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Post by Mormel on Jan 10, 2022 5:06:12 GMT -5
I think the decade in which you grew up is a huge factor here. If you grew up in prior to the 1970s, most books were accessible to young readers. After that, the market moved more and more towards courting (first) high schoolers, (then) college-aged students, and (finally) adults. Growing up in the '90s, comics were no longer being written for my age group, so while I was into superheroes at the age of five, and finally started buying at the age of ten, it was the back issues that kept my interest far more than the new stuff. Oh, I bought, bagged, and speculated on the new stuff (it was the '90s, after all), but I wasn't actually into most of it (Harbinger being the major exception). Sort of the same for me, and also a late bloomer like Wildfire... But in my case, as a kid I only read a handful of comics and most of them were Transformers. I caught the comic collecting bug only when I was 18, and mostly focused on Bronze Age back issues and much less so contemporary superhero stuff... Though I've always remained a superhero-nut to this day.
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Post by MDG on Jan 10, 2022 9:26:59 GMT -5
I think the decade in which you grew up is a huge factor here. If you grew up in prior to the 1970s, most books were accessible to young readers...... Oh, I bought, bagged, and speculated on the new stuff (it was the '90s, after all), but I wasn't actually into most of it When some of us started collecting "comic bags" weren't even a thing. I used to buy books from dealers that were in produce bags from the supermarket.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 10, 2022 9:30:20 GMT -5
I think the decade in which you grew up is a huge factor here. If you grew up in prior to the 1970s, most books were accessible to young readers...... Oh, I bought, bagged, and speculated on the new stuff (it was the '90s, after all), but I wasn't actually into most of it When some of us started collecting "comic bags" weren't even a thing. I used to buy books from dealers that were in produce bags from the supermarket. I know a dealer who still insists that the safest way to archive your books is to stack them, alternating right side up and upside down, with no bags nor boards. Meanwhile, my best issues are cemented in 2mil mylars with preservation sheets inserted between covers. Only time will tell who's right.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jan 10, 2022 10:06:03 GMT -5
I started close after I turned 17 in 1994. I picked up a few issues from the X-Men AoA story and an issue of Spider-man 2099 and X-Men 2099 and one issue of Spiderman during the clone saga. And that got me hooked on comics from the get go. Of course starting reading the 90's when comics weren't so niche as they had been in previous decades, so they were more readily available. To start I bought comics from drug stores, gas stations, etc before I found the LCS that I then went to for the rest of the time I lived in St. Louis until I got married and we moved back closer to her parents where we are now.
But like many have said, I got more into back issues almost immediately. Within months of finding the LCS I went from a pull list of easily 3 dozen comics down to a handful. I was actually under the minimum amount of comics to have to justify a pull list. But then I was also spending probably $40-60 in back issues, I was given amnesty
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Post by Graphic Autist on Jan 10, 2022 13:44:59 GMT -5
My golden age was probably ages 12-14. It was during this time period I discovered actual comic book stores. I could finally find every current issue from DC and Marvel in one place! And they had cataloged back issues...no more digging through unorganized piles of comics at a used book store (though I would still occasionally see what they had.)
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Post by Duragizer on Jan 10, 2022 22:44:19 GMT -5
Don't know if I had an appreciable golden age. My comic collecting heyday was 1994-1999, when I was 6-12 years old. In hindsight, that was a terrible time for a kid to get into Batman/Spider-Man/Superman comics. I ended up disillusioned with mainstream superhero comics, and that disillusionment's only grown with time and perspective.
On the other hand, I look back fondly on the Simpsons comics I bought at the time; I got my money's worth out of those.
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Post by berkley on Jan 10, 2022 23:36:41 GMT -5
As it happens I wasn't following comics when I was 12: I had been a fan earlier and came back to them a year or two afterwards, but when I was 12 I was in the middle of a 3 or 4 year hiatus - it's hard to pin down the exact numbers. I think there are a few other regulars here - Rob Allen? - who went through a similar stage as young readers.
So when I was 12, I was in the odd position of feeling nostalgia for the comics I used to read only a few years earlier - but of course a few short years can feel like a lifetime when you're that age. And that feeling continued long after I came back to comics in the middle of 1975, when I was 13.
So my 14 or 15 year old self saw the late 60s and very early 70s as a kind of golden age for comics - all the more so since I had to go by memories alone. It took a long, long time before I felt the same kind of nostalgia for the 70s comics I read after my return to the medium, even though that was by far my peak period for reading and buying.
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Post by tonebone on Jan 11, 2022 13:53:23 GMT -5
I started reading comics when I was 5, about 1973... but I would count my "golden age" at around 13. That's when I really became obsessed, and started spending all my money on them. I never really "collected" them, but it was more like "accumulated" them. I only ever bought one "collectible" comic in my life, and that was New Teen Titans #1, in about 1983. It was $9. I still feel like I got ripped off. My obsession with comics has always been about the stories and the art and the histories of the people who made them. And that nagging feeling that I just have to "own it".
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jan 11, 2022 13:53:26 GMT -5
Don't know if I had an appreciable golden age. My comic collecting heyday was 1994-1999, when I was 6-12 years old. In hindsight, that was a terrible time for a kid to get into Batman/Spider-Man/Superman comics. I ended up disillusioned with mainstream superhero comics, and that disillusionment's only grown with time and perspective. On the other hand, I look back fondly on the Simpsons comics I bought at the time; I got my money's worth out of those. Holy crud! Someone in this community is actually younger than me??
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Post by tonebone on Jan 11, 2022 13:55:12 GMT -5
I think the decade in which you grew up is a huge factor here. If you grew up in prior to the 1970s, most books were accessible to young readers...... Oh, I bought, bagged, and speculated on the new stuff (it was the '90s, after all), but I wasn't actually into most of it When some of us started collecting "comic bags" weren't even a thing. I used to buy books from dealers that were in produce bags from the supermarket. I remember reading an old DC comic where someone asked the "Answer Man" (Bob Rosakis) about comic bags... and he suggested that you could use those oven bags you cook turkeys in. I always wondered if anyone tried that. I didn't. Those things were expensive (to me), too.
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Post by tonebone on Jan 11, 2022 13:59:14 GMT -5
When some of us started collecting "comic bags" weren't even a thing. I used to buy books from dealers that were in produce bags from the supermarket. I know a dealer who still insists that the safest way to archive your books is to stack them, alternating right side up and upside down, with no bags nor boards. Meanwhile, my best issues are cemented in 2mil mylars with preservation sheets inserted between covers. Only time will tell who's right. Ever read the story of the "Mile High Collection"? Imagine, in the seventies, walking into a basement where every square foot is comics stacked that way, in 3 foot high stacks with only enough room to walk between them, at least one of every comic from every month since 1936, unread. And the owner is begging you to take them away for her.
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Post by badwolf on Jan 11, 2022 14:17:18 GMT -5
When some of us started collecting "comic bags" weren't even a thing. I used to buy books from dealers that were in produce bags from the supermarket. I remember reading an old DC comic where someone asked the "Answer Man" (Bob Rosakis) about comic bags... and he suggested that you could use those oven bags you cook turkeys in. I always wondered if anyone tried that. I didn't. Those things were expensive (to me), too. I remember using freezer bags (I think that's what they were). Not the thick ziploc bags, these were quite thin. They were too big for the comic so I had to fold over the side and top.
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Post by Duragizer on Jan 12, 2022 2:02:28 GMT -5
Don't know if I had an appreciable golden age. My comic collecting heyday was 1994-1999, when I was 6-12 years old. In hindsight, that was a terrible time for a kid to get into Batman/Spider-Man/Superman comics. I ended up disillusioned with mainstream superhero comics, and that disillusionment's only grown with time and perspective. On the other hand, I look back fondly on the Simpsons comics I bought at the time; I got my money's worth out of those. Holy crud! Someone in this community is actually younger than me?? Born in '87.
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Post by Batflunkie on Jan 12, 2022 9:07:52 GMT -5
Holy crud! Someone in this community is actually younger than me?? Born in '87. '89 here On the other hand, I look back fondly on the Simpsons comics I bought at the time; I got my money's worth out of those. Same, I loved Bongo's Bart Simpson, Bartman, and Radioactive Man comics
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Post by crazyoldhermit on Jan 12, 2022 14:59:30 GMT -5
'89 here On the other hand, I look back fondly on the Simpsons comics I bought at the time; I got my money's worth out of those. Same, I loved Bongo's Bart Simpson, Bartman, and Radioactive Man comics '90 here. So far I'm the baby.
I forgot about The Simpsons! Every Saturday I would walk to the 7-11 for a Slurpee, a hot dog and a Simpsons comic.
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