First comic you ever read

[stevezodiac]

I don't remember the first comic I read (although I do remember looking at the pictures before I could read) but the comic that started my collection was TV Century 21 issue 21 back in 1965. I still have that copy but the spine is almost gone. Dalek cover. I also remember reading the word OK as ock (rhymes with dock) and though as tough.

[felneymike]

I also remember reading the word OK as ock (rhymes with dock) and though as tough.

Heh, it's OT but i remember when me and my brother were really young we read "Metropolis" as "Metro Police" in a Sonic game. We also pronounced the abbreviation "Blvd" in another game as "Bloyd"

[Digifiend]

You're talking about Metropolis Zone, the only three act level in Sonic 2 on Mega Drive.

[Kashgar]

Comics teaching you to read before you started school! I must have been a right illiterate, little numpty then! I have no recollection of even looking at a comic prior to attending school for the first time in Jan 1962.

[steelclaw]

I still can't read

[Classic Comics]

I can't be exactly sure - I did have a load of Look & Learns when I was a nipper. The first ones I remember getting every week were the Sparky and the Topper. I also read a lot of American superhero comics when I was very young. The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Tarzan, Captain America, Korak... I hoovered them. Then my mum binned them when we moved house. That's mums for ya!

[Digifiend]

What, she couldn't fit them in the removal van? I bet she kept useless junk like your outgrown clothes and toys you didn't play with any more, but binned the comics which you were still reading regularly. Which is just totally flawed logic on her part.

[Muffy]

Think it was one called 'Magic' in the mid 1970s, I don't remember much about it.

The first comic I kept though was Monster Fun issue 57 which my dad bought me when we went on holiday one summer, I must have re-read that comic 20 times over the next five years, until it was literally falling to pieces. The pin-up of Kid Kong had almost orange and brittle paper by then and the blue tack holding it on to the wall had become a new life form.

[Digifiend]

Maybe this will refresh your memory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Comi ... _magazine)

[Classic Comics]

What, she couldn't fit them in the removal van? I bet she kept useless junk like your outgrown clothes and toys you didn't play with any more, but binned the comics which you were still reading regularly. Which is just totally flawed logic on her part.

This was the 70s, when comics were somewhat sneered upon. (As indeed they still are in some unenlightened quarters). To my mum they were 'just' comics and could be replaced by more comics when we got to the new house. She never understood why I was so desolate. She just doesn't get comics. I've worked on them non-stop for 25 years and she's never looked at one I worked on. But then again she's never read any of my books or listened to any of my plays either. Maybe she just thinks I'm a rotten writer. But getting back on topic, I'd love to see some of the old Marvel and DC comics I read as a nipper. I may have a shufti on ebay to see what's out there. There's a Batman from the 70s I'd really love to track down - Bruce has retired, Dick has become Batman and (I think) Bruce's son is now Robin. The Joker's son has taken on his dad's work. I loved it as a kid and read it over and over. I have a feeling it may not be as good as my memory would have me believe but I'd love to find out.

[Lew Stringer]

Comics teaching you to read before you started school! I must have been a right illiterate, little numpty then! I have no recollection of even looking at a comic prior to attending school for the first time in Jan 1962.

Yes, my Mum used to read The Dandy to me when I was four and I soon picked up the words to read it myself because comics are such a wonderful visual form to learn to read. By the time I started school I was breezing through those Janet and John books and the teacher sent for my Mum to find out how I'd learned. When she told them it was through comics the teacher was pleased and told her to carry on buying the comics. That was a brilliant attitude for a teacher in 1964, just a few years after the anti-comics crusades of the 1950s.

That same teacher used to give us DC Comics to read if it was wet at playtime, although I must admit Metal Men and Hawkman were beyond me at that age.

Lew

[Lew Stringer]

There's a Batman from the 70s I'd really love to track down - Bruce has retired, Dick has become Batman and (I think) Bruce's son is now Robin. The Joker's son has taken on his dad's work. I loved it as a kid and read it over and over. I have a feeling it may not be as good as my memory would have me believe but I'd love to find out.

I have a vague memory of that. Was it part of those "imaginary" Super-Sons stories they did in, I think, World's Finest?

Lew

[Digifiend]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Sons

CC's recollections are not quite right. Apparently Batman was Bruce Wayne Jr, and Robin was Dick Grayson, who was more like a brother rather than a surrogate son to Batman. There was a Superman Jr as well, called Clark Kent Jr (how unoriginal!) apparently the son of Lois Lane and Clark Kent. It turns out to be a computer simulation at the Fortress of Solitude, not a dream, but the effect is the same - it's out of contuinuity.

It was indeed in World's Finest, from 1973-1976, which the final story appearing in 1980.

[philcom55]

Regarding the Future Batman and Robin team, the concept was revisited several times over the years. I suspect that CC may be thinking of the first of these from the 1960's, featuring Batman II and Robin II, as that fits his description more accurately:

(These were later reprinted in the 1970s with the third story shown above being included in Batman 254 - one of DC's '100 Page Spectaculars' )

Don't you just love Bruce Senior's expository dialogue?

- Phil Rushton

[Digifiend]

Yep, sounds like Lew was thinking of the one I found, but ClassicComics meant the 60s one and didn't know it was a reprint.

Strange, this appears twice but I only posted it once. And when I edit one, both are updated. How can that be? (thanks Phoenix4ever for the PM on this issue)