My Fiftieth Comics Anniversary
Jul 9, 2021 21:01:02 GMT -5
shaxper, Icctrombone, and 17 more like this
Post by MWGallaher on Jul 9, 2021 21:01:02 GMT -5
INTRODUCTION:
It occurred to me while looking at the monthly “50 Years Ago This Month” thread: this year would see the 50th anniversary of my start as a comic book fan. How should I recognize the beginning of a hobby that would come to fill a very large part of my life?
My idea: a review thread here among my favorite comics community, looking back at that first round of comics one by one. Armed by the Newstand feature at dcindexes.com, it was easy to see what was on sale each month when I started collecting, and I can confidently identify each of my purchases, although I can’t always recall the details of the contents. For my 50th, I’ll be re-reading each of them and discussing them here over the next few weeks.
My goal is to consider these from a dual perspective. I can’t erase the decades of knowledge about the characters, the history, the creators, the controversies, and all of the rest of the minutiae I’ve absorbed, so that will be a facet of the reviews to follow. But I want to also try to recall my perspective as a new reader back in 1971. What knowledge, if any, was I bringing to the reading? Why did each book draw my interest? What did I learn about comic book lore from each issue I bought? What did I learn about comic book art? What hooked me good, and what left me underwhelmed? What curiosity did each comic trigger in me? What would become a must-read, and why?
Although I’m positive about the first comic I bought, I’m less certain about the order of the following issues, beyond the month-to-month publication dates, and after those first few buys, I would begin buying multiple comics each trip to the newsstand. So my plan is to start with my first, then the rest of the issues published that month (of the ones I bought), then on to the next month, beginning with comics on sale in August 1971, going through December 1971. This will be less than 30 comics, and I’ll be discussing them in depth.
To the best of my recollection, all of these would have been purchased at one of three locations, starting with the Navy Exchange in Millington, Tennessee. My father was retired Navy, and we did much of our shopping there. In the back section of the Exchange was a spinner rack, and once the comics bug bit me, that’s where I would gravitate, leaving my mother to do her clothes shopping while I tried to browse the comics before the sailors could strip the racks.
One of the other two locations were Boyce’s Big Star, a grocery store located at the southwest corner of Delano Avenue and Overton Crossing in Memphis, Tennessee. This was our neighborhood grocery store, a place my mother would go to pick up some quick items when the 45-minute drive to the tax-free Navy Exchange Grocery in Millington wasn’t practical. Big Star was a local chain, and you might know the name from the cult favorite 60’s rock band Big Star, which took its name from the grocery. Boyce’s comics spinner rack was located near the entrance, and I’d come to spend a lot of time there during shopping trips. Mr. Boyce stopped ordering comics a year or so after I started reading, and I remember being very disappointed to see the contents of that spinner rack start to dwindle, never to be restocked. This happened sometime after May 1972, because I’m certain that DC’s LAUREL & HARDY #1 (and only) was one of the last comics I saw there. This must have been a fairly traumatic event, because 50 years later, I still have dreams of going into stores and seeing comic racks with out-dated, unpurchased and unwanted comics lingering.
(It later became the "Overton Supermarket", before closing for good, but you can still see the star in the fading paint.)
My third source was the Seven-Eleven convenience store at the southwest corner of Delano and North Watkins. This store had the unique benefit of being within easiest walking distance from my nearby home on Vicoscia. 7-11 had a reliable spinner rack, and would soon be selling Slurpees in comic character plastic cups, and you can be sure I became a collector!
It's now a Boost Mobile store. I can remember sitting on that very same concrete pylon supporting the store sign, eager to read through my latest haul:
My budget for comics buying was slim. I wasn’t on a formal allowance, but I did get enough spending money that I’d have a few quarters to take on my trips to pick up 1 to 4 comics. I didn’t have any friends who shared an interest in comics to trade with or discuss with. A kid in my aunt’s neighborhood had a collection of DC war comics, in which I had no interest, and neighbors had a few humor comics. One schoolmate had a brother who had a few Silver Age comics that I could glimpse when I was at my friend’s house, like Not Brand Ecchh and Brave & Bold, but I couldn’t read them. So I was really on my own, making my way in a new and exciting hobby.
And with that boring background out of the way, it’s time to take a close look at the comic that started me on this 50 year trip…
It occurred to me while looking at the monthly “50 Years Ago This Month” thread: this year would see the 50th anniversary of my start as a comic book fan. How should I recognize the beginning of a hobby that would come to fill a very large part of my life?
My idea: a review thread here among my favorite comics community, looking back at that first round of comics one by one. Armed by the Newstand feature at dcindexes.com, it was easy to see what was on sale each month when I started collecting, and I can confidently identify each of my purchases, although I can’t always recall the details of the contents. For my 50th, I’ll be re-reading each of them and discussing them here over the next few weeks.
My goal is to consider these from a dual perspective. I can’t erase the decades of knowledge about the characters, the history, the creators, the controversies, and all of the rest of the minutiae I’ve absorbed, so that will be a facet of the reviews to follow. But I want to also try to recall my perspective as a new reader back in 1971. What knowledge, if any, was I bringing to the reading? Why did each book draw my interest? What did I learn about comic book lore from each issue I bought? What did I learn about comic book art? What hooked me good, and what left me underwhelmed? What curiosity did each comic trigger in me? What would become a must-read, and why?
Although I’m positive about the first comic I bought, I’m less certain about the order of the following issues, beyond the month-to-month publication dates, and after those first few buys, I would begin buying multiple comics each trip to the newsstand. So my plan is to start with my first, then the rest of the issues published that month (of the ones I bought), then on to the next month, beginning with comics on sale in August 1971, going through December 1971. This will be less than 30 comics, and I’ll be discussing them in depth.
To the best of my recollection, all of these would have been purchased at one of three locations, starting with the Navy Exchange in Millington, Tennessee. My father was retired Navy, and we did much of our shopping there. In the back section of the Exchange was a spinner rack, and once the comics bug bit me, that’s where I would gravitate, leaving my mother to do her clothes shopping while I tried to browse the comics before the sailors could strip the racks.
One of the other two locations were Boyce’s Big Star, a grocery store located at the southwest corner of Delano Avenue and Overton Crossing in Memphis, Tennessee. This was our neighborhood grocery store, a place my mother would go to pick up some quick items when the 45-minute drive to the tax-free Navy Exchange Grocery in Millington wasn’t practical. Big Star was a local chain, and you might know the name from the cult favorite 60’s rock band Big Star, which took its name from the grocery. Boyce’s comics spinner rack was located near the entrance, and I’d come to spend a lot of time there during shopping trips. Mr. Boyce stopped ordering comics a year or so after I started reading, and I remember being very disappointed to see the contents of that spinner rack start to dwindle, never to be restocked. This happened sometime after May 1972, because I’m certain that DC’s LAUREL & HARDY #1 (and only) was one of the last comics I saw there. This must have been a fairly traumatic event, because 50 years later, I still have dreams of going into stores and seeing comic racks with out-dated, unpurchased and unwanted comics lingering.
(It later became the "Overton Supermarket", before closing for good, but you can still see the star in the fading paint.)
My third source was the Seven-Eleven convenience store at the southwest corner of Delano and North Watkins. This store had the unique benefit of being within easiest walking distance from my nearby home on Vicoscia. 7-11 had a reliable spinner rack, and would soon be selling Slurpees in comic character plastic cups, and you can be sure I became a collector!
It's now a Boost Mobile store. I can remember sitting on that very same concrete pylon supporting the store sign, eager to read through my latest haul:
My budget for comics buying was slim. I wasn’t on a formal allowance, but I did get enough spending money that I’d have a few quarters to take on my trips to pick up 1 to 4 comics. I didn’t have any friends who shared an interest in comics to trade with or discuss with. A kid in my aunt’s neighborhood had a collection of DC war comics, in which I had no interest, and neighbors had a few humor comics. One schoolmate had a brother who had a few Silver Age comics that I could glimpse when I was at my friend’s house, like Not Brand Ecchh and Brave & Bold, but I couldn’t read them. So I was really on my own, making my way in a new and exciting hobby.
And with that boring background out of the way, it’s time to take a close look at the comic that started me on this 50 year trip…