According to my mother, my folks started buying me comics because at age 3, my reading had far outpaced the little Golden Books and TV Guide, so they started picking up Casper and the lot, but i was basically uninterested...

My Dad was a big Western fan, and probably picked up Tomahawk for me, so one of my earliest memories is getting and reading and memorizing Tomahawk #115, with the great flaming T-Hawk!

Where we got them was part of the adventure. Primary on the list was a Walgreens near the IGA (hence, it was called the "IGA drugstore") where we went so my Mom could pick up the clothes she washed and ironed from one of the women who worked there. Lots of DC's and Marvels (mostly DCs though).

Another stop, and a main one, was Rockport Drugs, on the same lot as Cook's Market. Rockport was an indie drugstore, in business at the same location for probably 50 years or more at that point... remember reading Lois Lane and the intro of Rose and Thorn... in later years, they only carried off-brand comics, such as Charlton and Archie. Mom knew one of the workers there also, so they would drop me off there and i could sit and read the comics while they grocery shopped.

Main store for Marvels was a Rexall Drugstore on the same lot as our bank. I could sit and read here if i didn't spend too much time or get caught by the druggist. They had a tube tester for our TV, and we were there a lot.

Here are my newsstand memories:

Sept. '63 to Sept. '64 - I bought my first comics at a neighborhood newsstand/candy store on Belleville Ave. in Belleville NJ, between home and school. I remember very little about the place; we moved when I was seven years old and I never saw it again.

Sept. '64 to Nov. '66 - In our new home in Plainfield, NJ, I quickly found Park Stationers at the corner of Park & Seventh. Remarkably, it's still there:



In addition to newspapers, magazines, cigarettes and candy, they also sold real stationery, the old-fashioned fancy stuff. After two years here, the city took all the houses on our block to expand the high school, and we moved to the south side of town.

Nov. '66 to Aug. '69 - There were no stores on the south side of Plainfield, but just over the city line in South Plainfield was a little business district called Holly Park which included Lou's Market. Lou was an classic old ethnic storekeeper, although I couldn't tell you his nationality. He had landed on Omaha Beach a few days after D-Day. The store was the ground floor of an old two-story building; I'm not sure if Lou lived upstairs. The store was a newsstand/deli/convenience store - sort of a forerunner of today's 7-11s. In September 1969 I started 8th grade and lost interest in comics for a while.

Feb. '71 - Sept. '74 - When I got interested again, Lou's Market had become a sub sandwich shop. But I was in high school at this point, which was only a few blocks from Park Stationers, so I went back there. That's where I first saw the Fourth World books and recognized Ditko art on a Charlton cover. Distribution was unreliable then, so I found a few other outlets and would make the rounds once a week - Park Stationers, then over to Book, Pipe & Quill across from City Hall - this store sold books, greeting cards and tobacco along with magazines; this is where I usually found the sf digests - and then to Golden's variety store on Park near Fourth. A few doors up from Golden's was the PM Book Shop, a used bookstore where I found early Warren magazines. A few times I went to Rosati's Confectionery on Arlington Ave. but I didn't like the place. At some point I started visiting the local head shops - Forever Changes was the primary one - for underground comix. This circuit lasted until I left for college, and resumed when I was home in the summers.

Sept. '74 - May '76 - Schnipper's in the middle of downtown Madison, NJ. This was a newsstand, stationery & gift shop, and a large one. This was my source during freshman & sophomore years. When I started my junior year in Sept. '76, I went to Schnipper's and was startled to find that they had decided to stop selling comics. This was my first brush with the decline of newsstand distribution.

Setp. '76 - May '78 - I found a pharmacy in the next town over that sold comics. I don't remember their name now, but they had a comprehensive supply of comics. The walk from college took an hour and a half round-trip, but it was worth it. After graduating, I stopped buying comics cold turkey. I was months behind in reading them at that point, and I still have a box or two of unread 1978 comics in storage. My newsstand days were over.

I remember going into my local drug store (mid 70's?)and they had one of those comic book spinner racks, comics were still 25 cents back then & if you picked out 5 you got them for $1...I remember spending $4 and I went away with a stack of 20 comics. I think my allowance was only $5 per week back then, so I didn't have a lot to spend on comics. You do not find bargains like this today on new comic books, in fact you cannot even buy 2 for $4 off the rack. I recall going to the IGA grocery store in 1980 and seeing New Teen Titans & Moon Knight #1 issues (50 cents each) and got them both, was happy as heck!! It's sad that I just don't feel that sort of excitement anymore. I also remember buying those bagged issues in the mid to late 70's where they had those whitman logos on the covers (2-4 issues per bag??), vividly recall getting FF #184 in one of those bags...were those whitman's reprints or what exactly?? I never really knew. I want to say that Kmart used to sell those bagged whitman's, but not for sure.

They weren't reprints, they were done in the same print run as the regular issues, they were just distributed differently. The bagged issues were not returnable like most newsstand periodicals. In that way, they were a precursor to the direct market, but they weren't sold to comics shops. Whitman was big in coloring books and puzzle books, and the bagged comics were part of that product line.

Another bad moment: you'd walk down to the store on the day the new comics were due, but they weren't out because they had yet to be unpacked. I can still remember seeing a batch of comics fastened by wire digging into the edges of the books, just sitting on the counter of the soda fountain. The store owner, Herbie, pretty much hated all the kids who bought the comics, baseball cards, candy and so on, so of course he wouldn't even acknowledge our questions about when he'd be putting them out.

Herbie always put the date on the front of the books so he'd know when to replace them. He always seemed to mark the spot on the cover that did the most damage to the picture.

What a bastid he was!

Herbie was in my neighborhood too. Back in the 60s, comics and magazines where delivered twice a week, Tues and Thurs. You'd race to the store after school to get the books and find the owner hasn't gotten around to unpacking it. You look at him with puppydog eyes and ask when they'd be ready. He'd give you a scowl and say "Whenever I get to it". You go to the schoolyard to play ball or home for homework and show up sometime later. You never will know if something sold out because stores recieved items haphazzardly, not getting all titles (except the major sellers) consistantly each month. You would need to develope a routine of going to multiple stores each week to ensure you got all the books you might want. Publishers generally would not tell you if something got cancelled and so you're searching for Brother Power, The Geek # 3 for a year before giving up. A great way to prepare for the frustrations of adult life

Probably. Steve Ditko looks like a Steve Ditko character