By Michael Climek

Earlier this week at The Beat there was a post about the low sales of DC’s book The Brave and The Bold. In it, The Beat mentions that the presumed DC Fan-Base and readership is in their 40’s and thus has been reading for a very long time. I initially wanted to chime in on many things. How much I love the book for example, how I think George Perez is such a fantastic artist, how anyone could find the book boring, and why oh why would anyone not like super-heroes?

However, the more I thought about my reply the longer it got, until my reply was a massive epic novel about my thoughts and history with comics as a whole and how my own life changes have shaped my comics reading habits and how my tastes and opinions on comics can be tracked by my maturity level and life position. It got lengthy.

Then I hit on something else. I’m always trying to offer Non-Hate pieces about comics books here at Foot2Mouth (aside from that ill advised indie comics rant). Though I am often critical of video games, if there’s a comic I don’t like, I just won’t buy it, and I’m not going to rant and rail at it, unlike nearly everyone else on the internets. Instead I want to provide something a little more entertaining that only focuses on things about comics that are enjoyable.

With that in mind I’d like to try to track, via as many memories and explanations as I can, my history with reading comics. Ideally this will be a reference points for others. Perhaps it will help determine if my comic buying habits and my demographics are ‘normal’ or whether I am ‘abnormal’. It will be sort of cathartic and enjoyable for me as there is nothing I love so much as reading comics and then talking about them. And frankly I get a kick out of reading history pieces in which other bloggers mention books from the 80’s or 90’s that I too remember, it’s a fun blast from the past so I’m going to provide my own. And in the future whenever my opinions or purchasing habits are scrutinized everyone will know exactly where I’m coming from.

This will get lengthy and it will be broken up into several posts, likely dependent on how much I get through in the course of an evening, or in available free time. I work full time, live in NYC (commuting takes forever), and attend Graduate School, so be aware that free time is in limited supply.

The most important and concrete part of this project is my demographic data. I think it is very important to dispel the belief that comic book readers adhere to a certain undesirable social type. Also this data can be referenced to gauge the comic book climate I grew up in, and the geographical area I grew up in which will become very important to the current comic blogsphere as the story progresses.

Gender: Male

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Age: 26 (Birthday: Late January 1982)

Residence: NYC (Brooklyn, Bensonhurst Area to be precise)

Hometown: The Central NY Area (Rome NY to be precise)

Upbringing: Middle Middle Class (Parents divorced in late 80’s)

Current Job: Market Research Manager in the Video Game Industry (middle class income)

Education: Two Bachelor’s Degree’s (Sociology & Theatre), One Minor (Creative Writing) at SUNY Oswego. Currently Attending CUNY Baruch for an MBA in Marketing.

Body Type: Average (This is important given the ‘undesirable’ stereotypes of most comics readers)

Relationship Status: Living w/ Single Other (important for same reason)

So given that I’m fairly ‘normal’ in that I don’t live with my parents, and I’m not intraverted, what on earth am I doing reading comics?

I can’t quite answer that, as actually trying to figure out why the appeal to me so would be impossible to accurately pin down. There’s a litany of reasons. But something I can explain is that comic books have been a part of my life for as far back as I can remember. And they are still here, with even more strength perhaps, today. So let’s get to it.

Regrettably I cannot remember the first time I was exposed to comics. I know that many other historians and bloggers can cite a specific issues, and moments, and stores, but I cannot. I’m barely old enough to remember the last death throes of the newsstand concept as the Direct Market took over, so comics were ‘around’ so to speak. Actually, now that I think about it, the first ‘sequential art’ I was ever exposed to may very well have been the little comics that used to come with every He-Man toy. This has just occurred to me as I write this but it makes sense. I was a HUGE He-man fan as a child. I had most of the figures, and many of their accessories, and I watched the cartoon as if my life depended on it. He-Man really clicked with me as a young lad, so one of those many tiny 8 pages comics is probably the first taste I had of sequential art.

But it’s not really a proper comic. Let’s face facts. I’m a super-hero reader. Most other people think of super heroes when they think of comics. When people describe the first comic they ever read, they are likely mentioning something with ‘capes and tights’.

I wish I could fabricate a story about the first full size comic I ever read or encountered. It would provide poignant drama and entertainment to this long and sordid tale. What I can give you instead is equally interesting. I can tell you of the first comic book I have a distinct memory of. Thus it’s the first comic book I remember reading.

Let’s get into some detective work here. My earliest memory of a comic book is a comic book that scared me, a comic that scared me so much that I threw it behind the couch, as a logical way to get rid of it, out of sight out of mind.

My memories are hazy but here is what I’ve pieced together based on logical assumption. As a very young lad I was visiting my maternal Grandparents in the small town of Albion NY. Albion is very much a peculiar town in that it has no economy or industry and it longs for the days of yore when the town was subsisted by a Heinz Ketchup factory. Being that Albion very much wishes it was still the 1950’s, Albion has long had a store that is a foreign concept to today’s consumers. Albion NY has a NEWSTAND. It still has it too as I was there over Thanksgiving. Albion NY gets its news from a place called Fischers Newsstand. Fischers is very much a time capsule. Its smoke stained walls and frightening employee’s, its old oak cabinets and peculiar lack of window dressings. This place has not changed in over 50 years, and to this day, as of Thanksgiving 2007, they still sell comics, just as they did when I was a child. Should you ever be near Albion NY you simply must go to Fischers to get an idea what life must have been like in the 1950’s and to get a feel for just what the hell a ‘Newsstand’ is.

Clearly when I was a child, I was taken down to Fischers, this is the mid to late 1980’s mind you. And I was instructed to pick out a comic book. I picked out an issue of The Incredible Hulk. I can’t say why. I’m not sure if I had a previous familiarity with The Hulk, or what, as I said this may not be the first comic I ever read, but it’s the first one I have a vivid memory of. I picked up an issue of the Hulk. This being the mid to late 1980’s the direct market had already taken hold and thus comics were being written for adults with long winded storylines in mind. I bought this issue of the Hulk, took it home to my grandmothers house, I tired to read, it scared the crap out of me, so I hid it behind the couch.

Why did it scare the crap out of me? Well I remember the Hulk was fighting a villain who ‘would not die’. He was sort of a corpse villain or a zombie, and what would happen was the Hulk would punch the bastard, he would split him entirely in half, and then the villain would re-form like nothing had happened, and would then continue to menace the Hulk. The idea of a thing that would not die, was kind of scary. Especially since I’m fairly young at this point and had not been exposed to concepts like zombies, horror films, satire, or maybe even the dividing line between works of fantasy and reality, this comic was scary. I remember it was also colored in very dark green and black tones which certainly amplified the spookiness. I immediately hid it behind the couch.

This hiding of the comic behind the couch is important. Memories work differently as you age. As a child you may remember something you did 1 or 2 years ago, but as you age it becomes very difficult to remember things you did before puberty. The brain sort of blocks it out. However, I remember this comic, not just because it was frightening, but because on the next trip to grandma’s house (or perhaps 2 trips later) out of curiosity I checked behind the couch and the comic was in fact still there. Thus as a child I encountered this specific comic book twice, which greatly amplified the memory. On a side note isn’t this story just so wholesome and refreshingly cliché? A ‘grandma’s house’ is even involved. I’m amusing myself.

The tension is getting greater now eh? But what comic was it? I’m getting to it. A few years ago as the girlfriend, Samantha, was accepting that comics are a gigantic part of my life, and she logically should know more about them, asked me what my first comic book was. And I couldn’t answer her. I envied my peers who did have an answer. I thought very hard about it, and all I could come up with was the first comic book I remember encountering. And I then related to her the story you’ve just read. I had been content to let this mystery lie. Samantha however insisted I should track down this comic and identify which issue it was, and obtain a copy.

I was skeptical at first, but soon realized, with the magic of the internet, that I could indeed track it down. I’m not sure if this is sort of a pre-req for being a comics reader, but I will state that I have a very good memory. It’s not bragging or anything, it’s just accurate. I typically shop for comics by knowing what I have and don’t have, sans list, which is quite a feat when my collection is in the tens of thousands. Just trust me, I can remember stuff. So though I hadn’t encountered this ‘behind the couch’ issue of Hulk in 20 years, I could remember a bit about it. I knew the Hulk fought a dark green Zombie type character, and I knew the cover was the Hulk fighting this character against an Orange background. That’s not super detailed but I could see the basic theme of the cover in my head, even after all these years.

So it was just a matter of detective work. The internet is truly a magical place, as this history goes on you’ll see how not having the internet back when I was a kid did indeed impact my reading habits. But with the internet I can find anything. First step was I tracked down a Hulk Fan site that listed every single Hulk cover. That was actually pretty easy. Next was guess work with dates. I was very young when I encountered this issue of Hulk, probably 4,5, or 6 years old. So I focused on Hulk covers from 1985-1989 to give some extra breathing room. Then it was only a matter of finding the one that ‘clicked’. It didn’t take long. Unquestionably the first comic I have distinct memory of is Incredible Hulk 334 from August 1987. For reference it’s written by Peter David and penciled by Todd McFarlane. Just look at that awesome orange cover with the Hulk fighting a greenish villain who ‘will not die’.

The book features the Hulk fighting a villain called ‘Half Life’ (odd foreshadowing given my love for the Half Life video games) and this villain does in fact not die. Though he only fights Hulk near the end of the book (after killing a few people) What actually happens is Hulk rips all of the villains limbs off, and leaves him in the desert, but the bastard doesn’t die. He is alive and limbless, a rotting, talking corpse as vultures circle him in the last panel. Creepy stuff.

Naturally I picked up a copy. In February 2007 at the NYC Comic Con I managed to get Stan Lee, living legend and Hulk co-creator and Peter David to sign the book. I told Peter David how much the book scared me as a kid, and after briefly flipping through it he said he could see why. It’s a great piece and I’m glad to have it. It’s the comic that started a life long fascination and appreciation for a genre that in all seriousness is a huge part of my life. And I have Hulk #334 to thank for it.

Things will move more briskly from this point forward, but now that the first comic is out of the way we can get to the more exciting and amusing tid bits. Fischer’s may come up again, and there is another newsstand to discuss before we get to my first experience with the direct market and we’ll also cover ‘the bad 90’s’. See you next time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Comics, Michael's Comics Reading History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.