My Comic Book Days
Oct. 7th, 2004 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kybearfuzzIn one of a few spare moments today, my boss told me he was going to visit my usual comic book shop to buy his boys some comics from the 25 cent box. It made me remember many things about my early days of comic book collecting.
I've been a superhero fanatic since I can remember. Watching Superfriends cartoons, Wonder Woman, and Batman TV shows generated a lot of interest. My first comic book was Wonder Woman #250 (I know because I bought a back issue years later). I went to a small market with my two teenage cousins. My cousin Debbie noticed me looking at the comic and popped for the quarter for it. And so it began at the tender age of five, the year was 1978.
Unfortunately, that Wonder Woman was destroyed in a bid by my twin and sis to make kites. The one saving grace is that I did get to see her fly in such a way. Anyway, my mom was working part-time in a grocery store and she would bring home a comic book to me on occasion. Along this time, I was driving her and my 1st grade teacher crazy with questions about where babies come from and why some men have chest hair, but others don't (honest!). Mom realized that comic book = quiet child. About this time, I always wondered what would happen if the storyline ended a different way, so I started drawing the ending I wanted on paper. I started with stick figures, moving to more filled out bodies months later. My drawing of dirty picures began here.
For the next few years, I collected comics like crazy, every spare nickel went towards them. I read them to shreds. I finally found the only local comic book shop in town, with her ridiculous prices. However, I discovered the X-Men and learning all about the Phoenix Saga spent all my money to buy the back issues. Slowly, the comic book collection grew and grew, and so did the amount of time I spent drawing along with them.
When I hit 14, my dad had a stroke and had to quit work. These were the lean and poor years for my family. Not a lot of money went for comic books, even the money I earned went for school clothes and sometimes bills. The comic book store lady even stopped holding my comics because I was having more held than I was buying. It was devestating for a while. I drew a lot more in those days to make up for the lack of comics.
Finally I went off to college, which limited my money even more. I still managed to buy comics here and there, but literally gave them up when I was a senior. I still read the ones I had over and over again and my drawing got better and better. Two of my part-time jobs on campus was newspaper editorial cartoonist and drawing posters for the Campus Ministries films.
After graduation, I was lucky enough to get a job as a chemist two weeks after graduation with Uncle Sam. I was in the Cincinnati area. The salary at the time was okay, and there were several comic book shops around. I made up for lost time and bulked up the collection pretty fast. It was fun to catch up on the new books and buy a lot of the olds ones I had read to death.
I moved to Kansas City for a few years and then back to Cincinnati a few years ago in a new position. During the last few years, I found gay comics to buy and started buy original comic book artwork. My original Leonard & Larry is on the wall, along with an original Mike Grell Warlord watercolor and the original cover artwork of the First #17. My comic book collecting still goes on, although the number seems to have dwindled after the Crossgen demise. The total count of comics to date is unknown, but I'm sure it's in the thousands. So I'm a nerd.
Why this amazing amount of rambling.. I have no idea...
I've been a superhero fanatic since I can remember. Watching Superfriends cartoons, Wonder Woman, and Batman TV shows generated a lot of interest. My first comic book was Wonder Woman #250 (I know because I bought a back issue years later). I went to a small market with my two teenage cousins. My cousin Debbie noticed me looking at the comic and popped for the quarter for it. And so it began at the tender age of five, the year was 1978.
Unfortunately, that Wonder Woman was destroyed in a bid by my twin and sis to make kites. The one saving grace is that I did get to see her fly in such a way. Anyway, my mom was working part-time in a grocery store and she would bring home a comic book to me on occasion. Along this time, I was driving her and my 1st grade teacher crazy with questions about where babies come from and why some men have chest hair, but others don't (honest!). Mom realized that comic book = quiet child. About this time, I always wondered what would happen if the storyline ended a different way, so I started drawing the ending I wanted on paper. I started with stick figures, moving to more filled out bodies months later. My drawing of dirty picures began here.
For the next few years, I collected comics like crazy, every spare nickel went towards them. I read them to shreds. I finally found the only local comic book shop in town, with her ridiculous prices. However, I discovered the X-Men and learning all about the Phoenix Saga spent all my money to buy the back issues. Slowly, the comic book collection grew and grew, and so did the amount of time I spent drawing along with them.
When I hit 14, my dad had a stroke and had to quit work. These were the lean and poor years for my family. Not a lot of money went for comic books, even the money I earned went for school clothes and sometimes bills. The comic book store lady even stopped holding my comics because I was having more held than I was buying. It was devestating for a while. I drew a lot more in those days to make up for the lack of comics.
Finally I went off to college, which limited my money even more. I still managed to buy comics here and there, but literally gave them up when I was a senior. I still read the ones I had over and over again and my drawing got better and better. Two of my part-time jobs on campus was newspaper editorial cartoonist and drawing posters for the Campus Ministries films.
After graduation, I was lucky enough to get a job as a chemist two weeks after graduation with Uncle Sam. I was in the Cincinnati area. The salary at the time was okay, and there were several comic book shops around. I made up for lost time and bulked up the collection pretty fast. It was fun to catch up on the new books and buy a lot of the olds ones I had read to death.
I moved to Kansas City for a few years and then back to Cincinnati a few years ago in a new position. During the last few years, I found gay comics to buy and started buy original comic book artwork. My original Leonard & Larry is on the wall, along with an original Mike Grell Warlord watercolor and the original cover artwork of the First #17. My comic book collecting still goes on, although the number seems to have dwindled after the Crossgen demise. The total count of comics to date is unknown, but I'm sure it's in the thousands. So I'm a nerd.
Why this amazing amount of rambling.. I have no idea...
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Date: 2004-10-08 02:45 am (UTC)