What comics mean to me.
I have been wondering to myself how I should kick off this series on comic books, for universal. There is a number of different reasons people follow comics and we each have our own. There are those who collect; there are fans, investors and readers. Kids and adults follow them and buy them and it seems that as the child gows into the adult, their reasons might change but there is something that the child and adult have in common: it might be wonder and the pleasure of a good story, the fantasy and escapism of thrilling tales or the nostalgia of the adult for the pleasures of their youth. I guess it is different for each person.
When I think about my relationship with comics I have gone through different periods myself. As a six year old reader, I would buy a title with a thrilling cover. Back then Charlton or Gold Key comics were still producing tv and film spinoffs (Boris Karloff, various horror titles). As my palate grew more sophisticated I began to recognize titles and themes that drew me: Mad Magazine, Howard the Duck, DC and Marvel horror titles would often be good bets.
As I grew older, Warren titles jumped out at me with their fantastic and horrific, electrifying covers. Creepy,
Eerie and to a lesser extent Vampirella. Beautiful covers on those issues. When my brother was bought a new magazine, Heavy Metal, my tastes evolved. Wow, is what I felt. That is when I started to take note of the artists: Frank Frazetta from the Warren Magazines and Richard Corben and Jean Giraud from Heavy Metal.
I started to focus on super hero titles at around the age of ten and I remember that Daredevil, Deadman, the Warlord and many others were sure bets for me, after school at the corner store and any time I had some extra pocket money. I was not following series much at that point. I would buy the titles whose covers appealed to me. It was a few years later at around the age of twelve when I began to follow story arcs from issue to issue. I suppose this next phase in my readership occurred when I went to visit my brother in Kitimat. He lived with my dad (I lived with my mother) and one summer when I went to visit, he showed me his comic collection. In a large three-ring binder, slipped into sheet covers, he had the John Byrne dark Phoenix saga of the Uncanny X-Men. My brother showed me issue number 136 and I remember him telling me that it “was mint”. This must have 
made me look comics at somewhat differently afterwards, I now think. When I went home at the end of that summer I began to collect comics also. I would make regular trips to Golden Age Collectibles and look for first issues – new ones just out as well as older ones in the back issues racks. I bought first issues that I could afford (Plop, Kazar, Alpha Flight) and at around this time I began to pay closer attention to artists. I always had known Frank Frazetta and Boris Valejo from their posters and book covers. Frank Miller appealed to me, as did anything John Byrne, Michael Golden or Bernie Wrightson (back issues, those).
I collected the run of Frank Miller Daredevils and John Byrne X-Men. Most things Jim Starlin, also. I began to make investment decisions then. I would buy four copies of the Frank Miller Wolverine min-series, for example. Making the switch from collector to investor was one that I think might mark the departure from happy junior reader to canny comic futures trader. Buying four of one meant of course not buying one, plus three of something else and this might have diminished my enjoyment of it. Of course I would make trades with other collectors, too. I remember one particularly poor trade in which I traded my Daredevil number 158 for a Micronauts number one plus something else. I don’t remember what it was. I remember in grade eight, that when I conceded to make the trade and the books changed hands, that the other boy was really excited. I wished I could take the trade back, I remember feeling. I had made a mistake! That was the same issue of Daredevil 158 that I had made my mom read, while I combed her hair. Combing or massaging her hair was something that she would pay me money to do (it relaxed her) and I felt at the time that by reading that issue she might learn to appreciate comics the way I did. I don’t think she did. Goodbye Daredevil 158!
Later after I had accumulated a fairly large collection, I remember that I wanted money – for what I cannot remember – and so I piled all of my issues neatly into a suitcase and took the bus from my grandparents house to downtown New Westminster, to a book store to sell
them. They did not offer me enough money though, or perhaps they were only interested in certain issues. I took them back home on the bus. I remember a boy called me “a runaway” when he saw me with my suitcase, heading back to my grandparents’ house. Later the suitcase and I wound up at the Comic Shop on Fourth Street and if I recall correctly, they offered me twenty four dollars foreverything. I accepted. Ouch.
That marked the end of my collecting. I still maintained an interest in comics, but then more as a reader and enjoyer of the form. I did not want to own the first issues, but I did want to read them. Omnibus editions met that need. Watchmen, Hell Boy, and back issues of everything fully bound made my pleasure return closer to what it was when I first began to read comics. I went full circle, back to reader and enjoyer of the form without worrying about whether I was making the right business decision, or whether the cover was dog eared. I enjoyed this better in many ways.
Now I find myself reading books on the subject and watching documentaries. I did not like Jack Kirby’s art style as a kid, preferring more fluid or realistic styles. I like him now though. And I wonder what the real reaon is, why Steve Ditko and Stan Lee had a falling out. Comics have changed over the years, and so has my relationship with them. I have watched them go from 20 cents each, to 25, to 35 and right up to $5 or so now. The rise in popularity of graphic novels and the direct to market comics, when the idea was still new. Multiple cover variants (I disapprove of that – how can the eight year olds afford to buy all four!) and so into tomorrow I will continue to follow the comic. I will always stop and look through a box of comics at a thrift store. That will never change. ‘Nuff said!
What are your memories or thoughts? Please share by commenting below or contributing your own writings on this topic. We and other readers would like to hear what you have to say on this topic. If you have fond memories of a title, tell us what it meant to you. If you have stories from your life that centre around comics or if you simply want to introduce our readers to something new that you have discovered, please share!