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Earlier this week, I shared an artist-on-artist conversation with comic book legend Mark Waid (Kingdom Come amongst others). You can read it here. That chat inspired this week’s question. Let me explain…
If you love comic books, I expect there’s a seminal experience that defined your love of the medium. That single issue or limited series or stand-alone graphic novel that somehow ended up in your hands and, voila, your life was never the same. For me, this was Batman #404 - #407, otherwise known as Batman: Year One. Written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli, it transformed me into an obsessive Batman reader for close to a decade and ultimately led to me briefly opening my own comic book shop back in the early Nineties. I even hoped to become a comic book artist myself and eventually got the opportunity to write my own graphic novels. All because a friend shoved the trade paperback in my hands and told me to read.
So, that’s my question for you this week: What comic book made you fall in love with reading comics (and why)?
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Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow. Then Alan Moore’s work. I was in my forties before I started reading Graphic novels. I really didn’t like comics in my youth. The art bothered me.
Carl Barks' Donald Duck newsprint comic strips from BP gas stations in the late 1970s/early 1980s. I never could get all of them and they were recently reprinted by Fantagraphics, which I have been assidiously collecting!
After that, Tintin and Asterix. Then a full-on onslaught as I consumed Marvel & DC. To this day, I have been trying to find the collected edition of Starman & Superman vs Mongul from 1981. It was black and white and complete, but I can only find this in colorized single editions (which I purchased a few years ago).
Michael Dolce and I have very similar answers!! I had been given a handful of comics up until this time, but none of them clicked until i bought a copy of TMNT Adventures from Archie. I believe the issue was #13! I begged my grandmother for a subscription and subscribed to TMNT from Archie for a couple of years.
That lit the spark, but what really took it to the next level was TODD MCFARLANE'S Spider-Man #13. I missed out at the beginning of the run, but in this issue Spidey dons his black costume once again to go into the sewers of New York... And that did it. That locked me in as a diehard comics fan. It's 30 something years later and I'm still regularly reading.
Reading all the usual superhero comics in the late 70s and early 80s was all fine and dandy, although a lot of those seemed to be more out of a sense of duty to keep up with the series than anything else, but once I picked up the striking Swamp Thing issue 29, "Love & Death", off the Becker's convenience rack and took it home, things were never the same. It shook me to my core. I didn't know comics could be that like that; abstract, intense, literate; terrifying. It made everything I'd read up until that point seem like little kid stuff, and it was already halfway through a storyline I had no context for, with characters I knew nothing about!
I trekked on the subway to a downtown Toronto comic store with my entire paper route savings the very next day to not only try to find the rest of the storyline, but anything else I could find with Alan Moore's name on the cover. It made me a fan of him, and the possibilities in comics, for life.
And wow, Daredevil: Born Again was right around the corner, and Ronin, and Batman: Year One, Dark Knight Returns Watchmen, V For Vendetta, Love and Rockets...what a time to be a comic fan!
First comic i ever bought was TMNT #5 (Archie edition). First comic that made me get into Marvel was Spectacular Spider-Man #157. Favorite comic series of all time though is Stray Bullets by David Lapham
The Asterix and Tintin books did it for me. The humor, satire and adventure in those stories are replicated by the similar ones in my currently-written fiction.
It took me awhile to learn how to read comics, because I read a lot of text so I would tear through the pages only reading the speech bubbles and glancing at the imagery. I had to learn how to slow down and let the imagery and compositions guide my pacing, take time with the details.
I'd say Transmetropolitan helped the most because I enjoyed all the punk transhumanist details in the street views and backgrounds, as well as there was enough text to keep me on pages long enough to notice.
Daredevil #268! I was 14 years old…DD takes some vigilante justice out on a mobster who was abusing a dog (and doing many other bad things). The art by JR JR is still breathtaking to me and the stand alone issue tells a complete story. I have a copy framed and hanging in my office. Second place is “Golgo 13 #1: The Impossible Hit”. Sequential storytelling at its finest!
Bit late but for me it's been Star Wars comics. Without that franchise I don't know how much I would've dipped into the medium. I had some 2003 Clone Wars ones and a Jango Fett novel when I was younger, and was lucky enough to have a dad who also liked collecting so we started getting all the new canon Marvel, IDW and now Dark Horse stuff
okay so this is random but I grew up with the hippies and loved the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Mostly for Fat Freddys Cat. I obviously didn’t take them to school. Close second was Archie.
My Dad would bring us Beano, Dandy & Sparky once a week and me and my brothers would battle for our favourites, so I liked comics from before I could even read the words. But falling in love, after flirtations with super heroes, was for issue 1 of Howard the Duck. I even managed to subscribe by (parents) cheque so it came all the way to me in the UK every month. I still have the complete run (& Treasury edition). I fell in love with the cigar chomping wise quacking fowl (not to mention hairless ape Bev). Gerber & Colan created a near perfect comic with satire, puns, slapstick, action, romance and even an occasional muck monster.
I've got to give credit to Mark Waid's own The Flash (vol. 2) #153. I was getting back into comics after a some time away and picked up a bunch of random issues at my LCS. #153 was in the middle of an ongoing storyline, but it gave me enough to understand The Flash and just grabbed my brain and didn't let go. Every issue is someone's first!
Then New X-Men #114 and the whole "E is for Extinction" arc supercharged my comics love, and the rest is history (and a lot of longboxes).
A book-and-record set given as a Christmas gift turned me on to both comics AND horror. It was a WERWOLF BY NIGHT story, and Young Me was blown away by the action (a beat cop taking shots at a fleeing werewolf!) as well as the teenage angst and family drama. And by some weird twist of fate, one of the first comic books I wrote for Marvel happened to be a WEREWOLF BY NIGHT story (published in their MAX line back in the late aughts).
Years later while visiting a friend in London, he showed me a couple of TPB of Preacher and Sandman. That's when I realized there's so much more to this.
Spider-man is my favorite character and I've been reading Spidey since the late 90s, but I think the comic that changed me from a Spidey fan to a comics fan was Fables by Bill Willingham. After reading that, I went on a Vertigo reading spree and have continued to read a variety of comics since then (I started reading Fables in 2006 or 2007).
Like a huge number of British kids from my generation (pre-mainstream superheroes, pre-manga), it's the 'Asterix' books by Uderzo and Goscinny for me. C'est magnifique!! Though 'Moonshadow' by J.M. DeMatteis and Jon J. Muth danced with my very soul! So much so, I'm scared to ever read it again in case it doesn't make me feel the same.
As a kid, it was largely Star Wars comics! I loved tracing all the designs and costumes, and it helped me continue to live out my obsession with the movies (the prequel trilogy was coming out around that time).
As an adult who re-entered comics: few reading experiences -- in either comics or prose -- compare to reading Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing.
My mom read Asterix books to me before I could read for myself and I was absolutely obsessed with them. Then I didn’t encounter a lot of comics (or wasn’t interested in the ones I did encounter) until I was in my teens. My first boyfriend was super into comics and lent me so many that blew my mind. Sandman was probably the one I loved most, but there were many others. Maus, Watchmen, a couple that I no longer remember the names of but remember loving at the time. I think one was about a superhero who was dead (but not DC’s Deadman).
I think it was the first few issues of The Sandman that jolted me back into reading comics after a long hiatus but it was also Jeff Smith's Bone series that pulled me into a world of pure, unadulterated fantasy that had me both laughing and crying at the same time. Reading it in one go - if you can - gives you a chance to nuzzle into the Bone universe, you won't regret it!
I love this question! I read several comics as a kid but the one that hooked me for life was GHOST RIDER #71. (You can read more about it here if you want: https://buttondown.email/bcunningham71/archive/don-perlin-an-appreciation/)
Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow. Then Alan Moore’s work. I was in my forties before I started reading Graphic novels. I really didn’t like comics in my youth. The art bothered me.
Carl Barks' Donald Duck newsprint comic strips from BP gas stations in the late 1970s/early 1980s. I never could get all of them and they were recently reprinted by Fantagraphics, which I have been assidiously collecting!
After that, Tintin and Asterix. Then a full-on onslaught as I consumed Marvel & DC. To this day, I have been trying to find the collected edition of Starman & Superman vs Mongul from 1981. It was black and white and complete, but I can only find this in colorized single editions (which I purchased a few years ago).
I grew up reading comics so it's hard to pin it down to a single issue. Spider-Man was my guy.
That said, the first comic that ever took my breath away was A Death in the Family.
Michael Dolce and I have very similar answers!! I had been given a handful of comics up until this time, but none of them clicked until i bought a copy of TMNT Adventures from Archie. I believe the issue was #13! I begged my grandmother for a subscription and subscribed to TMNT from Archie for a couple of years.
That lit the spark, but what really took it to the next level was TODD MCFARLANE'S Spider-Man #13. I missed out at the beginning of the run, but in this issue Spidey dons his black costume once again to go into the sewers of New York... And that did it. That locked me in as a diehard comics fan. It's 30 something years later and I'm still regularly reading.
Reading all the usual superhero comics in the late 70s and early 80s was all fine and dandy, although a lot of those seemed to be more out of a sense of duty to keep up with the series than anything else, but once I picked up the striking Swamp Thing issue 29, "Love & Death", off the Becker's convenience rack and took it home, things were never the same. It shook me to my core. I didn't know comics could be that like that; abstract, intense, literate; terrifying. It made everything I'd read up until that point seem like little kid stuff, and it was already halfway through a storyline I had no context for, with characters I knew nothing about!
I trekked on the subway to a downtown Toronto comic store with my entire paper route savings the very next day to not only try to find the rest of the storyline, but anything else I could find with Alan Moore's name on the cover. It made me a fan of him, and the possibilities in comics, for life.
And wow, Daredevil: Born Again was right around the corner, and Ronin, and Batman: Year One, Dark Knight Returns Watchmen, V For Vendetta, Love and Rockets...what a time to be a comic fan!
First comic i ever bought was TMNT #5 (Archie edition). First comic that made me get into Marvel was Spectacular Spider-Man #157. Favorite comic series of all time though is Stray Bullets by David Lapham
The Asterix and Tintin books did it for me. The humor, satire and adventure in those stories are replicated by the similar ones in my currently-written fiction.
It took me awhile to learn how to read comics, because I read a lot of text so I would tear through the pages only reading the speech bubbles and glancing at the imagery. I had to learn how to slow down and let the imagery and compositions guide my pacing, take time with the details.
I'd say Transmetropolitan helped the most because I enjoyed all the punk transhumanist details in the street views and backgrounds, as well as there was enough text to keep me on pages long enough to notice.
Daredevil #268! I was 14 years old…DD takes some vigilante justice out on a mobster who was abusing a dog (and doing many other bad things). The art by JR JR is still breathtaking to me and the stand alone issue tells a complete story. I have a copy framed and hanging in my office. Second place is “Golgo 13 #1: The Impossible Hit”. Sequential storytelling at its finest!
Maus! Then, Persepolis.
All the British writers turned me on to comics
Concrete
Brian Vaughan
Basically vertigo n image comics
Bit late but for me it's been Star Wars comics. Without that franchise I don't know how much I would've dipped into the medium. I had some 2003 Clone Wars ones and a Jango Fett novel when I was younger, and was lucky enough to have a dad who also liked collecting so we started getting all the new canon Marvel, IDW and now Dark Horse stuff
Maus, a Survivor’s Tale was where it began. Watchmen was where it continued, followed by V for Vendetta. I’ve just finished and highly enjoyed Bodies.
Superman #233, “The Amazing NEW Adventures of…” Iconic Neal Adams Cover.
okay so this is random but I grew up with the hippies and loved the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Mostly for Fat Freddys Cat. I obviously didn’t take them to school. Close second was Archie.
My Dad would bring us Beano, Dandy & Sparky once a week and me and my brothers would battle for our favourites, so I liked comics from before I could even read the words. But falling in love, after flirtations with super heroes, was for issue 1 of Howard the Duck. I even managed to subscribe by (parents) cheque so it came all the way to me in the UK every month. I still have the complete run (& Treasury edition). I fell in love with the cigar chomping wise quacking fowl (not to mention hairless ape Bev). Gerber & Colan created a near perfect comic with satire, puns, slapstick, action, romance and even an occasional muck monster.
I've got to give credit to Mark Waid's own The Flash (vol. 2) #153. I was getting back into comics after a some time away and picked up a bunch of random issues at my LCS. #153 was in the middle of an ongoing storyline, but it gave me enough to understand The Flash and just grabbed my brain and didn't let go. Every issue is someone's first!
Then New X-Men #114 and the whole "E is for Extinction" arc supercharged my comics love, and the rest is history (and a lot of longboxes).
A book-and-record set given as a Christmas gift turned me on to both comics AND horror. It was a WERWOLF BY NIGHT story, and Young Me was blown away by the action (a beat cop taking shots at a fleeing werewolf!) as well as the teenage angst and family drama. And by some weird twist of fate, one of the first comic books I wrote for Marvel happened to be a WEREWOLF BY NIGHT story (published in their MAX line back in the late aughts).
When I saw this cover as kid, I knew I was hooked for life!
https://i0.wp.com/www.no-666.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/star-wars-comics-1.gif?ssl=1
Years later while visiting a friend in London, he showed me a couple of TPB of Preacher and Sandman. That's when I realized there's so much more to this.
Spider-man is my favorite character and I've been reading Spidey since the late 90s, but I think the comic that changed me from a Spidey fan to a comics fan was Fables by Bill Willingham. After reading that, I went on a Vertigo reading spree and have continued to read a variety of comics since then (I started reading Fables in 2006 or 2007).
Like a huge number of British kids from my generation (pre-mainstream superheroes, pre-manga), it's the 'Asterix' books by Uderzo and Goscinny for me. C'est magnifique!! Though 'Moonshadow' by J.M. DeMatteis and Jon J. Muth danced with my very soul! So much so, I'm scared to ever read it again in case it doesn't make me feel the same.
As a kid, it was largely Star Wars comics! I loved tracing all the designs and costumes, and it helped me continue to live out my obsession with the movies (the prequel trilogy was coming out around that time).
As an adult who re-entered comics: few reading experiences -- in either comics or prose -- compare to reading Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing.
My mom read Asterix books to me before I could read for myself and I was absolutely obsessed with them. Then I didn’t encounter a lot of comics (or wasn’t interested in the ones I did encounter) until I was in my teens. My first boyfriend was super into comics and lent me so many that blew my mind. Sandman was probably the one I loved most, but there were many others. Maus, Watchmen, a couple that I no longer remember the names of but remember loving at the time. I think one was about a superhero who was dead (but not DC’s Deadman).
The Sandman followed by Grant Morrison The Hand n Warren Ellis Fell
I think it was the first few issues of The Sandman that jolted me back into reading comics after a long hiatus but it was also Jeff Smith's Bone series that pulled me into a world of pure, unadulterated fantasy that had me both laughing and crying at the same time. Reading it in one go - if you can - gives you a chance to nuzzle into the Bone universe, you won't regret it!