Comic Gallery was not long for this world, closing sometime in 1989.
I
was reduced to going back to Book Bin after that and thinking how pathetic it
seemed, this place that had once been so exciting. In a letter dated November 8, 1989 (a few days before I turned 19 years old), I wrote to a friend: "I went to Book Bin today; they're 25-cent thing sucked, so here's what I ended up getting: Warlock Special Edition #4 ($1.00), Ms. Marvel #17 (25 cents), Strange Suspense Stories #66 (Charlton 1963 issue, $1.00), Tower of Shadows #8 (Marvel, $1.00), Defenders #42 (50 cents), 57-60, 67, 68 ($1.00 each). Believe it or not, that Ms. Marvel ish & an issue of Nova were the only 'old' Marvels in the 25-cent boxes! Everything was failed new stuff. If I had wanted to, I'm sure I could have bought up a whole collection of Power Pack, Alpha Flight, & the New Universe titles for under $10.00! While I was there two guys my age came in, buying comics & -- I felt like I was 'slumming' actually buying, y'now, superhero comics, even if they are better than current superhero comics -- and I overheard the two guys talk about some comic & the other goes 'Yeah, well, I don't buy DCs' & the other says 'Oh, well, me neither, but this one was a good one...' It's like... what morons. I thought 1986 had changed all that. It's like I told you before, Book Bin exists in a time warp where 1986 never happened! It's weird." (1986 being the year that Watchmen came out. I bought the first two issues of that series in one purchase when #2 was released, having been informed about its impending arrival in the Dec. 1985 issue of Mile High Futures, which contained a long interview with Alan Moore. I may have initially bought Watchmen at Book Bin, come to think of it.)
By
the time I was 18 or 19, and reading The Comics Journal, buying Love
and Rockets (both of which I got mail subscriptions to at that time, to
make sure I'd not miss an issue), I felt isolated and disparaging toward
new mainstream comics. What I saw, I couldn't stand. I'd stopped
"collecting" Captain America for a year back in 1984-85 (missing
#301-311), and bought it semi-regularly until 1989 when I had to give it
up -- it couldn't hold a candle to my memories of the comic's glory
days. It's funny to think how old I felt then, but how young I seem to
myself in retrospect.
Here are some quotes from my letters during that period which provide a real-time record of my attitude toward comics at the time:
- May 14, 1989 (age 18): "Maybe, on second thought, a few minutes after pondering, I shouldn't go to 7-11 & get comics. It'd just be a waste of money. Yeah. Besides, I've enough to read as it is. I have comics at home I've never read (almost complete runs of Marvel-Two-In-One, Powerman/Iron Fist & Micronauts, in fact, which I've never touched). Maybe I should sell all my Spideys, Hulks, Avengers, etc. I dunno. It all seems so pointless. I have a lot of old Defenders & I keep saying one day I should get all the issues I don't have, but who cares? I've (the new) Superman #1-23, but I've stopped buying it. It's just a waste of time & money. I don't rilly care about All-Star Squadron now that it's cancelled (cancellation tends to plague my faves), but I've a lot of 'em. But why bother to get the missing issues now?"
- June 3, 1989: "DC has rilly sold out. I have here & now decided that I shall never buy a comicbook by the following publishers: MARVEL, DC, ECLIPSE, FIRST, ARCHIE, HARVEY, COMICO, NOW, or any other comics publisher that supports assembly-line production."
- June 23, 1989: "I feel so lost w/the Marvel & DC comics, that's basically why I don't read them anymore. Like I was saying, when I used to read Batman, CRISIS was just winding up, every DC series was getting rearranged & renumbered & it was pretty exciting. You had Moore on Swamp-Thing (and planning to do WATCHMEN), Miller on Dark Knight and Batman for 4 issues, Byrne beginning the Superman mini-series which reintroduced the character, nobody was sure whether Batman had a yellow circle around his chest or not after CRISIS (and here CRISIS was done to END confusion!), so some issues he did, some he didn't [this comment was likely prompted by a sentence in Gene Kehoe's "It's a Fan-gene" column in IAF #37], you had the last issue of WW, a 4-issue L.S. [mini-series], & the new #1 all within about 8 months span [actually 12 months]. IT WAS COOL! Then it collapsed. Byrne's Superman got dumb, Miller left to do Elektra: Assassin, WW got too confusing for me, all the new #1's (Flash, JL, etc.) were dumb & the Batman creative team changed so many times & the tie-ins with Millenium so confusing, Moore left Swamp-Thing, & the only good DC comic was Watchmen. Now, the only good DC comic is V For Vendetta. I think V's already over, but I'm missing some of the last issues. On the Marvel front, I stopped buying Cap because of Gruenwald when Cap became The Captain, & I stopped buying Classic X-Men when the Bolton back-up tales got boring, & Thor & Spidey are just getting a wee bit too involved for me. I just want to buy a comic where I don't have to have been following it for the past ten issues to know what's going on. Besides, I'm growing sick of mainstream comics overall; I hate their "product" mentality. So, now the only things I read are Comics Journal and Love & Rockets. ....One of the problems is that I can never get the comics I'd like to get because, even when Comic Gallery was around, they're so hard to find. While every comic shop carries junk like Suicide Squad and Doom Patrol, & you can find all their back issues in there, good comics like Raw, Hup, Rip Off Comix, [all three of which I'd never actually read but wanted to] & the like are unbelievably difficult to find. The only place I've ever even SEEN an issue of Rip Off was in one on the shops in Lansing [waaaayy far away] & I've NEVER seen the other two. That's why going to a comics shop isn't such a big thrill for me because I know I prolly won't see anything I want except for maybe a Cerebus or a graphic novel, or a Weird Wonder Tales in the grody comics box, if I'm lucky."
(Note: June 23rd was the day that the Tim Burton-directed Batman movie premiered, but to this day I have never seen it, nor most of the other superhero-based movies.)
- October 2, 1989: "....Whereas I used to buy Marvels & DCs every time I went to Lawsons, since Lawsons closed, I've stopped buying them & neither company holds any interest for me WHATSOEVER, ever since I've been buying more independent comics. Oh, by the way, there's a difference between 'independents' like Eclipse, First, Now, Dark Horse, Comico, etc. which are more like DC or Marvel than independents (REAL independents) like Catalan, Raw, Fantagraphics, Last Gasp, Kitchen Sink, Rip Off, etc. which have practically no similarity to Marvel, DC, Eclipse, Dark Horse, etc.-type books."
- June 14, 1990 (age 19): "I haven't bought a Marvel comic (or DC, Eclipse, First, etc) in ages & have no intention of buying them in the future!"
- October, 1990: "I was surprised [at a friend's house]; he had recent issues of various DCs & Marvels lying around -- I haven't seen a recent DC or Marvel in ages -- but they were the same old Marvel/DC superhero tripe. Can't see why he wastes time on it."
- December 5, 1990 (a month after I turned 20 years old): "I bet I prolly praised DC a lot [in my late 1980s letters]. Well, I did that because of the DCs being done at the time; 1984 to 1988 was, like, DC's little 'DC Age' I guess. They had nothing to lose so they took some chances and they did better comics than Marvel was doing at the time (Romita Jr. on X-Men (ugh!), Secret Wars II, "The New Universe," DeFalco & Frenz on Spider-Man, etc.) (even Cap, Hulk, Iron Man, Avengers, Defenders, Daredevil, etc, sucked at the time & Thor was getting run into the ground by Simonson (he started out good) & Byrne was doing the same to the FF (Byrne's first 25 issues of FF were great; after that, it got stupid!)) In fact, Marvel still sucks! (as does DC now). Maybe I liked Marvel back in the late '70s & early 80s 'cos I was a kid then. Anyway, back to DC: they had Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Howard Chaykin, Jack Kirby, John Byrne, Stephen Bissette, George Perez, Keith Giffen, Bill Sienkiewicz, Jerry Ordway, Gil Kane, Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, Todd McFarlane, Brian Bolland, etc.! I think DC's last hurrahs were Arkham Asylum, V For Vendetta, & Perez's run on Wonder Woman. Now it's over! Around ten of the above names no longer work for DC. They still have some pretty weird titles (Hellblazer, The Sandman, Pirahna Press titles, etc.) and are prolly more 'adult' (i.e. trying to be adult by using bad words, extreme gore, sex & naked women) than Marvel in the 'Recommended for Mature Readers' line, but their regular 'Comics Code Approved' comics look just like Marvels!....So, to summarize, my current feelings are that DC & Marvel & Eclipse & Comico & First, etc. suck. I seriously doubt that I'll ever change my mind about that. What comics am I excited about these days? Mainly Love & Rockets. I haven't seen too many truly alternative comics 'round these parts (the reason I can get L&R is I have a sub!)."
Around 1991, I let my subscriptions to the Journal and L&R lapse and I stayed away from new comics for the most part until early 1997 when I started hanging around internet message boards about comics and pre-ordering new stuff from the Previews catalog (which a local shop heavily promoted, to get people to start pull lists). As I look at my evolution outlined above, I'm reminded of Dylan's line from "My Back Pages": "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
Here are some quotes from my letters during that period which provide a real-time record of my attitude toward comics at the time:
- May 14, 1989 (age 18): "Maybe, on second thought, a few minutes after pondering, I shouldn't go to 7-11 & get comics. It'd just be a waste of money. Yeah. Besides, I've enough to read as it is. I have comics at home I've never read (almost complete runs of Marvel-Two-In-One, Powerman/Iron Fist & Micronauts, in fact, which I've never touched). Maybe I should sell all my Spideys, Hulks, Avengers, etc. I dunno. It all seems so pointless. I have a lot of old Defenders & I keep saying one day I should get all the issues I don't have, but who cares? I've (the new) Superman #1-23, but I've stopped buying it. It's just a waste of time & money. I don't rilly care about All-Star Squadron now that it's cancelled (cancellation tends to plague my faves), but I've a lot of 'em. But why bother to get the missing issues now?"
- June 3, 1989: "DC has rilly sold out. I have here & now decided that I shall never buy a comicbook by the following publishers: MARVEL, DC, ECLIPSE, FIRST, ARCHIE, HARVEY, COMICO, NOW, or any other comics publisher that supports assembly-line production."
- June 23, 1989: "I feel so lost w/the Marvel & DC comics, that's basically why I don't read them anymore. Like I was saying, when I used to read Batman, CRISIS was just winding up, every DC series was getting rearranged & renumbered & it was pretty exciting. You had Moore on Swamp-Thing (and planning to do WATCHMEN), Miller on Dark Knight and Batman for 4 issues, Byrne beginning the Superman mini-series which reintroduced the character, nobody was sure whether Batman had a yellow circle around his chest or not after CRISIS (and here CRISIS was done to END confusion!), so some issues he did, some he didn't [this comment was likely prompted by a sentence in Gene Kehoe's "It's a Fan-gene" column in IAF #37], you had the last issue of WW, a 4-issue L.S. [mini-series], & the new #1 all within about 8 months span [actually 12 months]. IT WAS COOL! Then it collapsed. Byrne's Superman got dumb, Miller left to do Elektra: Assassin, WW got too confusing for me, all the new #1's (Flash, JL, etc.) were dumb & the Batman creative team changed so many times & the tie-ins with Millenium so confusing, Moore left Swamp-Thing, & the only good DC comic was Watchmen. Now, the only good DC comic is V For Vendetta. I think V's already over, but I'm missing some of the last issues. On the Marvel front, I stopped buying Cap because of Gruenwald when Cap became The Captain, & I stopped buying Classic X-Men when the Bolton back-up tales got boring, & Thor & Spidey are just getting a wee bit too involved for me. I just want to buy a comic where I don't have to have been following it for the past ten issues to know what's going on. Besides, I'm growing sick of mainstream comics overall; I hate their "product" mentality. So, now the only things I read are Comics Journal and Love & Rockets. ....One of the problems is that I can never get the comics I'd like to get because, even when Comic Gallery was around, they're so hard to find. While every comic shop carries junk like Suicide Squad and Doom Patrol, & you can find all their back issues in there, good comics like Raw, Hup, Rip Off Comix, [all three of which I'd never actually read but wanted to] & the like are unbelievably difficult to find. The only place I've ever even SEEN an issue of Rip Off was in one on the shops in Lansing [waaaayy far away] & I've NEVER seen the other two. That's why going to a comics shop isn't such a big thrill for me because I know I prolly won't see anything I want except for maybe a Cerebus or a graphic novel, or a Weird Wonder Tales in the grody comics box, if I'm lucky."
(Note: June 23rd was the day that the Tim Burton-directed Batman movie premiered, but to this day I have never seen it, nor most of the other superhero-based movies.)
- October 2, 1989: "....Whereas I used to buy Marvels & DCs every time I went to Lawsons, since Lawsons closed, I've stopped buying them & neither company holds any interest for me WHATSOEVER, ever since I've been buying more independent comics. Oh, by the way, there's a difference between 'independents' like Eclipse, First, Now, Dark Horse, Comico, etc. which are more like DC or Marvel than independents (REAL independents) like Catalan, Raw, Fantagraphics, Last Gasp, Kitchen Sink, Rip Off, etc. which have practically no similarity to Marvel, DC, Eclipse, Dark Horse, etc.-type books."
- June 14, 1990 (age 19): "I haven't bought a Marvel comic (or DC, Eclipse, First, etc) in ages & have no intention of buying them in the future!"
- October, 1990: "I was surprised [at a friend's house]; he had recent issues of various DCs & Marvels lying around -- I haven't seen a recent DC or Marvel in ages -- but they were the same old Marvel/DC superhero tripe. Can't see why he wastes time on it."
- December 5, 1990 (a month after I turned 20 years old): "I bet I prolly praised DC a lot [in my late 1980s letters]. Well, I did that because of the DCs being done at the time; 1984 to 1988 was, like, DC's little 'DC Age' I guess. They had nothing to lose so they took some chances and they did better comics than Marvel was doing at the time (Romita Jr. on X-Men (ugh!), Secret Wars II, "The New Universe," DeFalco & Frenz on Spider-Man, etc.) (even Cap, Hulk, Iron Man, Avengers, Defenders, Daredevil, etc, sucked at the time & Thor was getting run into the ground by Simonson (he started out good) & Byrne was doing the same to the FF (Byrne's first 25 issues of FF were great; after that, it got stupid!)) In fact, Marvel still sucks! (as does DC now). Maybe I liked Marvel back in the late '70s & early 80s 'cos I was a kid then. Anyway, back to DC: they had Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Howard Chaykin, Jack Kirby, John Byrne, Stephen Bissette, George Perez, Keith Giffen, Bill Sienkiewicz, Jerry Ordway, Gil Kane, Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, Todd McFarlane, Brian Bolland, etc.! I think DC's last hurrahs were Arkham Asylum, V For Vendetta, & Perez's run on Wonder Woman. Now it's over! Around ten of the above names no longer work for DC. They still have some pretty weird titles (Hellblazer, The Sandman, Pirahna Press titles, etc.) and are prolly more 'adult' (i.e. trying to be adult by using bad words, extreme gore, sex & naked women) than Marvel in the 'Recommended for Mature Readers' line, but their regular 'Comics Code Approved' comics look just like Marvels!....So, to summarize, my current feelings are that DC & Marvel & Eclipse & Comico & First, etc. suck. I seriously doubt that I'll ever change my mind about that. What comics am I excited about these days? Mainly Love & Rockets. I haven't seen too many truly alternative comics 'round these parts (the reason I can get L&R is I have a sub!)."
Around 1991, I let my subscriptions to the Journal and L&R lapse and I stayed away from new comics for the most part until early 1997 when I started hanging around internet message boards about comics and pre-ordering new stuff from the Previews catalog (which a local shop heavily promoted, to get people to start pull lists). As I look at my evolution outlined above, I'm reminded of Dylan's line from "My Back Pages": "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
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