i love you 365: September 2005
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=002&item=120033190301&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1
posted by LUXXXCORP at 8:54 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Thursday, September 14, 2006
LUXXXXCORP ii
LUXXXXCORP
If Not Superheroes, What? - Romance Comics?
If Not Superheroes, What? - Romance Comics
One comics form, though it enjoyed a decades-long history, became a casualty to the changing mores of the culture (in addition to the other vectors that lead comics to extinction). The perceived obsolescence of the monogamistic ideal, as viewed through the selective lens of the sexual revolutionary, rendered tales that idealized old-school approaches to pair-bonding themselves obsolescent. Sometime between the fifties, romance literature (including prose and comics) would shift from fantasies about meeting and marrying Prince Charming to fantasies about husbands who conveniently die to clear the field for the newer, younger, and more interesting Prince Charmings (see publishers like Harlequin, et al). In the process, comics fans - which, over time, increasingly comes to mean superhero comics fans - came to view romance comics with a sneer, in spite of a much more solid grounding in reality and an overall greater relevance to readers even vaguely within the gene pool. Although thoroughly out of character in this particular blurb, Ronan the Accuser hear echoes much of what a superhero comics fan might choose to blather when confronted with the likes of a romance comic. Examined as literature, however, the romance comic does not necessarily have less to offer, storytelling-wise, than, say, the superhero comic; it just averages a more plausible wardrobe all around, a few less space aliens, and sound effects less likely to rouse the children from their naps. And, as with other specimens of the other comics - the pieces that once existed before superhero comics consumed the market - the romance comic generally played a variation of one of a set of fairly reliable themes. Origins A great die-off of superheroes began with the end of World War II. The loss of military contracts to provide disposable reading matter to servicemen overseas ate into sales figures; the aging of a readership in a day when one generally considered teenagers too old for reading comics moved domestic patrons out of the market; and, of course, not all heroes had what it takes to create an enduring readership. If the superhero ailed in those days, comics creators themselves kept moving to attempt to present material that would engage readers and, therefore, move off the news stands. Sometimes existing genres rose into the vacancies created by expiring superhero material; sometimes publishers crowded out failing heroes to make way for other, theoretically more commercial material. In this era, we saw as a defining event the eviction of Green Lantern from his own title to make space for a wonder dog strip. After the end of the war, popular interest somewhat shifted from martial concerns (say, costumed heroes) to domestic ones (say, radio serials and movies dealing with romance). Radio, television, and theater consumed increasing chunks of recreation time in the decade immediately following the end of the War, and two innovative talents from the thirties and forties - Joe Simon and Jack Kirby - decided to test the waters of romance in comic book form in 1947. For its moment, the form would flower, even spawning sub-variants such as cowboy romance material and Black romance comics. And the flagship romance comic, Young Romance, would endure through over 200 issues and over 20 years, spanning more than one publisher in the decades of its existence. Conventions False confessions became an early conceit of the romance comics back in the day when the entire genre belonged to its creators, Simon and Kirby. Given the fictional device of first-person narration combined with the relentless maleness of the two creators, one can see as inevitable that a certain amount of fraud (of the kind absolved by willing suspension of belief) would originate with comics with female protagonists. Magazines with titles like True This and Real That led the way for this approach. Moralism also played a central role, as it would in a number of comics forms that predated the Code that arose to address the immorality of the form. Characters met bad ends in proportion to the bad deeds they perpetrated; blackmailers and scoundrels could expect disgrace, jail, or even death so reliably that one would assume moral laws drove the physics of comics. One may also note that, since the romance comics barely endured into the seventies, that the morality they depicted resounded with pre-sexual revolution themes. Hence a norm of hetero-monogamy prevailed. This provided the third key element: The monogamistic happy ending that stood as the Mecca all characters seemed to seek in the romance comics. In an age where Everyman seemed to view marriage as central to long-term happiness - certainly an arguable position - all tales sought, and either achieved or failed to achieve, this goal. With some combination of the three principle conventions of the form, romance comics furthermore explored tales which typically fell into categories such as Cinderella fantasies, near escapes, tragic endings, fantastic redemptions, and just deserts. Cinderella Fantasies A harsh commercial of an earlier decade featured a young girl, playing with some dolls, and babbling on about how a prince would someday take her as his wife and solve, once and for all, her material needs. This particular gem of advertising ended with the claim that the young heroine could expect to appear on the welfare rolls with a head full of such fantasies. [A rare Steranko romance story treats the recurring Cinderella theme.] While one might well invite the authors of such shock-and-naysaying material to lighten up or at least leave the pessimism at home a few days out of the year, the Cinderella Fantasy does still offer a sometimes-destructive lure to females in a variety of cultures. The fantasy tends to do its damage by training young people to expect a Prince Charming - a kind of deus ex machina but with money and big pectorals - to make everything right. While one focuses one's strategies on waiting for unlikely happenings such as the timely appearance of a Prince, one does not invest in a future made better through one's own efforts; and this applies across lines of sex, gender, or whatever folks call it these days. Preparing for the worst does more good than idling away time hoping for the best without human effort to back it up. The romance comic originated in a day where western culture offered many fewer opportunities for self-reliance for females, and quietly expired in a period that suggested new possibilities. Perhaps the perceived "corniness" of Cinderella-fantasy material helped bring the romance comics down; and perhaps such fantasy became less and less relevant. The publishers of the pure-prose bodice-ripper don't seem to think so, however. Near Escapes The near escape story enjoyed a flexible range of components, depending on the thing from which our protagonists - typically female - needed to escape. Their own pasts, simple bad luck, or the schemes of wicked rivals for a partner's affections (or of wicked contenders for their own) provided the raw material for the near escape story. Temptation frequently played a central role in stories of this sort. Partially because this helped real people to relate to fictional stories, and partially because too much strength of character can make players dishwater dull, our stalwart heroines risked falling into the gap between what they wanted, what they could have, and what they should have, a differential frequently thrown into contrast by desires for material security or simple devotion from a tenuous partner in love. However, the moral determinism of many comics - the poetic justice that could, if necessary, overturn natural law - ultimately righted wrongs brought about by the evil intent of characters in the romance comics. So, if one looks at contemporaneous material, one can see a common pattern of karmic retribution. The Comics Code Authority did not invent this morality; it just codified it as an editorial standard with the power of preemptive censorship for material that failed to comply. Tragic Endings [One in a long line of dying husbands.] On one level, romance comics dared take a more adult approach than many other forms of comics, including the earlier and later superhero comics. Free from the burdens created by combining a shared universe/continuity model with an ongoing monthly publishing schedule, the romance comic could, if the story required, kill off major players (who, we must admit, probably never appeared before and almost certainly would never appear again anyway). This gave a freedom lacking from comics forms that use editorial models that claim to allow for or even require change yet must not dispose of the intellectual properties that move the books in the first place. A widow or ex-lover could relate the details of the event which forever separated her from her beau. The five-and-ten pager, after all, allowed creators to reach for effect rather than requiring them to build on a canon of stories. If the tone writers and artists sought required the Loving Husband to die saving the world from the Hun so that his bereaved could get maudlin and reflect on an idealized version of a short yet intense marriage, they could slaughter with impunity. Fantastic Redemptions Although wickedness tended to bring characters to well-deserved bad ends, plenty of stories allowed once-wayward characters a chance to redeem themselves from a past not always fully of their own creation. Variants of the Reform School Girl Romance and the Poor Girl Transcends Her Humble Origins made for a consistent fodder of the romance comics. In general, though, these stories deal with either reformed characters - meaning protagonists with a seedy past but a fairly upright present or those who, in the present, do little worse than attempt to conceal a long-past seediness lest it wreck their futures. And they also conveyed a moralistic, and frequently unrealistic, message about the concrete and external benefits due to those who reform on an abstract and internal level. With this kind of story, the wish-fulfillment element of the romance comics shows more strongly than in many of the other versions. Just Deserts Wicked women and scandalous rakes both appeared, as a kind of ferment, in many tales of the old romance comics. Without the Serpent in Eden, after all, the story amounts to little more than two people picking fruit off trees all day and trying to invent new ways to combat the ever-mounting boredom. Someone has to make trouble or nothing might ever happen. [Misbehaving beaux and belles, as staples of the form.] As well, the Just Deserts model of romance comics story served its wish fulfillment aspect rather well. People whom others have wronged, after all, may wish to see some of the suffering bad people inflict return to them rather than fall exclusively on the shoulders of the innocent and the exploited. Typical romance-comics offenses include mate-stealing; mate-killing, to replace an older model with a newer one; concealment of an ongoing lurid or criminal double life; and a repertoire of methods for ruining the lives of married couples for the sake of attempting to have more than one deserves. The moralism of the form makes itself well-felt here. Ignore the nihilism of twentieth-century classical prose pieces like Kafka's "The Metamorphosis;" the rogue and the vampire (in the old sense of the term, used to label a woman as greedy and parasitic) either found themselves alone, or in jail, or even dead. The Fate of the Form A multi-tiered attack ultimately caused the romance comics, after a quarter of a century, to disappear from the news racks. No one of these forces killed off the form - indeed, it could resurface someday - but the combination of factors working against this genre ultimately smothered it under its cumulative weight. [A very late romance comic cover.] A changing morality made their moral emphasis appear quaint and dated (by modern standards, the emphasis on hetero-monogamy might appear positively malign); the reward of home and hearth began to seem irrelevant or even a form of bondage; across all genres, comics had suffered in the mid and late fifties from factors including growing disinterest and a censorship of prior restraint; the post-Stan Lee comics would preempt somewhat the romance theme by allowing superheroes solid romantic connections; and, finally, the superhero comic would come to dominate the aesthetic ecosystem of the form to the point of crowding out other material, regardless of genre. The Talent [A late Marvel romance comic, not long before the genre expired.] Names that one normally doesn't associate with the romance comic, since they attach to other, previous or subsequent, achievements, belong in the canon of romance comic talent, including its inventors, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Observers of the medium suggest that a number of canonical figures of fifties and sixties comics (or that got their start there) did so in the early romance comics, acquiring a different set of skills than required by the superhero stories that once propelled the medium. Names like Matt Baker, Frank Frazetta, Everett R. Kinstler, Jay Scott Pike, John Romita Senior, Leonard Starr, Alex Toth, and Wally Wood belong in this set (according to Jim Korkis in Teen Angst). Some would go on to distinguish themselves in other genres, including, but not limited to, the ubiquitous superhero form. We can add other names to this. Marie Severin, for instance, described one Marvel job she received doctoring old romance comic pages from the sixties to make the clothes more appropriate for 1970, installing details like flared trouser cuffs and pointy collars (a task of considerable tedium). A particular set of talents developed in the romance form, including skills not always acquirable in today's superhero-dominated comics market. In a romance comic, the credibility of characters and settings assumes an importance generally foreign to more fantastic genres: Anatomy that never occurs in nature, clothing that would violate the dress code of a circus, and facial expressions that fall into two categories (snarl and non-snarl) would all ruin the plausibility of a romance comic. So artists learned to bring out the nuances of emoting faces, the detail of conventional clothing, and human bodies that suggested the beautiful but not the impossible. Using Romita as an example - if an exceptional one - we can note that his assumption of the artistic role on Amazing Spider-Man saw an increasingly expressive set of characters and a definitely more beautiful female (and, for that matter, male) cast. Romita may not have worked in the wildly imaginative manner typical of Ditko on pieces like Dr. Strange stories, but he certainly brought a great deal to the books he worked on, regardless of the subject matter, and the best things he brought seemed relevant to his romance comics background. Owing to the small footprint that romance comics seems to have left on fandom - the superhero form dominates fandom in a way that leaves some of the once-diverse comics medium to the attention of scholarly historians of the subject - locating a canonical list of the artists and writers who made their careers on this material represents a problem of the very availability of the information.
If Not Superheroes, What? - Romance Comics?
If Not Superheroes, What? - Romance Comics
One comics form, though it enjoyed a decades-long history, became a casualty to the changing mores of the culture (in addition to the other vectors that lead comics to extinction). The perceived obsolescence of the monogamistic ideal, as viewed through the selective lens of the sexual revolutionary, rendered tales that idealized old-school approaches to pair-bonding themselves obsolescent. Sometime between the fifties, romance literature (including prose and comics) would shift from fantasies about meeting and marrying Prince Charming to fantasies about husbands who conveniently die to clear the field for the newer, younger, and more interesting Prince Charmings (see publishers like Harlequin, et al). In the process, comics fans - which, over time, increasingly comes to mean superhero comics fans - came to view romance comics with a sneer, in spite of a much more solid grounding in reality and an overall greater relevance to readers even vaguely within the gene pool. Although thoroughly out of character in this particular blurb, Ronan the Accuser hear echoes much of what a superhero comics fan might choose to blather when confronted with the likes of a romance comic. Examined as literature, however, the romance comic does not necessarily have less to offer, storytelling-wise, than, say, the superhero comic; it just averages a more plausible wardrobe all around, a few less space aliens, and sound effects less likely to rouse the children from their naps. And, as with other specimens of the other comics - the pieces that once existed before superhero comics consumed the market - the romance comic generally played a variation of one of a set of fairly reliable themes. Origins A great die-off of superheroes began with the end of World War II. The loss of military contracts to provide disposable reading matter to servicemen overseas ate into sales figures; the aging of a readership in a day when one generally considered teenagers too old for reading comics moved domestic patrons out of the market; and, of course, not all heroes had what it takes to create an enduring readership. If the superhero ailed in those days, comics creators themselves kept moving to attempt to present material that would engage readers and, therefore, move off the news stands. Sometimes existing genres rose into the vacancies created by expiring superhero material; sometimes publishers crowded out failing heroes to make way for other, theoretically more commercial material. In this era, we saw as a defining event the eviction of Green Lantern from his own title to make space for a wonder dog strip. After the end of the war, popular interest somewhat shifted from martial concerns (say, costumed heroes) to domestic ones (say, radio serials and movies dealing with romance). Radio, television, and theater consumed increasing chunks of recreation time in the decade immediately following the end of the War, and two innovative talents from the thirties and forties - Joe Simon and Jack Kirby - decided to test the waters of romance in comic book form in 1947. For its moment, the form would flower, even spawning sub-variants such as cowboy romance material and Black romance comics. And the flagship romance comic, Young Romance, would endure through over 200 issues and over 20 years, spanning more than one publisher in the decades of its existence. Conventions False confessions became an early conceit of the romance comics back in the day when the entire genre belonged to its creators, Simon and Kirby. Given the fictional device of first-person narration combined with the relentless maleness of the two creators, one can see as inevitable that a certain amount of fraud (of the kind absolved by willing suspension of belief) would originate with comics with female protagonists. Magazines with titles like True This and Real That led the way for this approach. Moralism also played a central role, as it would in a number of comics forms that predated the Code that arose to address the immorality of the form. Characters met bad ends in proportion to the bad deeds they perpetrated; blackmailers and scoundrels could expect disgrace, jail, or even death so reliably that one would assume moral laws drove the physics of comics. One may also note that, since the romance comics barely endured into the seventies, that the morality they depicted resounded with pre-sexual revolution themes. Hence a norm of hetero-monogamy prevailed. This provided the third key element: The monogamistic happy ending that stood as the Mecca all characters seemed to seek in the romance comics. In an age where Everyman seemed to view marriage as central to long-term happiness - certainly an arguable position - all tales sought, and either achieved or failed to achieve, this goal. With some combination of the three principle conventions of the form, romance comics furthermore explored tales which typically fell into categories such as Cinderella fantasies, near escapes, tragic endings, fantastic redemptions, and just deserts. Cinderella Fantasies A harsh commercial of an earlier decade featured a young girl, playing with some dolls, and babbling on about how a prince would someday take her as his wife and solve, once and for all, her material needs. This particular gem of advertising ended with the claim that the young heroine could expect to appear on the welfare rolls with a head full of such fantasies. [A rare Steranko romance story treats the recurring Cinderella theme.] While one might well invite the authors of such shock-and-naysaying material to lighten up or at least leave the pessimism at home a few days out of the year, the Cinderella Fantasy does still offer a sometimes-destructive lure to females in a variety of cultures. The fantasy tends to do its damage by training young people to expect a Prince Charming - a kind of deus ex machina but with money and big pectorals - to make everything right. While one focuses one's strategies on waiting for unlikely happenings such as the timely appearance of a Prince, one does not invest in a future made better through one's own efforts; and this applies across lines of sex, gender, or whatever folks call it these days. Preparing for the worst does more good than idling away time hoping for the best without human effort to back it up. The romance comic originated in a day where western culture offered many fewer opportunities for self-reliance for females, and quietly expired in a period that suggested new possibilities. Perhaps the perceived "corniness" of Cinderella-fantasy material helped bring the romance comics down; and perhaps such fantasy became less and less relevant. The publishers of the pure-prose bodice-ripper don't seem to think so, however. Near Escapes The near escape story enjoyed a flexible range of components, depending on the thing from which our protagonists - typically female - needed to escape. Their own pasts, simple bad luck, or the schemes of wicked rivals for a partner's affections (or of wicked contenders for their own) provided the raw material for the near escape story. Temptation frequently played a central role in stories of this sort. Partially because this helped real people to relate to fictional stories, and partially because too much strength of character can make players dishwater dull, our stalwart heroines risked falling into the gap between what they wanted, what they could have, and what they should have, a differential frequently thrown into contrast by desires for material security or simple devotion from a tenuous partner in love. However, the moral determinism of many comics - the poetic justice that could, if necessary, overturn natural law - ultimately righted wrongs brought about by the evil intent of characters in the romance comics. So, if one looks at contemporaneous material, one can see a common pattern of karmic retribution. The Comics Code Authority did not invent this morality; it just codified it as an editorial standard with the power of preemptive censorship for material that failed to comply. Tragic Endings [One in a long line of dying husbands.] On one level, romance comics dared take a more adult approach than many other forms of comics, including the earlier and later superhero comics. Free from the burdens created by combining a shared universe/continuity model with an ongoing monthly publishing schedule, the romance comic could, if the story required, kill off major players (who, we must admit, probably never appeared before and almost certainly would never appear again anyway). This gave a freedom lacking from comics forms that use editorial models that claim to allow for or even require change yet must not dispose of the intellectual properties that move the books in the first place. A widow or ex-lover could relate the details of the event which forever separated her from her beau. The five-and-ten pager, after all, allowed creators to reach for effect rather than requiring them to build on a canon of stories. If the tone writers and artists sought required the Loving Husband to die saving the world from the Hun so that his bereaved could get maudlin and reflect on an idealized version of a short yet intense marriage, they could slaughter with impunity. Fantastic Redemptions Although wickedness tended to bring characters to well-deserved bad ends, plenty of stories allowed once-wayward characters a chance to redeem themselves from a past not always fully of their own creation. Variants of the Reform School Girl Romance and the Poor Girl Transcends Her Humble Origins made for a consistent fodder of the romance comics. In general, though, these stories deal with either reformed characters - meaning protagonists with a seedy past but a fairly upright present or those who, in the present, do little worse than attempt to conceal a long-past seediness lest it wreck their futures. And they also conveyed a moralistic, and frequently unrealistic, message about the concrete and external benefits due to those who reform on an abstract and internal level. With this kind of story, the wish-fulfillment element of the romance comics shows more strongly than in many of the other versions. Just Deserts Wicked women and scandalous rakes both appeared, as a kind of ferment, in many tales of the old romance comics. Without the Serpent in Eden, after all, the story amounts to little more than two people picking fruit off trees all day and trying to invent new ways to combat the ever-mounting boredom. Someone has to make trouble or nothing might ever happen. [Misbehaving beaux and belles, as staples of the form.] As well, the Just Deserts model of romance comics story served its wish fulfillment aspect rather well. People whom others have wronged, after all, may wish to see some of the suffering bad people inflict return to them rather than fall exclusively on the shoulders of the innocent and the exploited. Typical romance-comics offenses include mate-stealing; mate-killing, to replace an older model with a newer one; concealment of an ongoing lurid or criminal double life; and a repertoire of methods for ruining the lives of married couples for the sake of attempting to have more than one deserves. The moralism of the form makes itself well-felt here. Ignore the nihilism of twentieth-century classical prose pieces like Kafka's "The Metamorphosis;" the rogue and the vampire (in the old sense of the term, used to label a woman as greedy and parasitic) either found themselves alone, or in jail, or even dead. The Fate of the Form A multi-tiered attack ultimately caused the romance comics, after a quarter of a century, to disappear from the news racks. No one of these forces killed off the form - indeed, it could resurface someday - but the combination of factors working against this genre ultimately smothered it under its cumulative weight. [A very late romance comic cover.] A changing morality made their moral emphasis appear quaint and dated (by modern standards, the emphasis on hetero-monogamy might appear positively malign); the reward of home and hearth began to seem irrelevant or even a form of bondage; across all genres, comics had suffered in the mid and late fifties from factors including growing disinterest and a censorship of prior restraint; the post-Stan Lee comics would preempt somewhat the romance theme by allowing superheroes solid romantic connections; and, finally, the superhero comic would come to dominate the aesthetic ecosystem of the form to the point of crowding out other material, regardless of genre. The Talent [A late Marvel romance comic, not long before the genre expired.] Names that one normally doesn't associate with the romance comic, since they attach to other, previous or subsequent, achievements, belong in the canon of romance comic talent, including its inventors, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Observers of the medium suggest that a number of canonical figures of fifties and sixties comics (or that got their start there) did so in the early romance comics, acquiring a different set of skills than required by the superhero stories that once propelled the medium. Names like Matt Baker, Frank Frazetta, Everett R. Kinstler, Jay Scott Pike, John Romita Senior, Leonard Starr, Alex Toth, and Wally Wood belong in this set (according to Jim Korkis in Teen Angst). Some would go on to distinguish themselves in other genres, including, but not limited to, the ubiquitous superhero form. We can add other names to this. Marie Severin, for instance, described one Marvel job she received doctoring old romance comic pages from the sixties to make the clothes more appropriate for 1970, installing details like flared trouser cuffs and pointy collars (a task of considerable tedium). A particular set of talents developed in the romance form, including skills not always acquirable in today's superhero-dominated comics market. In a romance comic, the credibility of characters and settings assumes an importance generally foreign to more fantastic genres: Anatomy that never occurs in nature, clothing that would violate the dress code of a circus, and facial expressions that fall into two categories (snarl and non-snarl) would all ruin the plausibility of a romance comic. So artists learned to bring out the nuances of emoting faces, the detail of conventional clothing, and human bodies that suggested the beautiful but not the impossible. Using Romita as an example - if an exceptional one - we can note that his assumption of the artistic role on Amazing Spider-Man saw an increasingly expressive set of characters and a definitely more beautiful female (and, for that matter, male) cast. Romita may not have worked in the wildly imaginative manner typical of Ditko on pieces like Dr. Strange stories, but he certainly brought a great deal to the books he worked on, regardless of the subject matter, and the best things he brought seemed relevant to his romance comics background. Owing to the small footprint that romance comics seems to have left on fandom - the superhero form dominates fandom in a way that leaves some of the once-diverse comics medium to the attention of scholarly historians of the subject - locating a canonical list of the artists and writers who made their careers on this material represents a problem of the very availability of the information.
posted by LUXXXCORP at 11:37 AM
0 comments
I remember
I remember
AFX and Tyco race sessions at my neighbors house. And the Hobby Fair Store that sold all the parts
Penny candy, spinner racks and riding my bike to The Ben Franklin Store with a dollar thinking I had all I ever needed.
Thinking because I read Wizard Magazines "Top Ten Book List" in the early 90's I was going to get rich.
Wanting a B.B. Gun and never getting one. But shooting all my friends guns till the cows came home.
Reading comic books in the backyard under a tree with my dog Sox everyday after school.
T.V's that had knobs to change the channel and volume.
Watching whatever was on TV because it was a battle of wills to see who would get up to flip through the 5 channels, again.
Wearing Batman Gloves my mom made me and running around the house yelling"MAN!!!' because I was to young to say "Batman".
Thinking Heavy Metal was the coolest Cartoon I had seen since Wizards.
Going to see the first Superman movie the first day it came out with my moms boyfriend because he knew I would like it. And thinking afterwards what a great time I had.
Not wanting to swim in the indoor pool after seeing the movie Jaws because I could not see the bottom, even though I knew it was impossible for a shark to be in the water.
When cars had no seatbelts, and we rode on the console between the seats to get a better view. And not even our parents seemed concerned about it.
Going to the drive-in and always falling asleep in the Station Wagon before the third movie ever started.
Thinking Football cards were kewl enough to cut them up and make a special football card covered cigar box out of them.(with my best cards)
Shaking my head after I came to this place and re thinking the condition of my entire collection once I really knew how to grade what I had.
Wondering when my FOOM membership kit would come in the mail, it seemed like it took forever(actually only 2 weeks )
Trading comic books for Dynamite magazine.
Getting spanked by my father with my own belt 2 times once for stealing candy, another for stealing comics..
Being paddled 5 wacks by the principle of our elementary school for starting a food fight.( the paddle had holes in it as I recall) And not even my parents thought it was a big deal back then.
Always watching, and always being dissapointed in the "Electric Companies " Spiderman Show.
Being in love with The Isis TV show.
Well, that is enough for now...Show your age and post some random memories or thoughts of days gone by. Be they from 1 day ago, or 50 years ago.
--------------
Leaving a camp ground when I was 8 years old, leaving my entire collection behind on a picnic table, and having my father telling me he wasn't going to turn the trailer around "for a pile of comics".
I still think of that, and wonder what kind of heaven the kid that found them though he was in.
It wasn't all bad news, as I worked that "guilt angle" into far more comics than I ever lost, and I swear to this day, each time I mention it, my father still grabs reflexively for his wallet.
That story brought a tear to my eye!
No greater connection can a family bond have, than through well meaningful, and grounded guilt.
And it was my primary weapon of choice being the youngest in the family...everything else fell on deaf ears, or got you the back of someone's hand.
----------
...Waiting the endless months for the box from Battle Creek, Michigan to arrive.
...Changing my 25 cent weekly allowance to 2 dimes and 5 pennies so I could buy 2 comics (from the comic vending machine ) and a piece of gum
...When X-Men went from a reprint book to all new stories
...Seeing my first serious back issue (Avengers #1) and being told it had cost a whole $9.
...Going to my first comic con: the first Chicago ComiCon in the Playboy Tower 1976
...Freakies cereal
...Go Go Gophers
...Selling my hand drawn pictures of comic book characters on the street outside my apartment in Chicago when I was 5 years old
...and being amazed that people would give me money and not even take a picture
GI Joes were the coolest toys a boy could have, but Transformers were a close second
Going from Nitendo to the Sega Genesis and thinking "WHOA! AWESOME GRAPHICS!"
Pushing the power button on a computer with no cd-rom, waiting for it to boot into DOS to start windows, then waiting fifteen minutes for everything to start up and stop making the processing noise...then remarking "that was pretty fast"
When Raceway Park was still standing just outside the southern city limits of Chicago and watching them fill the track with 50+ beater cars and driving until one was left.
Starting a vacation drive with an empty tank of gas, watching my Dad pull into the gas station and hand the attendant a five to fill the tank up.
Playing tee ball and having the coach tell us that we actually lost (or won) instead of tie games or we don't keep score.
The decline of Halloween, from being able to walk around at eight years old unsupervised, to having adults come with, to running around with shaving cream, to not going out after dark to avoid being jumped, to now having designated trick-or-treat times and still having 0 trick-or-treaters for the past 2 years.
I think about this all the time. My son Does not get to enjoy what I enjoyed when I was a child. We used to be able to walk the neighborhood at night as long as we did not go too far. All the neighbors looked out for us and made sure we were all OK. Now I wouldnt let my son out of the house without me.Trick or Treat is now dressing up in a costume and visiting the family friends and the 3-4 nieghbors we can trust, Damnn shame.
...Going to my first comic con: the first Chicago ComiCon in the Playboy Tower 1976
________________________________________
Now that I'm jealous about, as I kept reading about all those mid- to late-70's Comic Cons in NY, with all the celebs and old timers, but there was never anything in Canada of that scope.. at least not that I can remember.
I couldn't imagine taking a subway trip downtown to go to an actual Comic Con in the 70's - it fairly boggles the mind. I probably would have keeled over if I met Stan Lee.
Legos being the greatest toys, with Transformers a close second
"Sega do what Nintendon't!" Blast processing, and Super FX
Dressing up as Exar Kun (Star Wars Tales of the Jedi!) for Halloween and being mistaken for a Native American on the warpath
Being AMAZED by those freaky cool hologram covers!
Debating for hours and finally purchasing Uncanny X-Men 304 for $7 - the most money ever spent on a comic - and loving every panel of the thing. Best purchase ever!
Buying Uncanny X-Men 304 for $1 a couple weeks ago at a convention
Trading X-Men #1 covers (I trust you can guess which X-Men #1 I'm talking about... )
Trading a bag of puppy chow for a promised X-Men 30... it never came... my first taste of dealer rapage
Spending $20 on four packs of Fleer Ultra Marvel cards and feelings so stupid about spending that much on cards that I quit comics for a good dozen years
-Reminiscing Bob
~walking to the park with my older brothers on a nice summer day to swim in the pond.
~going to the arcade to play in the asteroids tournament and winning for the first time. ( $20 grand prize)
~going to the dime store and stocking up on candy to sell at school the next day for a profit to help fund my comics.
~noticing how those chicks in the comic books had ahhhh nice head lights and became a female ananotmy artist. ( I would make Stan Lee blush back in the day)
~getting my first kiss and Ze didn't even use his tongue. ( ok just checking to see if anyone was really reading these)
~ When your first TV crush is between She-Ra or Jem & The Holograms
~ Playing Asteroids on the Atari 2600 was great
~ Almost as great as making pictures with a lite-brite
~ From 6-6:30pm spent watching Inspector Gadget and then 6:30-7pm spent playing Bump And Jump on the Colecovision before bedtime
~ When Megatron was the hardest transformer to find in Eastern Canada
~ Learning to play pool at the old Boys & Girls Club.
~ Cub Scouts and Cub Camp (Dib Dib Dib)
~ When the GT Snowracer was the fastest thing on the hill.
~ Making banners on the Commodore 64 in elementry school
~ Jamming to Fresh Princes "Parents Just Don't Understand"
~ ALF
~ Owning my first red, multi-zipper Michael Jackson leather jacket and studded glove.
~ Finding out I was allergic to shellfish at the fair and projectile vomiting from the top of the ferris wheel and being rushed to the hospital and getting scarlet fever
~ Meeting Wayne Gretzky in same hospital
~ Playing "dinkies" and "marbles" in the dirt
~ Falling into the swamp for the very first time.
~ Why Robotech was so damn awesome and wanting a "Minmei" tape
~ Chip & Pepper t-shirts
~ Hypercolor t-shirts
- Finding that fort in the woods with a stack of Playboys and Penthouses.
-Johnny Quest and Space Ghost
-Deploying legions of army men in the back yard
-riding bikes with your friends all day only comig home to eat
-watching Apollo 11 lift off in the school library and wondering why they didn't let us see it land
- a dollar from dad...getting 2 comics, a candy bar and a coke and getting change back!
-watching Godzilla movies on saturday afternoon at the Plaza Theatre
-and summers that never seemed to end
-oh, and a quarter getting you 3 plays on a pinball machine
Setting the half acre back yard on fire when I knocked over the burn barrel.
Caught more hell because the fire department had to cut mom's
closeline down to get the fire engine around the garage.
Collecting coke bottles around town to stop by a relative's drugstore
so that I could buy the latest comic book arrivals, then discovering
that they had gone up to 12 cents from 10 !!!
Bonding with my favorite Uncle Buddy, over comic books, IBC rootbeer,
giant hamburgers from the Mustang Drive-in, and then having to
get on a train to go home, and having him give me a grocery bag
full of goldenage DC and Fawcett to occupy my time on the ride home.
Falling in love with Sandy Lewis at the ripe old age of 7.
Falling in love with Becky LeFevre at and even riper age of 8.
Falling in love with Debbie Reed at 13.
Getting the toy robot from the movie Forbidden Planet for Christmas.
My first homerun in Little League.
Falling in love with my wife Bobbie at 17.
• Listening to Jean Shepard on WOR-AM at night, with a transistor radio under my pillow.
• Coming home from school and watching "Dark Shadows" every day.
• Waxing my uncle's car for about $3.00 and being able to go out and by all the new Marvels that hit the stands that week.
• Sitting in the Polo Grounds in 1962 watching the Mets.
• Standing on on the ledge of a giant planter in the middle of Park Avenue and taking a picture of the Apollo astronauts in their limo as they were driven by in 1969.
• Sitting in a classroom in my senior year of high school and listening to Frank McCourt (of Angela's Ashes fame) discuss James Joyce with us no-good Stuyvesant students.
• Being called into the chapel of the Lutheran School in the Bronx (that Harvey Lee Oswald briefly attended) and being told of JFK's assasination.
• Hearing the news of MLK and RFK's assasinations when I was in the 8th grade in 1968.
• Attending my first comic con in 1968 and getting Gil Kane and Steranko's autographs. (Statler Hilton - Phil Seuling)
• Attending a Led Zeppelin concert at MSG in 1973.
• Watching Soupy Sales, Wonderama and the Sandy Becker show on local NYC TV.
Penny Baseball - using my baseball cards to play a mock game by rolling a penny across the hardwood floor and smacking it with the actual cards.(yep, they were those black bordered cards too)
My 1st Halloween where the treat bag was nothing but a paper grocery store bag that was as tall as me. After the night was over I found that I had lost most of the candy as I had made a hole in the bag from dragging it.
Playing cowboys and indians with a claw hammer as the tomahawk....which my brother accidentally used on my head once(the claw!!!). As the blood dripped and clotted into my mass of wild hair, I told my mom..."agh, my brains are coming out!!!)
Thinking that Big Boy comics from the restaurant were sooooo cool.
Attending my 1st Tennesse Vols game and coming to understand the importance of the color ORANGE.
Applesauce Fritters...yum
Buying my 1st comics from the Barber Shop/Cigar Store.....and later finally being allowed to buy the risque Warren Magazines from the same shop in the 70s.
Getting $10 from my dad on Saturdays and riding my bike to town, alone. That $10 would buy comics, baseball cards, snacks, and an occasional LP. Of course later on I came to understand "why" dad wanted me out of the house...to which it started costing him $20(my 1st pimp job).
Friends who I haven't seen in over 30 years.
The 1st schoolyard fight that I won....and the 1st fight that I lost too.
Sports team-mates with nicknames like...Piddly, Spunky, Dog, Tweet, Brazz
Ordering the set of 100s of army men from that ad in a comic book. After about 6 months of waiting I think a box arrived and included maybe six figures.
Having to go outside to turn the TV Antenna, which was extra hard after having watched the original "Night of the Living Dead" movie...we lived near a graveyard back then.
• Eating whatever the hell I wanted and not worrying about getting fat(ter).
• Clackers
• Playing suicide frisbee with my brother because he was the only one with the balls to do so.
• Hiding my mad magazines in a wall near the Pequabuck river....don't ask why.
• Hot Wheels
• My 1st piece of original art...the cover to Neutro #1.
• Finding comics in the dump every summer at our vacation cottage.
Oh yeah....and Elvira on Friday nights....
Quit code turkey from buying comics when the cover price leapt from 30c to 35c. This lasted about 2 whole months.
Listening to Tony Orlando & Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon around the old oak tree" over & over again on AM radio as I was reading my coverless comics.
Went to my 1st San Diego Comic-con & watched Chuck back up his 18 wheeler full of comics. They had to give him a separate side room to display all his long boxes of Mile High 2s. Saw a long box full of Spect Spidey mag # 2 and Marvel Super-heroes 1 shot.
Shaking hands with Marvel's marketing genius Carol Kalish & drooling when she told me about her Timely original art. May she RIP.
Sharing a piece of cake w/ Geppi as he was meeting all his retailers in Canada at the local Diamond distribution warehouse. He even shook the hand of lackeys like myself.
... going to my Godmother's cottage on Lake Erie. Treking with her son to the general store where they never took old books off the spinner racks (they had THREE racks!) On these racks we could find new comics and some as old as 1/2 a year. Mom would load us up with money and we would buy a tonne of comics. That first day at the cottage was all about reading those comics.
... leaving my comics out on the porch of our new house cause I got distracted by the new friend I made next door. Mom was probably glad I wasn't underfoot while they unloaded the moving van. It rained that night. Lost most of the collection of 1960's comics my Uncle gave to me.
... the day our milkman made his last delivery.
... loading up my 5.25" floppy boot diskette into drive A: and my 5.25" floppy Rogue game diskette into drive B: and wasting an hour of College lab time. Moving that stupid @ symbol all over the amber screen killing all the K's and B's I could find.
... the very moment when each of my four daughters entered this world.
Lick-A-Maid, ( I wonder if anyone here even knows what this is.)
1963-1970, watching my across-the-street-neighbor pull up in his NEW Corvett-Sting-Ray( ' 63 was theSplit-Tear-Drop.)
Fire-Stick, Grape, Watermellon, Cherry, and Sour-Apple.
GTO, Hemi-Cuga, "Cut-A-Way-Headders", Mag-Wheels, Road-Runner, "Low-Ridders& High-Boy's".
Mon-Fri., 3:17pm, Winchell's hot from the rack two Sugar-Raised-Dough-Nut's, Grape Nigh-High.
Baseball, Kickball, Dodgeball, Over-The-Line, Touch Football, Freeze-Tag, Hid-N-Seek,Water-Balloon Fight's.
Sat. $2.00=Moive, Double Feature, 3 Looney Tune Cartoon's, 5 Kraft Carmel Candy's ( 3 Chocolate, 2 Vanilla),
Med. Coke, Lrg. "Real" Buttered PopCorn, and change for a Comicbook......
Mattell Fanner-Fifty with "Shoot-M-Shells" & "Stick -M-Caps", Elgin Toy Slot Cars, Taking a Golf-Ball apart.
Amarcord . . .
-Spending every penny I could get my hands on . . . on slot cars
-Sending letters to STP and Valvoline requesting decals for my slot car box
-Tommy James and the Shondells singing "Hanky Panky" . . .
-Being sent home early from school on November 22, 1963
-Always wanting to be Paul, but ending up being John
Reading Howard the Duck and thinking "what's the bid deal with this junk"?
Having to buy the glass bottle as well as the coke inside.(youngsters won't understand that one)
Quarter Boxes back in the late 70's early 80's
Micronauts being cool.
Commercials where people would walk around with open containers of peanut butter and bump into people eating chocolate bars.
Waiting for my dad to come home from work with the latest batch of Harvey's and Western titles for my sister and I.
Reading and re-reading my dad's copy or Jules Feiffer's 'The Great Comic Book Heroes" and being amazed at this world my dad grew up with.
The smell of every new pack of Sizzlers I received every Christmas, and the sound they made as they sped around my extended "Fat Tracks".
Getting sent to the principal's office for listening to the 1973 World Series during school (the Mets were screwed by horrendous umping).
Quisp or Quake.
My dad holding me up so I could look over the railing of the Empire State Bldg's observation deck-freaked me out.
Watching the 1st moon landing on our "good" B&W set.
Taking care of our vegetable garden, then having a catch with my father pretty much every night from May-Oct.
Betting my best friend my whole collection he couldn't sink a basket from the end of my driveway--[embarrassing lack of self control] did it underhand. I welched.
My grandmother's home-made "macaroni" and sauce, which was my designated birthday meal for 14 years.
Twice a year anxiously awaiting "MONSTER WEEK" on WABC's 4:30 movie.
Watching Abott and Costello flics on WPIX in NY every Sun. morning for 20 years after Wonderama on WNEW.
The smell of the back of my father's Plymouth station wagon while we slept during night trips to PA to see my grandparents.
My grandmother buying me Spidey 114 and Thor KSA 3 off the stands to humor me while she went to church on weekdays.
Life's been very good.
-Getting up Sat morning and watching the X-men cartoon on Fox.
-Gameboys so big they wouldn't fit in your pocket with screens so small you could hardly see.
-Being a Kid when piles of X-Men #1 (1990's) hit the stands
-Having 5 times as many comic shops as there are today.(I remember hitting about 7 in one day)
-Buying packs of marvel trading cards like I was a chain smoker
-And one of my favorites: puting a load of quarters through the X-Men arcade machine at the local arcade.
I remember now. I remember how it started. I can't remember yesterday. I just remember doing what they told me...told me...told me...
Remember, Remember the fifth of November.
Going to Yankee games and it was not about the money
Going to the beach parking lot on Friday Nights for Keg Partys
Getting rejected by all the hot woman
Talking with my Grandfather about baseball
Wanting to be an adult ( Now I want to be a kid again)
Going upstate NY with my Grandparents
Waiting all year for Christmas day
Getting rejected by ALL woman with a pulse
Getting my first credit card
Getting my first guitar
Hearing my first Metallica album (Ride the lightning)
I remember getting a Creepy Crawlers toy set for Christmas when I was a kid, back then I thought it was the greatest thing in the world or at least that was until the collecting addiction began with Wacky Packages stickers back in the early 70's!
I also remember being in love with Farrah Fawcett!!!!!
by Thomas Hood:
I Remember, I Remember
I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!
I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The vi'lets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!
I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heav'n
Than when I was a boy.
I remember my mother, a young widow,with 3 children 1, 3 and 4 years old. (I was the 1 year old) She would make do without material things, made sure we all had enough to eat even though she may not have had enough. She never even dated a man again, she knew she already had her one true love.
Before there was a "Field of Dreams" going to Fenway Park for the first time in 1968 with my Grandfather and my Uncle. Dave Morehead on the mound and Hawk Harrelson hit one out to dead center! They lost but I was still happy!
Collecting bottles from the garbage to add to my 25cent allowance so I could buy every "funny" book I could.
Going to Nantucket on the old Steamship and picking up the annuals. One time, it was JIM Annual #1 another time Avengers Annual #1!
Playing war games with my brother and my cousin. Straping a bunch of cans together, to make believe we were blowing up a Nazi Factory!
Building Aurora Models, Racing Aurora HO Cars!
Snow that seemed so high that it felt like it was over your head,,,years later looking at the pictures and the snow was up to the roof of our old 57 Chevy!
Sipping the foam off of my Grandfather's beer!
Watching Marvel Super-Heroes cartoons every afternoon. (or what marvel called cartoons back then)
Drinking Goofy-Grape!
Walking to the beach every day with my brother and sister. On Sundays my grandfather would join us with his bathing suit out of the 1920s.
Fishing everywhere from RI to Cape Cod.
Watching Vic Morrow in Combat!
Sunday cartoons stunk but you had to love Davey and Goliath!
Life was good,,,,Life is still Good!!!
I remember...
When Horny Toads roamed the Earth.
A Bookmobile that stopped on our street...just like the Ice Cream man, except you got books!
...sacking all those empty coke bottles from the wire rack inside the Laundrymat, then running across the street to the Grocery where they pay kids who bring them in. Doing a community service, getting money for comics.
Deciding one Summer day to ride my bike all the way to the Library, never been before...pulling open that big door... the blast of cold air and the smell of books hitting my face the same instant...seeing thousands of books... about everything...
Having real canteens, backpacks, and folding shovels from the Army/Navy store...equipment needed for digging foxholes in vacant lots, or roaming through storm drains all day, or exploring creepy vacant (haunted) houses.
Riding our bikes to the elementary school, closed for the Summer, and seeing an open door.
Belly crawling and shadow-sneaking past The Man running a floorbuffer...to the cafeteria...and finding boxes of Ice Cream Sandwiches in the freezer. Getting those boxes out...riding down to the creek, where we tried to eat 'em all before they melted. A losing battle.
Being fifteen and summer-bored, both my parents at work. Two older buddies drive up, bragging...they're headed to Mexico. Hang on...run in the house, write a short note...Gone on vacation, back in a week...hop in their car...road trip.
Mexico, huh? I have no clue. Nuevo Laredo, they explain, nothin' but bars, boys town, where every girl you see is a...
Racing home from school to watch Marvel Superheroes
Getting $$$ to buy comics for my birthday
Getting $$$ to buy AFX cars and track for christmas.
Watching the Steelers win 4 superbowls and thinking what's the big deal
Going to Three Rivers and watching Clemente and Stargell play ball.
Hearing that Clemente was killed when his plane went down
Staying up to watch Chiller Theater Saturday nights with Chilly Billy Cardille
chiller theater a burg thing
Buying X-Men #94 at a newsstand in San Diego's airport.
Buying Captain America #149, the first Marvel comic I ever bought.
My father teaching me to read using Gold Key Tarzans and Turoks.
Cutting the Marvel Value Stamp out of my Hulk 181.
remember first getting into American comics on holiday in Torquay (or was it Bournemouth?) in 1973. After squandering any left-over cash on pinball I'd go back to where we were staying and read and reread the pile of DCs I'd bought whilst snacking on crisps, chocolates and penny chews. The comics then were, of course, on spinner racks in seafront newsagents that had that intoxicating smell of old newsprint. I was one happy camper on those trips.....
Shuffling off every second weekend on scouts trip, doing everything from camping, kayaking, rock climbing, and general mountain walking. Come rain, or sunshine, but I think rain won out more times than not. But that made it bliss!
Thinking Hot wheels bubble gum packets with the cards thrown in were the best thing going!
Watching the Goodies as the solid staple tv viewing for the first decade of my life, and regarding it as heaven on earth, nothing brought greater joy, and amusement.
Exploring the local creeks and farmland, hunting for eel's avoiding bulls, shooting random innocent wildlife and feeling bad about it. Get buried up the waist in clay sink pit's as the farm land was developed. Nothing better than something that took you 30 seconds to get into, and 15 minutes to get out of.
Breaking my arm one year right before Christmas summer holidays, and then concluding that wrapping it a plastic bag would suffice for diving of the rocks at the local beach. Plaster and salt water reeks...for weeks, and weeks...
I remember getting a Creepy Crawlers toy set for Christmas when I was a kid, back then I thought it was the greatest thing in the world
________________________________________
I had one of those, too. I remember burning the hell out of my hand with it (remember when toys were dangerous??) and not telling my parents 'cause I didn't want them to take it away from me.
Reading Avengers (#141 sticks in my head) in the treehouse and busting wacky packs and creature feature cards with buddies
When all you needed was your imagination to stay busy for the whole day.
When a broom handle and a ball made all of us feel like major league players.
Yelling "Car" and moving our hockey nets everytime a car came down the road (which in NY was every 30 seconds).
The never ending game of monopoly we would play every summer.
Baseball cards in the wheel of our bikes to make that really cool noise.
Bicycle generators that kept that 2.5 watt light burning on your bike that when it was engaged made it feel like you were riding uphill pulling your Dad's station wagon.
Driving to Florida for vacation. (Hated the drive so much I later moved there).
Buying comics for less than cover price.
When $1 got you two slices of pizza and a soda.
Pong, and my father cursing trying to get it to work.
Waiting for the tubes in the back of the TV set to warm up so we could watch our Saturday morning cartoons.
When kids were allowed to be kids.
H.R. Puffinstuff, Land of The Lost and Sigmund and The Sea Monsters.
When cars did not have seat belts.
The first time the Concord plane landed at JFK
Watching them build The World Trade Center
Also remember when I viewed someone 43 with 2 kids as old.
Remember, Remember the fifth of November.
________________________________________
Ah, a John Lennon quote. Great freakin' album with awesome drumming by Ringo. It's hard to believe that whole album was made with 3 people playing...!!!
Don't forget Billy Preston.
and no Yoko!
Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
'Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God's providence he was catch'd,
With a dark lantern and burning match
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, let the bells ring
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!
- The 12 inch G.I. Joes with the fuzzy hair
- The TRS 80 Color Computer.
- Going to school with no air conditioning on hot summer days
- Having to go to school on Saturdays due to missed snow days
- Thinking the car from Knight Rider would always be cool
- Bulletman!
Paying .50 for a Saturday matinee (that included cartoons) - that theatre is still standing in my hometown, but in a woeful state of disrepair.
Six Million Dollar Man
Having the biggest crush on Marie Osmond (You couldn't pry me away from the TV on Friday nights at 8pm channel 4 ABC
Watching the moon landing with my Dad in the basement of our NJ home on a B & W TV.
Tape Drives - ugh.
Computer games that were just text and then simple pixels, but MAN! they were SO cool!
Feeling the ENTIRE theatre shake while watching JAWS when the head popped out of the boat.
Seeing Heavy Metal for the first time and thinking it the COOLEST cartoon ever! (Seconded)
Saturday morning cartoons (Superfriends, Hong Kong Phooey, Bugs, Kroft shows, etc) - I can't believe how much BETTER cartoons were back then.
Star Blazers
I remember sitting around an old shed (our 'clubhouse') watching Don Kirschner's Rock Concert and THROWING around a copy of Hulk 181...it was ruined by the end of the night, but we had fun listening to 70s music and doing what kids do with comics
-Building a HUGE battle scene with my GI Joes vs. Transformers around the dirt pile at my parent's house.
-Gem and the Holograms. So what, I watched it along with Joe and Transformers!
-Ninjas were really cool and everyone had a make-shift bo staff.
-Watching Cheers and Nightcourt with my parents.
-Scrappy-do was lame, but we still watched it anyways.
-"Luke, I am your father." The REAL Trilogy
-Mongoose bikes
-Cinemax, Friday After Dark softcore porn. (Like you guys never snuck down in the middle of the night.)
Hah! How about watching late night HBO without the descrambler ("I think that is a boob...")
- Watching the space shuttle Columbia, take off in my 5th grade class room in 1981
- Watching Challenger fall out of the sky five years later
- Leaving the house at 8:00 am just about every Saturday morning to ride bikes all day with my friends. I had to be home by the time the street lights came on.
- my "big wheel" I got when I was 9, it only lasted a day, but what a great day
- the way I felt after my firt kiss in the 5th grade, I've never been able to recreate that feeling in the 30 years sence
- when Elvis died thinking "What's the big deal? He's not that great"
- the day my bike was stolen from in front of the 7-11, that was the end of the world
- getting a new bike the following week and thinking I'd rather have my old one
- pong
...
...Changing my 25 cent weekly allowance to 2 dimes and 5 pennies so I could buy 2 comics (from the comic vending machine )
________________________________________
I bought literally hundreds of comics this way. From the same store that I bought my football, baseball and non-sport cards from(Munsters, Batman, Addams Family, Man From Uncle....) and Aurora Model Kits - Snyders Drug store. The same place that you could get a great chocolate malt with your burger and fries.
Motorific Torture Tracks - The Alcan Highway and Dearborn Test Track.
Summer 1985
Goonies
Explorers
Back to the Future
Being 11 and really struggling with wanting the new Star Wars toys, and finally saying to H with it and buying R2 pop up sabre and Endor Luke (still have them and really wish I had also got Carbonite Han and Luke Stormie)
Buying a bag of popcorn from a vending machine at our local pool for 10 cents.
A horse stepping on my foot, and not moving.
The stupid Blubird logo on our School bus seats, and how much I hated that logo.
My next door neighbor coming over and watching the twin towers fall, to this day we speak of it.
Wondering why I was never alowed to stay up and watch Sammy Terry.
Putting a kids hand in a bowl of water and freaking out when he actually wet his sleeping bag.
Playing Ghosts in the Graveyard till it was past dark. And our parents SCREAMING at us to come home.
Burning my arm on a black light bulb and then hiding the burn with a sweatband till it got so infected. To this day have the scar on my arm.
And I too also loved Creepy Crawly.
How I NEVER let the glue dry when making a model.
Never ever thinking about how much a comic might be worth someday, I actually folded them over to read them.
Banging Caps with a Hammer(since I had no Cap gun) on my driveway till the air was think with gunpowder.
Walking into my neighbors house(The Tooleys) and seeing Pong on TV and knowing I was hooked.
Losing my keys and Down vest at a Marshell Tucker Concert when I was 15
Buying my first comic from Comic Keys, or rather getting the slab back from CGC and seeing it was purple.
How I never really cared if it was DC, or Marvel. I was just glad to have the few comics I did.
Using a makeup kit with "REAL" vampire blood and creating a gouge in my face that made my mom pass out because she thought it was real.
My dad telling me he watched his mom throw out a trunk load of his fathers and older brothers comics in the dumpster after they died in the War.
Buying my first Album as a kid, Nazareth, Hair of The Dog.
Eating our pet duck "Wally" for Christmas. I was not aware that was what he was meant for.
Reading ASM King Size #9 and how it changed what I thought comics were about.
Pet Rocks
Space Food and how cool we thought it was until we realized it was disgusting tasting
Making whirlpools in out above the ground pool and one day collapsing the whole pool and flooding the basement
Watching some local neighborhood punks ride my bike into Jamaica bay and wading in the freezing water to pull it out
Freaking out every time they raised the price of a comic $.05.
All in the family
- walking to the corner store with a dime and coming home with 2 bottles of orange crush.
- walking to the nearest convenience store after we moved to buy a comic. The lady there asked me what comics I was after. Thereafter, she always held onto the best copies for me. My first comic file. when I was 8 years old.
- paying 40 dollars for an Iron Man number 1. At the time the book in guide was listed at 40 dollars in mint. I remember getting home and taking it out of the comic bag to look at it and the front page was sort of stuck to the front cover from static like it had never been opened. I put the book back in the bag and later sold it for a huge profit of 80 dollars! Today that book is in a CGC case at 9.8
...Bringing a girl(!) to a Comic Convention at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles back in 1985 and finding a copy of both Albedo #1 and 2 on the same day.
Seeing Nirvana at a small club in 1991. Seeing TuPac Shakur live with The Geto Boyz at Irvine Meadows. Seeing The Grateful Dead at Oakland Coliseum and Shoreline. Seeing The Ramones at The Hollywood Palladium. Seeing Tom Waits live at the Wiltern. Seeing Britney Spears at The Staples Center.
Hunting down every appearance of Moon Knight back in the early 80's.
Running into the Hernandez Brothers in the Century City shopping center and asking them why they made Maggie get fat.
Getting a letter from Bob Burden saying I had correctly guessed the Flaming Carrot's secret identity... and am now sworn to secrecy.
Lining up at Golden Apple Comics on Melrose to have Frank Miller sign my copy of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1
Reading the Russ Cochran EC library reprints when I was 13.
Meeting Robert Crumb at a gallery in Los Angeles and having him whisper to me "Look at the a$$ on that girl... incredible!"
Biking to Mr. Fishers five and dime on my Schwinn every week to buy my comics every week with the $2 my mom gave me.
Biking to Mr. Fishers five and dime on my Schwinn to buy my comics one week with the $2 my mom gave me only to find they went from 12 cents to 15 cents
Mom not understanding inflation and not upping my $2 to cover the increase
Buying Zeps Houses of the Holy in 5th grade, blew my mind.
Going to the Phil Sueling comic market place in NYC (Taft hotel?), people were smoking cigarettes hang from their lips, looking over boxes of raw books, and sometimes dropping ashes in/on them
Forum dinners.
Seeing over 200 Grateful dead shows.
My 1st Grateful Dead NYE show
Finishing my high grade S.A. Marvel run , and being frustrated that I would never finish my high grade D.C. run
Being very sick, staying home from grade school, and mom coming home with a Mego Falcon and a Mego Green Goblin for me to play with
Holding the Church copy of More Fun 52 in my hands for the 1st time
Hearing Elvis Costello lyrics for the 1st time and realizing I had heard the next Dylan
Being the 1st person to go through and get 1st shot at the Nova Scotia collection at Jim Payette’s house in New Hampshire. Spent $90,000 and back then, that was a lot of books!
Hanging out with Neal Adams, Dave Sim, Jim Starlin, Buzz, and Michael Bair with some forum members at Shun Lee last November.
Trying to convince my best friend in grade school that buying only Sad Sack comics was stupid. I told him that super heroes was the way to go.
- Rotary telephones and black & white televisions
- The neighborhood vacant lot, for playing football, and the old barn, for doing...well, you know
- when the lazy, hazy days of summer meant: Annuals!
- leaving the doors unlocked, so my brother and I could come and go as we pleased
- when the pieces of gum in baseball card packs were nearly as big as the cards
- "progressive" radio on FM
- hashish
- the madness that ensued following the bombing of Cambodia
- meeting Kirby, Adams, Steranko, Smith, Thomas and Wrightson at my first con
- my PhD dissertation defense, bachelor party, wedding, honeymoon, and a move to California all in the same week and a half
- sitting in the bleachers the crazy day the wind was blowing out at Wrigley, and the Phils topped the Cubs, 23-22
- seeing the Stones, Clapton, the Dead, Tull, The Allman Brothers, McCartney, Springsteen, The Eagles, The Beach Boys, Bob Marley, and, the best of all of them in concert, Little Feat
- Photoelectric football
- the Broad Street Bullies - not just the two straight cups, but the time they beat the living pi$$ out of the Russians (both physically and in score), the only NHL team to do so on the first Soviet tour
- seeing my son's emergent head for the first time
AWA Wrestling with Vern Gagne, Mad Dog Vachon and The Crusher…
Another person who watched wrestling when they were growing up! I grew up in NC, so I grew up on Mid-Atlantic Wrestling (Flair, Steamboat, Mulligan, Valentine, etc.).
Quote:
________________________________________
Jesse Ventura The Wrestler – and the Governor
________________________________________
Once the AWA was on cable, I started watching them. The best thing about Ventura was his entrace. Once the opening bell rang, you'd already seen the best part of the match. He was a channel-changer for me.
Vintage Viking Football at Metropolitan Stadium – Fran Tarkenton, Alan Page, Carl Eller, Paul Krause…
Vintage Twins Baseball at Metropolitan Stadium – Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Camilo Pascual…
Teaching my kids to ride bikes and drive cars
• The first time I saw a Hulk comic book, and thinking he was Frankenstein's monster
* Learning how to read comic books, before I actually learned how to read !!! i.e, I would pronounce Galactus as GAL ak tus, and Daredevil as DAR e DE vil, until my older brother corrected me
* Thinking the Thing's name was "Four", because he was the one character featured on the Fantastic Four's logo, upper left corner, at the time
* After getting tired of there never being "clear cut winners" of hero vs. hero battles, I developed MY OWN system of scoring battles, so I could make MY OWN determination of which hero won
* Thinking that I was placed on this earth to become the best comic book artist ever, and actually taking the first step to achieving that goal, i.e, teaching myself to draw
* The first time I saw Neal Adams artwork, (Avengers #93), and the realization that my goal would NEVER be obtainable !!
* When I finally figured out that all of these same characters look so different, at different times, and behaved so differently at different times, was because they were being done by different creators
* The day I learned that new books come on Mondays and Thursdays !!!
* The spinner rack, and the way it squeaked so loud, the whole store would hear it !!! ( I have that rack, and it still squeaks !!! There is a bearing on it, which is shot. It must have been shot in 1971 also, because it still makes the SAME SQUEAK !! But, I would not replace it with a gold plated bearing !! )
* My mother, ( a single mother with many mouths to feed) when time pressed, would give me money to "get a sandwhich" at the local sandwich shop for supper, and I would get a 1/2 pint of chocolate milk, and spend the rest on comic books
* Anyone from the Reading, PA. area...circa 60's, 70's, and early 80's ...? If so you would remember Eve's Book Shop right off of 10th and Walnut. At the time, the only place where one could find back issues.
* Stealing a copy of Giant size X-Men #1 from the local variety store.
* Later selling that same book to the previously mentioned Eve for $.01
* Getting caught stealing a copy of Marvel Tales ( the anniversy issue which reprinted Amazing Spiderman #123), and being thrown out of the store for "ONE FRIGGIN MONTH"..., as the store owner yelled it
* Having to get my friends from the neighborhood to go to the store on my behalf, whenever my mother sent me to the store for whatever it was that she needed at the moment
* Reading an obituary for Bill Everett on one of the letters pages, or editorial pages, and realizing that creators are human beings just like me.....
* Refusing to have a DC book in my collection !!!!( This was prior to my realization that these are stories being told by creators !!!)
* The first time I discovered that there were other collectors who thought that their "comic book collection" was much more "valuable" than mine, because there books were in better shape than mine !!!!
* And the heated debates with these same people that it did'nt matter , because I knew the stories better, I knew more about the history of the characters, and I knew more about the creative talent behind the books than they did
* Turning my nephews on to comic books...one in particular loved the "A (as in HAT) vengers", ...must run in the family !!!!
* A one day vacation at Rehobeth with just me and my mom (bless you mom), where she purchased for me a copy of the Silver Surfer Fireside PB, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and an Iron-on transfer of the Silver Surfer,( anybody remember these ?) I believe Steranko art , both of which I still have
* How blown away I was, (and still am), the first time I discovered Jim Starlin, and his whole "Thanos saga". I did not "discover" this until Strange Tales was being reprinted along with the Silver Surfer in one of the many Marvel reprint books of the late 70's/ early 80's, but once I did, WOW !!! ( I just recently saw a "top 100 artist's of all time somewhere while surfing the web, and Starlin was NOT on it.!?! Personally, I do not believe that such a list can EVER exist without Jim Starlin!! sorry 'bout the rant....)
* I know I said at the start of this post I would keep this to early comic book related memories.......However...
* BATTLING TOPS !!!!!! Does ANYBODY remember this game ???? Does ANYBODY know where one could be found ??? I, as a 41 year old man, would not be ashamed to play this game right now !!!
-sitting on the front stoop of my buddies apartment as kids and oogling his copies of X-Factor 1-4. We were amazed that he had such nice copies and a #1 to boot
-Going to Disney World on a 6th grade trip and myself, Corey (the guy with the X-Factors) and Danny having our books spread out all over the floor
-Playing baseball in the summer
-Seing the guy who has become my best friend take a fly ball in the eye at his first day of practice in 13yr old baseball. It is my first memory of John and also his first day of practice
-Playing Gin with my Dad
-Actually getting to where I could beat my Dad
Going to flea markets with my aunt and selling baseball cards while she sold the odds and ends she bought
-Playing football in HS
-Going to college as the first person in my family to do so
-Having my father pass away and appreciating that although I only had 18 years with him, that they were good years
-Seeing my future wife for the first time and thinking (with another girl on my lap) man, she has big...
-Watching "King Clutch" Jim Leyritz hit a 90+ mph slider from Mark Wholers into the seats in game 3 at Yankee Stadium and the Yanks taking the next 4 games to win their first WS since the 70's.
-Driving from my school to hers to see her on the weekend (2 1/2hr drive)
-Buying my 1990 Honda CBR 600 for $1700 in 1998
-Having to sell it to go on my honeymoon
-Being lucky enough to find a woman who will put up with me
-Walking out onto the floor of the Charlotte Coleseum (the first one, not where the Hornets played) for the first time coaching wrestling at the state tourny. My knees got wobbly taking it all in. 9 mats and wreslting going on everywhere. Ive been back 6 more times and it has never gotten old.
-Having my aunt (I called her Sister, and she meant the world to me) pass away.
-Having my son, Aidan born and crying like a baby the first time I held him
-Buying my first comic when I got back into collecting. It was an Avengers 57. The cover was just simply amazing to me.
-Selling my first book ASM 55 to FFB via the CPG.com forums.
-Getting my first 666 pm from greggy
-Watching on the edge of my seat Carolina beat Illinois for the NCAA title. Greggy was my rock of confidence via pm's during the game. I still get pissed they werent calling the moving screens against Illinios in the 2nd half
-Being lucky as hell to have the things I do: Good health, a great wife, great son, great dog Chewie the Wookie (Pekingese). Enjoying the hell out of teaching and coaching.
AFX and Tyco race sessions at my neighbors house. And the Hobby Fair Store that sold all the parts
Penny candy, spinner racks and riding my bike to The Ben Franklin Store with a dollar thinking I had all I ever needed.
Thinking because I read Wizard Magazines "Top Ten Book List" in the early 90's I was going to get rich.
Wanting a B.B. Gun and never getting one. But shooting all my friends guns till the cows came home.
Reading comic books in the backyard under a tree with my dog Sox everyday after school.
T.V's that had knobs to change the channel and volume.
Watching whatever was on TV because it was a battle of wills to see who would get up to flip through the 5 channels, again.
Wearing Batman Gloves my mom made me and running around the house yelling"MAN!!!' because I was to young to say "Batman".
Thinking Heavy Metal was the coolest Cartoon I had seen since Wizards.
Going to see the first Superman movie the first day it came out with my moms boyfriend because he knew I would like it. And thinking afterwards what a great time I had.
Not wanting to swim in the indoor pool after seeing the movie Jaws because I could not see the bottom, even though I knew it was impossible for a shark to be in the water.
When cars had no seatbelts, and we rode on the console between the seats to get a better view. And not even our parents seemed concerned about it.
Going to the drive-in and always falling asleep in the Station Wagon before the third movie ever started.
Thinking Football cards were kewl enough to cut them up and make a special football card covered cigar box out of them.(with my best cards)
Shaking my head after I came to this place and re thinking the condition of my entire collection once I really knew how to grade what I had.
Wondering when my FOOM membership kit would come in the mail, it seemed like it took forever(actually only 2 weeks )
Trading comic books for Dynamite magazine.
Getting spanked by my father with my own belt 2 times once for stealing candy, another for stealing comics..
Being paddled 5 wacks by the principle of our elementary school for starting a food fight.( the paddle had holes in it as I recall) And not even my parents thought it was a big deal back then.
Always watching, and always being dissapointed in the "Electric Companies " Spiderman Show.
Being in love with The Isis TV show.
Well, that is enough for now...Show your age and post some random memories or thoughts of days gone by. Be they from 1 day ago, or 50 years ago.
--------------
Leaving a camp ground when I was 8 years old, leaving my entire collection behind on a picnic table, and having my father telling me he wasn't going to turn the trailer around "for a pile of comics".
I still think of that, and wonder what kind of heaven the kid that found them though he was in.
It wasn't all bad news, as I worked that "guilt angle" into far more comics than I ever lost, and I swear to this day, each time I mention it, my father still grabs reflexively for his wallet.
That story brought a tear to my eye!
No greater connection can a family bond have, than through well meaningful, and grounded guilt.
And it was my primary weapon of choice being the youngest in the family...everything else fell on deaf ears, or got you the back of someone's hand.
----------
...Waiting the endless months for the box from Battle Creek, Michigan to arrive.
...Changing my 25 cent weekly allowance to 2 dimes and 5 pennies so I could buy 2 comics (from the comic vending machine ) and a piece of gum
...When X-Men went from a reprint book to all new stories
...Seeing my first serious back issue (Avengers #1) and being told it had cost a whole $9.
...Going to my first comic con: the first Chicago ComiCon in the Playboy Tower 1976
...Freakies cereal
...Go Go Gophers
...Selling my hand drawn pictures of comic book characters on the street outside my apartment in Chicago when I was 5 years old
...and being amazed that people would give me money and not even take a picture
GI Joes were the coolest toys a boy could have, but Transformers were a close second
Going from Nitendo to the Sega Genesis and thinking "WHOA! AWESOME GRAPHICS!"
Pushing the power button on a computer with no cd-rom, waiting for it to boot into DOS to start windows, then waiting fifteen minutes for everything to start up and stop making the processing noise...then remarking "that was pretty fast"
When Raceway Park was still standing just outside the southern city limits of Chicago and watching them fill the track with 50+ beater cars and driving until one was left.
Starting a vacation drive with an empty tank of gas, watching my Dad pull into the gas station and hand the attendant a five to fill the tank up.
Playing tee ball and having the coach tell us that we actually lost (or won) instead of tie games or we don't keep score.
The decline of Halloween, from being able to walk around at eight years old unsupervised, to having adults come with, to running around with shaving cream, to not going out after dark to avoid being jumped, to now having designated trick-or-treat times and still having 0 trick-or-treaters for the past 2 years.
I think about this all the time. My son Does not get to enjoy what I enjoyed when I was a child. We used to be able to walk the neighborhood at night as long as we did not go too far. All the neighbors looked out for us and made sure we were all OK. Now I wouldnt let my son out of the house without me.Trick or Treat is now dressing up in a costume and visiting the family friends and the 3-4 nieghbors we can trust, Damnn shame.
...Going to my first comic con: the first Chicago ComiCon in the Playboy Tower 1976
________________________________________
Now that I'm jealous about, as I kept reading about all those mid- to late-70's Comic Cons in NY, with all the celebs and old timers, but there was never anything in Canada of that scope.. at least not that I can remember.
I couldn't imagine taking a subway trip downtown to go to an actual Comic Con in the 70's - it fairly boggles the mind. I probably would have keeled over if I met Stan Lee.
Legos being the greatest toys, with Transformers a close second
"Sega do what Nintendon't!" Blast processing, and Super FX
Dressing up as Exar Kun (Star Wars Tales of the Jedi!) for Halloween and being mistaken for a Native American on the warpath
Being AMAZED by those freaky cool hologram covers!
Debating for hours and finally purchasing Uncanny X-Men 304 for $7 - the most money ever spent on a comic - and loving every panel of the thing. Best purchase ever!
Buying Uncanny X-Men 304 for $1 a couple weeks ago at a convention
Trading X-Men #1 covers (I trust you can guess which X-Men #1 I'm talking about... )
Trading a bag of puppy chow for a promised X-Men 30... it never came... my first taste of dealer rapage
Spending $20 on four packs of Fleer Ultra Marvel cards and feelings so stupid about spending that much on cards that I quit comics for a good dozen years
-Reminiscing Bob
~walking to the park with my older brothers on a nice summer day to swim in the pond.
~going to the arcade to play in the asteroids tournament and winning for the first time. ( $20 grand prize)
~going to the dime store and stocking up on candy to sell at school the next day for a profit to help fund my comics.
~noticing how those chicks in the comic books had ahhhh nice head lights and became a female ananotmy artist. ( I would make Stan Lee blush back in the day)
~getting my first kiss and Ze didn't even use his tongue. ( ok just checking to see if anyone was really reading these)
~ When your first TV crush is between She-Ra or Jem & The Holograms
~ Playing Asteroids on the Atari 2600 was great
~ Almost as great as making pictures with a lite-brite
~ From 6-6:30pm spent watching Inspector Gadget and then 6:30-7pm spent playing Bump And Jump on the Colecovision before bedtime
~ When Megatron was the hardest transformer to find in Eastern Canada
~ Learning to play pool at the old Boys & Girls Club.
~ Cub Scouts and Cub Camp (Dib Dib Dib)
~ When the GT Snowracer was the fastest thing on the hill.
~ Making banners on the Commodore 64 in elementry school
~ Jamming to Fresh Princes "Parents Just Don't Understand"
~ ALF
~ Owning my first red, multi-zipper Michael Jackson leather jacket and studded glove.
~ Finding out I was allergic to shellfish at the fair and projectile vomiting from the top of the ferris wheel and being rushed to the hospital and getting scarlet fever
~ Meeting Wayne Gretzky in same hospital
~ Playing "dinkies" and "marbles" in the dirt
~ Falling into the swamp for the very first time.
~ Why Robotech was so damn awesome and wanting a "Minmei" tape
~ Chip & Pepper t-shirts
~ Hypercolor t-shirts
- Finding that fort in the woods with a stack of Playboys and Penthouses.
-Johnny Quest and Space Ghost
-Deploying legions of army men in the back yard
-riding bikes with your friends all day only comig home to eat
-watching Apollo 11 lift off in the school library and wondering why they didn't let us see it land
- a dollar from dad...getting 2 comics, a candy bar and a coke and getting change back!
-watching Godzilla movies on saturday afternoon at the Plaza Theatre
-and summers that never seemed to end
-oh, and a quarter getting you 3 plays on a pinball machine
Setting the half acre back yard on fire when I knocked over the burn barrel.
Caught more hell because the fire department had to cut mom's
closeline down to get the fire engine around the garage.
Collecting coke bottles around town to stop by a relative's drugstore
so that I could buy the latest comic book arrivals, then discovering
that they had gone up to 12 cents from 10 !!!
Bonding with my favorite Uncle Buddy, over comic books, IBC rootbeer,
giant hamburgers from the Mustang Drive-in, and then having to
get on a train to go home, and having him give me a grocery bag
full of goldenage DC and Fawcett to occupy my time on the ride home.
Falling in love with Sandy Lewis at the ripe old age of 7.
Falling in love with Becky LeFevre at and even riper age of 8.
Falling in love with Debbie Reed at 13.
Getting the toy robot from the movie Forbidden Planet for Christmas.
My first homerun in Little League.
Falling in love with my wife Bobbie at 17.
• Listening to Jean Shepard on WOR-AM at night, with a transistor radio under my pillow.
• Coming home from school and watching "Dark Shadows" every day.
• Waxing my uncle's car for about $3.00 and being able to go out and by all the new Marvels that hit the stands that week.
• Sitting in the Polo Grounds in 1962 watching the Mets.
• Standing on on the ledge of a giant planter in the middle of Park Avenue and taking a picture of the Apollo astronauts in their limo as they were driven by in 1969.
• Sitting in a classroom in my senior year of high school and listening to Frank McCourt (of Angela's Ashes fame) discuss James Joyce with us no-good Stuyvesant students.
• Being called into the chapel of the Lutheran School in the Bronx (that Harvey Lee Oswald briefly attended) and being told of JFK's assasination.
• Hearing the news of MLK and RFK's assasinations when I was in the 8th grade in 1968.
• Attending my first comic con in 1968 and getting Gil Kane and Steranko's autographs. (Statler Hilton - Phil Seuling)
• Attending a Led Zeppelin concert at MSG in 1973.
• Watching Soupy Sales, Wonderama and the Sandy Becker show on local NYC TV.
Penny Baseball - using my baseball cards to play a mock game by rolling a penny across the hardwood floor and smacking it with the actual cards.(yep, they were those black bordered cards too)
My 1st Halloween where the treat bag was nothing but a paper grocery store bag that was as tall as me. After the night was over I found that I had lost most of the candy as I had made a hole in the bag from dragging it.
Playing cowboys and indians with a claw hammer as the tomahawk....which my brother accidentally used on my head once(the claw!!!). As the blood dripped and clotted into my mass of wild hair, I told my mom..."agh, my brains are coming out!!!)
Thinking that Big Boy comics from the restaurant were sooooo cool.
Attending my 1st Tennesse Vols game and coming to understand the importance of the color ORANGE.
Applesauce Fritters...yum
Buying my 1st comics from the Barber Shop/Cigar Store.....and later finally being allowed to buy the risque Warren Magazines from the same shop in the 70s.
Getting $10 from my dad on Saturdays and riding my bike to town, alone. That $10 would buy comics, baseball cards, snacks, and an occasional LP. Of course later on I came to understand "why" dad wanted me out of the house...to which it started costing him $20(my 1st pimp job).
Friends who I haven't seen in over 30 years.
The 1st schoolyard fight that I won....and the 1st fight that I lost too.
Sports team-mates with nicknames like...Piddly, Spunky, Dog, Tweet, Brazz
Ordering the set of 100s of army men from that ad in a comic book. After about 6 months of waiting I think a box arrived and included maybe six figures.
Having to go outside to turn the TV Antenna, which was extra hard after having watched the original "Night of the Living Dead" movie...we lived near a graveyard back then.
• Eating whatever the hell I wanted and not worrying about getting fat(ter).
• Clackers
• Playing suicide frisbee with my brother because he was the only one with the balls to do so.
• Hiding my mad magazines in a wall near the Pequabuck river....don't ask why.
• Hot Wheels
• My 1st piece of original art...the cover to Neutro #1.
• Finding comics in the dump every summer at our vacation cottage.
Oh yeah....and Elvira on Friday nights....
Quit code turkey from buying comics when the cover price leapt from 30c to 35c. This lasted about 2 whole months.
Listening to Tony Orlando & Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon around the old oak tree" over & over again on AM radio as I was reading my coverless comics.
Went to my 1st San Diego Comic-con & watched Chuck back up his 18 wheeler full of comics. They had to give him a separate side room to display all his long boxes of Mile High 2s. Saw a long box full of Spect Spidey mag # 2 and Marvel Super-heroes 1 shot.
Shaking hands with Marvel's marketing genius Carol Kalish & drooling when she told me about her Timely original art. May she RIP.
Sharing a piece of cake w/ Geppi as he was meeting all his retailers in Canada at the local Diamond distribution warehouse. He even shook the hand of lackeys like myself.
... going to my Godmother's cottage on Lake Erie. Treking with her son to the general store where they never took old books off the spinner racks (they had THREE racks!) On these racks we could find new comics and some as old as 1/2 a year. Mom would load us up with money and we would buy a tonne of comics. That first day at the cottage was all about reading those comics.
... leaving my comics out on the porch of our new house cause I got distracted by the new friend I made next door. Mom was probably glad I wasn't underfoot while they unloaded the moving van. It rained that night. Lost most of the collection of 1960's comics my Uncle gave to me.
... the day our milkman made his last delivery.
... loading up my 5.25" floppy boot diskette into drive A: and my 5.25" floppy Rogue game diskette into drive B: and wasting an hour of College lab time. Moving that stupid @ symbol all over the amber screen killing all the K's and B's I could find.
... the very moment when each of my four daughters entered this world.
Lick-A-Maid, ( I wonder if anyone here even knows what this is.)
1963-1970, watching my across-the-street-neighbor pull up in his NEW Corvett-Sting-Ray( ' 63 was theSplit-Tear-Drop.)
Fire-Stick, Grape, Watermellon, Cherry, and Sour-Apple.
GTO, Hemi-Cuga, "Cut-A-Way-Headders", Mag-Wheels, Road-Runner, "Low-Ridders& High-Boy's".
Mon-Fri., 3:17pm, Winchell's hot from the rack two Sugar-Raised-Dough-Nut's, Grape Nigh-High.
Baseball, Kickball, Dodgeball, Over-The-Line, Touch Football, Freeze-Tag, Hid-N-Seek,Water-Balloon Fight's.
Sat. $2.00=Moive, Double Feature, 3 Looney Tune Cartoon's, 5 Kraft Carmel Candy's ( 3 Chocolate, 2 Vanilla),
Med. Coke, Lrg. "Real" Buttered PopCorn, and change for a Comicbook......
Mattell Fanner-Fifty with "Shoot-M-Shells" & "Stick -M-Caps", Elgin Toy Slot Cars, Taking a Golf-Ball apart.
Amarcord . . .
-Spending every penny I could get my hands on . . . on slot cars
-Sending letters to STP and Valvoline requesting decals for my slot car box
-Tommy James and the Shondells singing "Hanky Panky" . . .
-Being sent home early from school on November 22, 1963
-Always wanting to be Paul, but ending up being John
Reading Howard the Duck and thinking "what's the bid deal with this junk"?
Having to buy the glass bottle as well as the coke inside.(youngsters won't understand that one)
Quarter Boxes back in the late 70's early 80's
Micronauts being cool.
Commercials where people would walk around with open containers of peanut butter and bump into people eating chocolate bars.
Waiting for my dad to come home from work with the latest batch of Harvey's and Western titles for my sister and I.
Reading and re-reading my dad's copy or Jules Feiffer's 'The Great Comic Book Heroes" and being amazed at this world my dad grew up with.
The smell of every new pack of Sizzlers I received every Christmas, and the sound they made as they sped around my extended "Fat Tracks".
Getting sent to the principal's office for listening to the 1973 World Series during school (the Mets were screwed by horrendous umping).
Quisp or Quake.
My dad holding me up so I could look over the railing of the Empire State Bldg's observation deck-freaked me out.
Watching the 1st moon landing on our "good" B&W set.
Taking care of our vegetable garden, then having a catch with my father pretty much every night from May-Oct.
Betting my best friend my whole collection he couldn't sink a basket from the end of my driveway--[embarrassing lack of self control] did it underhand. I welched.
My grandmother's home-made "macaroni" and sauce, which was my designated birthday meal for 14 years.
Twice a year anxiously awaiting "MONSTER WEEK" on WABC's 4:30 movie.
Watching Abott and Costello flics on WPIX in NY every Sun. morning for 20 years after Wonderama on WNEW.
The smell of the back of my father's Plymouth station wagon while we slept during night trips to PA to see my grandparents.
My grandmother buying me Spidey 114 and Thor KSA 3 off the stands to humor me while she went to church on weekdays.
Life's been very good.
-Getting up Sat morning and watching the X-men cartoon on Fox.
-Gameboys so big they wouldn't fit in your pocket with screens so small you could hardly see.
-Being a Kid when piles of X-Men #1 (1990's) hit the stands
-Having 5 times as many comic shops as there are today.(I remember hitting about 7 in one day)
-Buying packs of marvel trading cards like I was a chain smoker
-And one of my favorites: puting a load of quarters through the X-Men arcade machine at the local arcade.
I remember now. I remember how it started. I can't remember yesterday. I just remember doing what they told me...told me...told me...
Remember, Remember the fifth of November.
Going to Yankee games and it was not about the money
Going to the beach parking lot on Friday Nights for Keg Partys
Getting rejected by all the hot woman
Talking with my Grandfather about baseball
Wanting to be an adult ( Now I want to be a kid again)
Going upstate NY with my Grandparents
Waiting all year for Christmas day
Getting rejected by ALL woman with a pulse
Getting my first credit card
Getting my first guitar
Hearing my first Metallica album (Ride the lightning)
I remember getting a Creepy Crawlers toy set for Christmas when I was a kid, back then I thought it was the greatest thing in the world or at least that was until the collecting addiction began with Wacky Packages stickers back in the early 70's!
I also remember being in love with Farrah Fawcett!!!!!
by Thomas Hood:
I Remember, I Remember
I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!
I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The vi'lets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!
I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heav'n
Than when I was a boy.
I remember my mother, a young widow,with 3 children 1, 3 and 4 years old. (I was the 1 year old) She would make do without material things, made sure we all had enough to eat even though she may not have had enough. She never even dated a man again, she knew she already had her one true love.
Before there was a "Field of Dreams" going to Fenway Park for the first time in 1968 with my Grandfather and my Uncle. Dave Morehead on the mound and Hawk Harrelson hit one out to dead center! They lost but I was still happy!
Collecting bottles from the garbage to add to my 25cent allowance so I could buy every "funny" book I could.
Going to Nantucket on the old Steamship and picking up the annuals. One time, it was JIM Annual #1 another time Avengers Annual #1!
Playing war games with my brother and my cousin. Straping a bunch of cans together, to make believe we were blowing up a Nazi Factory!
Building Aurora Models, Racing Aurora HO Cars!
Snow that seemed so high that it felt like it was over your head,,,years later looking at the pictures and the snow was up to the roof of our old 57 Chevy!
Sipping the foam off of my Grandfather's beer!
Watching Marvel Super-Heroes cartoons every afternoon. (or what marvel called cartoons back then)
Drinking Goofy-Grape!
Walking to the beach every day with my brother and sister. On Sundays my grandfather would join us with his bathing suit out of the 1920s.
Fishing everywhere from RI to Cape Cod.
Watching Vic Morrow in Combat!
Sunday cartoons stunk but you had to love Davey and Goliath!
Life was good,,,,Life is still Good!!!
I remember...
When Horny Toads roamed the Earth.
A Bookmobile that stopped on our street...just like the Ice Cream man, except you got books!
...sacking all those empty coke bottles from the wire rack inside the Laundrymat, then running across the street to the Grocery where they pay kids who bring them in. Doing a community service, getting money for comics.
Deciding one Summer day to ride my bike all the way to the Library, never been before...pulling open that big door... the blast of cold air and the smell of books hitting my face the same instant...seeing thousands of books... about everything...
Having real canteens, backpacks, and folding shovels from the Army/Navy store...equipment needed for digging foxholes in vacant lots, or roaming through storm drains all day, or exploring creepy vacant (haunted) houses.
Riding our bikes to the elementary school, closed for the Summer, and seeing an open door.
Belly crawling and shadow-sneaking past The Man running a floorbuffer...to the cafeteria...and finding boxes of Ice Cream Sandwiches in the freezer. Getting those boxes out...riding down to the creek, where we tried to eat 'em all before they melted. A losing battle.
Being fifteen and summer-bored, both my parents at work. Two older buddies drive up, bragging...they're headed to Mexico. Hang on...run in the house, write a short note...Gone on vacation, back in a week...hop in their car...road trip.
Mexico, huh? I have no clue. Nuevo Laredo, they explain, nothin' but bars, boys town, where every girl you see is a...
Racing home from school to watch Marvel Superheroes
Getting $$$ to buy comics for my birthday
Getting $$$ to buy AFX cars and track for christmas.
Watching the Steelers win 4 superbowls and thinking what's the big deal
Going to Three Rivers and watching Clemente and Stargell play ball.
Hearing that Clemente was killed when his plane went down
Staying up to watch Chiller Theater Saturday nights with Chilly Billy Cardille
chiller theater a burg thing
Buying X-Men #94 at a newsstand in San Diego's airport.
Buying Captain America #149, the first Marvel comic I ever bought.
My father teaching me to read using Gold Key Tarzans and Turoks.
Cutting the Marvel Value Stamp out of my Hulk 181.
remember first getting into American comics on holiday in Torquay (or was it Bournemouth?) in 1973. After squandering any left-over cash on pinball I'd go back to where we were staying and read and reread the pile of DCs I'd bought whilst snacking on crisps, chocolates and penny chews. The comics then were, of course, on spinner racks in seafront newsagents that had that intoxicating smell of old newsprint. I was one happy camper on those trips.....
Shuffling off every second weekend on scouts trip, doing everything from camping, kayaking, rock climbing, and general mountain walking. Come rain, or sunshine, but I think rain won out more times than not. But that made it bliss!
Thinking Hot wheels bubble gum packets with the cards thrown in were the best thing going!
Watching the Goodies as the solid staple tv viewing for the first decade of my life, and regarding it as heaven on earth, nothing brought greater joy, and amusement.
Exploring the local creeks and farmland, hunting for eel's avoiding bulls, shooting random innocent wildlife and feeling bad about it. Get buried up the waist in clay sink pit's as the farm land was developed. Nothing better than something that took you 30 seconds to get into, and 15 minutes to get out of.
Breaking my arm one year right before Christmas summer holidays, and then concluding that wrapping it a plastic bag would suffice for diving of the rocks at the local beach. Plaster and salt water reeks...for weeks, and weeks...
I remember getting a Creepy Crawlers toy set for Christmas when I was a kid, back then I thought it was the greatest thing in the world
________________________________________
I had one of those, too. I remember burning the hell out of my hand with it (remember when toys were dangerous??) and not telling my parents 'cause I didn't want them to take it away from me.
Reading Avengers (#141 sticks in my head) in the treehouse and busting wacky packs and creature feature cards with buddies
When all you needed was your imagination to stay busy for the whole day.
When a broom handle and a ball made all of us feel like major league players.
Yelling "Car" and moving our hockey nets everytime a car came down the road (which in NY was every 30 seconds).
The never ending game of monopoly we would play every summer.
Baseball cards in the wheel of our bikes to make that really cool noise.
Bicycle generators that kept that 2.5 watt light burning on your bike that when it was engaged made it feel like you were riding uphill pulling your Dad's station wagon.
Driving to Florida for vacation. (Hated the drive so much I later moved there).
Buying comics for less than cover price.
When $1 got you two slices of pizza and a soda.
Pong, and my father cursing trying to get it to work.
Waiting for the tubes in the back of the TV set to warm up so we could watch our Saturday morning cartoons.
When kids were allowed to be kids.
H.R. Puffinstuff, Land of The Lost and Sigmund and The Sea Monsters.
When cars did not have seat belts.
The first time the Concord plane landed at JFK
Watching them build The World Trade Center
Also remember when I viewed someone 43 with 2 kids as old.
Remember, Remember the fifth of November.
________________________________________
Ah, a John Lennon quote. Great freakin' album with awesome drumming by Ringo. It's hard to believe that whole album was made with 3 people playing...!!!
Don't forget Billy Preston.
and no Yoko!
Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
'Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God's providence he was catch'd,
With a dark lantern and burning match
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, let the bells ring
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!
- The 12 inch G.I. Joes with the fuzzy hair
- The TRS 80 Color Computer.
- Going to school with no air conditioning on hot summer days
- Having to go to school on Saturdays due to missed snow days
- Thinking the car from Knight Rider would always be cool
- Bulletman!
Paying .50 for a Saturday matinee (that included cartoons) - that theatre is still standing in my hometown, but in a woeful state of disrepair.
Six Million Dollar Man
Having the biggest crush on Marie Osmond (You couldn't pry me away from the TV on Friday nights at 8pm channel 4 ABC
Watching the moon landing with my Dad in the basement of our NJ home on a B & W TV.
Tape Drives - ugh.
Computer games that were just text and then simple pixels, but MAN! they were SO cool!
Feeling the ENTIRE theatre shake while watching JAWS when the head popped out of the boat.
Seeing Heavy Metal for the first time and thinking it the COOLEST cartoon ever! (Seconded)
Saturday morning cartoons (Superfriends, Hong Kong Phooey, Bugs, Kroft shows, etc) - I can't believe how much BETTER cartoons were back then.
Star Blazers
I remember sitting around an old shed (our 'clubhouse') watching Don Kirschner's Rock Concert and THROWING around a copy of Hulk 181...it was ruined by the end of the night, but we had fun listening to 70s music and doing what kids do with comics
-Building a HUGE battle scene with my GI Joes vs. Transformers around the dirt pile at my parent's house.
-Gem and the Holograms. So what, I watched it along with Joe and Transformers!
-Ninjas were really cool and everyone had a make-shift bo staff.
-Watching Cheers and Nightcourt with my parents.
-Scrappy-do was lame, but we still watched it anyways.
-"Luke, I am your father." The REAL Trilogy
-Mongoose bikes
-Cinemax, Friday After Dark softcore porn. (Like you guys never snuck down in the middle of the night.)
Hah! How about watching late night HBO without the descrambler ("I think that is a boob...")
- Watching the space shuttle Columbia, take off in my 5th grade class room in 1981
- Watching Challenger fall out of the sky five years later
- Leaving the house at 8:00 am just about every Saturday morning to ride bikes all day with my friends. I had to be home by the time the street lights came on.
- my "big wheel" I got when I was 9, it only lasted a day, but what a great day
- the way I felt after my firt kiss in the 5th grade, I've never been able to recreate that feeling in the 30 years sence
- when Elvis died thinking "What's the big deal? He's not that great"
- the day my bike was stolen from in front of the 7-11, that was the end of the world
- getting a new bike the following week and thinking I'd rather have my old one
- pong
...
...Changing my 25 cent weekly allowance to 2 dimes and 5 pennies so I could buy 2 comics (from the comic vending machine )
________________________________________
I bought literally hundreds of comics this way. From the same store that I bought my football, baseball and non-sport cards from(Munsters, Batman, Addams Family, Man From Uncle....) and Aurora Model Kits - Snyders Drug store. The same place that you could get a great chocolate malt with your burger and fries.
Motorific Torture Tracks - The Alcan Highway and Dearborn Test Track.
Summer 1985
Goonies
Explorers
Back to the Future
Being 11 and really struggling with wanting the new Star Wars toys, and finally saying to H with it and buying R2 pop up sabre and Endor Luke (still have them and really wish I had also got Carbonite Han and Luke Stormie)
Buying a bag of popcorn from a vending machine at our local pool for 10 cents.
A horse stepping on my foot, and not moving.
The stupid Blubird logo on our School bus seats, and how much I hated that logo.
My next door neighbor coming over and watching the twin towers fall, to this day we speak of it.
Wondering why I was never alowed to stay up and watch Sammy Terry.
Putting a kids hand in a bowl of water and freaking out when he actually wet his sleeping bag.
Playing Ghosts in the Graveyard till it was past dark. And our parents SCREAMING at us to come home.
Burning my arm on a black light bulb and then hiding the burn with a sweatband till it got so infected. To this day have the scar on my arm.
And I too also loved Creepy Crawly.
How I NEVER let the glue dry when making a model.
Never ever thinking about how much a comic might be worth someday, I actually folded them over to read them.
Banging Caps with a Hammer(since I had no Cap gun) on my driveway till the air was think with gunpowder.
Walking into my neighbors house(The Tooleys) and seeing Pong on TV and knowing I was hooked.
Losing my keys and Down vest at a Marshell Tucker Concert when I was 15
Buying my first comic from Comic Keys, or rather getting the slab back from CGC and seeing it was purple.
How I never really cared if it was DC, or Marvel. I was just glad to have the few comics I did.
Using a makeup kit with "REAL" vampire blood and creating a gouge in my face that made my mom pass out because she thought it was real.
My dad telling me he watched his mom throw out a trunk load of his fathers and older brothers comics in the dumpster after they died in the War.
Buying my first Album as a kid, Nazareth, Hair of The Dog.
Eating our pet duck "Wally" for Christmas. I was not aware that was what he was meant for.
Reading ASM King Size #9 and how it changed what I thought comics were about.
Pet Rocks
Space Food and how cool we thought it was until we realized it was disgusting tasting
Making whirlpools in out above the ground pool and one day collapsing the whole pool and flooding the basement
Watching some local neighborhood punks ride my bike into Jamaica bay and wading in the freezing water to pull it out
Freaking out every time they raised the price of a comic $.05.
All in the family
- walking to the corner store with a dime and coming home with 2 bottles of orange crush.
- walking to the nearest convenience store after we moved to buy a comic. The lady there asked me what comics I was after. Thereafter, she always held onto the best copies for me. My first comic file. when I was 8 years old.
- paying 40 dollars for an Iron Man number 1. At the time the book in guide was listed at 40 dollars in mint. I remember getting home and taking it out of the comic bag to look at it and the front page was sort of stuck to the front cover from static like it had never been opened. I put the book back in the bag and later sold it for a huge profit of 80 dollars! Today that book is in a CGC case at 9.8
...Bringing a girl(!) to a Comic Convention at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles back in 1985 and finding a copy of both Albedo #1 and 2 on the same day.
Seeing Nirvana at a small club in 1991. Seeing TuPac Shakur live with The Geto Boyz at Irvine Meadows. Seeing The Grateful Dead at Oakland Coliseum and Shoreline. Seeing The Ramones at The Hollywood Palladium. Seeing Tom Waits live at the Wiltern. Seeing Britney Spears at The Staples Center.
Hunting down every appearance of Moon Knight back in the early 80's.
Running into the Hernandez Brothers in the Century City shopping center and asking them why they made Maggie get fat.
Getting a letter from Bob Burden saying I had correctly guessed the Flaming Carrot's secret identity... and am now sworn to secrecy.
Lining up at Golden Apple Comics on Melrose to have Frank Miller sign my copy of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1
Reading the Russ Cochran EC library reprints when I was 13.
Meeting Robert Crumb at a gallery in Los Angeles and having him whisper to me "Look at the a$$ on that girl... incredible!"
Biking to Mr. Fishers five and dime on my Schwinn every week to buy my comics every week with the $2 my mom gave me.
Biking to Mr. Fishers five and dime on my Schwinn to buy my comics one week with the $2 my mom gave me only to find they went from 12 cents to 15 cents
Mom not understanding inflation and not upping my $2 to cover the increase
Buying Zeps Houses of the Holy in 5th grade, blew my mind.
Going to the Phil Sueling comic market place in NYC (Taft hotel?), people were smoking cigarettes hang from their lips, looking over boxes of raw books, and sometimes dropping ashes in/on them
Forum dinners.
Seeing over 200 Grateful dead shows.
My 1st Grateful Dead NYE show
Finishing my high grade S.A. Marvel run , and being frustrated that I would never finish my high grade D.C. run
Being very sick, staying home from grade school, and mom coming home with a Mego Falcon and a Mego Green Goblin for me to play with
Holding the Church copy of More Fun 52 in my hands for the 1st time
Hearing Elvis Costello lyrics for the 1st time and realizing I had heard the next Dylan
Being the 1st person to go through and get 1st shot at the Nova Scotia collection at Jim Payette’s house in New Hampshire. Spent $90,000 and back then, that was a lot of books!
Hanging out with Neal Adams, Dave Sim, Jim Starlin, Buzz, and Michael Bair with some forum members at Shun Lee last November.
Trying to convince my best friend in grade school that buying only Sad Sack comics was stupid. I told him that super heroes was the way to go.
- Rotary telephones and black & white televisions
- The neighborhood vacant lot, for playing football, and the old barn, for doing...well, you know
- when the lazy, hazy days of summer meant: Annuals!
- leaving the doors unlocked, so my brother and I could come and go as we pleased
- when the pieces of gum in baseball card packs were nearly as big as the cards
- "progressive" radio on FM
- hashish
- the madness that ensued following the bombing of Cambodia
- meeting Kirby, Adams, Steranko, Smith, Thomas and Wrightson at my first con
- my PhD dissertation defense, bachelor party, wedding, honeymoon, and a move to California all in the same week and a half
- sitting in the bleachers the crazy day the wind was blowing out at Wrigley, and the Phils topped the Cubs, 23-22
- seeing the Stones, Clapton, the Dead, Tull, The Allman Brothers, McCartney, Springsteen, The Eagles, The Beach Boys, Bob Marley, and, the best of all of them in concert, Little Feat
- Photoelectric football
- the Broad Street Bullies - not just the two straight cups, but the time they beat the living pi$$ out of the Russians (both physically and in score), the only NHL team to do so on the first Soviet tour
- seeing my son's emergent head for the first time
AWA Wrestling with Vern Gagne, Mad Dog Vachon and The Crusher…
Another person who watched wrestling when they were growing up! I grew up in NC, so I grew up on Mid-Atlantic Wrestling (Flair, Steamboat, Mulligan, Valentine, etc.).
Quote:
________________________________________
Jesse Ventura The Wrestler – and the Governor
________________________________________
Once the AWA was on cable, I started watching them. The best thing about Ventura was his entrace. Once the opening bell rang, you'd already seen the best part of the match. He was a channel-changer for me.
Vintage Viking Football at Metropolitan Stadium – Fran Tarkenton, Alan Page, Carl Eller, Paul Krause…
Vintage Twins Baseball at Metropolitan Stadium – Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Camilo Pascual…
Teaching my kids to ride bikes and drive cars
• The first time I saw a Hulk comic book, and thinking he was Frankenstein's monster
* Learning how to read comic books, before I actually learned how to read !!! i.e, I would pronounce Galactus as GAL ak tus, and Daredevil as DAR e DE vil, until my older brother corrected me
* Thinking the Thing's name was "Four", because he was the one character featured on the Fantastic Four's logo, upper left corner, at the time
* After getting tired of there never being "clear cut winners" of hero vs. hero battles, I developed MY OWN system of scoring battles, so I could make MY OWN determination of which hero won
* Thinking that I was placed on this earth to become the best comic book artist ever, and actually taking the first step to achieving that goal, i.e, teaching myself to draw
* The first time I saw Neal Adams artwork, (Avengers #93), and the realization that my goal would NEVER be obtainable !!
* When I finally figured out that all of these same characters look so different, at different times, and behaved so differently at different times, was because they were being done by different creators
* The day I learned that new books come on Mondays and Thursdays !!!
* The spinner rack, and the way it squeaked so loud, the whole store would hear it !!! ( I have that rack, and it still squeaks !!! There is a bearing on it, which is shot. It must have been shot in 1971 also, because it still makes the SAME SQUEAK !! But, I would not replace it with a gold plated bearing !! )
* My mother, ( a single mother with many mouths to feed) when time pressed, would give me money to "get a sandwhich" at the local sandwich shop for supper, and I would get a 1/2 pint of chocolate milk, and spend the rest on comic books
* Anyone from the Reading, PA. area...circa 60's, 70's, and early 80's ...? If so you would remember Eve's Book Shop right off of 10th and Walnut. At the time, the only place where one could find back issues.
* Stealing a copy of Giant size X-Men #1 from the local variety store.
* Later selling that same book to the previously mentioned Eve for $.01
* Getting caught stealing a copy of Marvel Tales ( the anniversy issue which reprinted Amazing Spiderman #123), and being thrown out of the store for "ONE FRIGGIN MONTH"..., as the store owner yelled it
* Having to get my friends from the neighborhood to go to the store on my behalf, whenever my mother sent me to the store for whatever it was that she needed at the moment
* Reading an obituary for Bill Everett on one of the letters pages, or editorial pages, and realizing that creators are human beings just like me.....
* Refusing to have a DC book in my collection !!!!( This was prior to my realization that these are stories being told by creators !!!)
* The first time I discovered that there were other collectors who thought that their "comic book collection" was much more "valuable" than mine, because there books were in better shape than mine !!!!
* And the heated debates with these same people that it did'nt matter , because I knew the stories better, I knew more about the history of the characters, and I knew more about the creative talent behind the books than they did
* Turning my nephews on to comic books...one in particular loved the "A (as in HAT) vengers", ...must run in the family !!!!
* A one day vacation at Rehobeth with just me and my mom (bless you mom), where she purchased for me a copy of the Silver Surfer Fireside PB, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and an Iron-on transfer of the Silver Surfer,( anybody remember these ?) I believe Steranko art , both of which I still have
* How blown away I was, (and still am), the first time I discovered Jim Starlin, and his whole "Thanos saga". I did not "discover" this until Strange Tales was being reprinted along with the Silver Surfer in one of the many Marvel reprint books of the late 70's/ early 80's, but once I did, WOW !!! ( I just recently saw a "top 100 artist's of all time somewhere while surfing the web, and Starlin was NOT on it.!?! Personally, I do not believe that such a list can EVER exist without Jim Starlin!! sorry 'bout the rant....)
* I know I said at the start of this post I would keep this to early comic book related memories.......However...
* BATTLING TOPS !!!!!! Does ANYBODY remember this game ???? Does ANYBODY know where one could be found ??? I, as a 41 year old man, would not be ashamed to play this game right now !!!
-sitting on the front stoop of my buddies apartment as kids and oogling his copies of X-Factor 1-4. We were amazed that he had such nice copies and a #1 to boot
-Going to Disney World on a 6th grade trip and myself, Corey (the guy with the X-Factors) and Danny having our books spread out all over the floor
-Playing baseball in the summer
-Seing the guy who has become my best friend take a fly ball in the eye at his first day of practice in 13yr old baseball. It is my first memory of John and also his first day of practice
-Playing Gin with my Dad
-Actually getting to where I could beat my Dad
Going to flea markets with my aunt and selling baseball cards while she sold the odds and ends she bought
-Playing football in HS
-Going to college as the first person in my family to do so
-Having my father pass away and appreciating that although I only had 18 years with him, that they were good years
-Seeing my future wife for the first time and thinking (with another girl on my lap) man, she has big...
-Watching "King Clutch" Jim Leyritz hit a 90+ mph slider from Mark Wholers into the seats in game 3 at Yankee Stadium and the Yanks taking the next 4 games to win their first WS since the 70's.
-Driving from my school to hers to see her on the weekend (2 1/2hr drive)
-Buying my 1990 Honda CBR 600 for $1700 in 1998
-Having to sell it to go on my honeymoon
-Being lucky enough to find a woman who will put up with me
-Walking out onto the floor of the Charlotte Coleseum (the first one, not where the Hornets played) for the first time coaching wrestling at the state tourny. My knees got wobbly taking it all in. 9 mats and wreslting going on everywhere. Ive been back 6 more times and it has never gotten old.
-Having my aunt (I called her Sister, and she meant the world to me) pass away.
-Having my son, Aidan born and crying like a baby the first time I held him
-Buying my first comic when I got back into collecting. It was an Avengers 57. The cover was just simply amazing to me.
-Selling my first book ASM 55 to FFB via the CPG.com forums.
-Getting my first 666 pm from greggy
-Watching on the edge of my seat Carolina beat Illinois for the NCAA title. Greggy was my rock of confidence via pm's during the game. I still get pissed they werent calling the moving screens against Illinios in the 2nd half
-Being lucky as hell to have the things I do: Good health, a great wife, great son, great dog Chewie the Wookie (Pekingese). Enjoying the hell out of teaching and coaching.
posted by LUXXXCORP at 11:24 AM
0 comments
History of Comic Books Written by the Losers
History of Comic Books Written by the Losers
Around a century after their inception, comic books remain popular due to the ardor of their fans and the hard work of writers, artists, and editors. But in the vast universe of graphic literature, there exists an oft-overlooked group of dedicated individuals who devote their ample free time to collecting, debating, and publishing the minutiae of the funny book genre. They are the losers who write sequential art’s rich and storied history.
28-year-old Carstairs Bagly, Jr spends a Friday night cataloging his comic book collection on a computer spreadsheet.
"Charlton comics are about more than just a third rate, mob-connected publishing grind-house and it's certainly about more than Steve Ditko or early Jim Aparo and John Byrne artwork," said Bagly, Jr., a comic book historian. "The blasted heath where once stood the ancient presses in Derby, CN. is full of history, but Charltons are still vibrant right now on ebay. Someone needs to record all the amazing things that went on, even if it means that person will never have a social life."
For Bagly, Jr., comic books are the only topic of conversation and the only form of entertainment. While other men his age go on dates or enjoy the sunlight, Bagly, Jr. haunts the rear corners of local comic shops like Things Your Mother Threw Out, where he squats alone, hunched over long boxes of old and mildewy comics. During the day, he works in his windowless bedroom compiling facts about comic book history for his web site, CavalcadeOfCrap.com.
"Comic books are so important to me," Bagly, Jr. said, gesturing to a mountain of boxes where he files his comics. On a table next to him is a large stack of notebooks of all the internet forums he regularly post on and detailed transcriptions of interviews with artists and writers whom he has met at comic conventions. "If I couldn't write about comics and collect comics, I have no idea what I'd do instead."
The social misfits who chronicle comic books seek not only to log facts, but also to influence public opinion about obscure comic book issues, something most people care little about.
"Joe Lunchpail would say Action #1 by Siegel and Shuster was the first real comic book, but that's dead wrong," said Pfaf Hufnagel, a line cook in Salisbury, MD, who occasionally writes for Geek magazine and has a collection of more than 10,000 comics. "Action #1 just brought the comics to the mainstream. Anyone who knows anything will say the first comic was either Obadiah Oldbuck or The Yellow Kid.
Added Hufnagel: "Old Mother and her Funny Kitten was actually printed earlier but due to a distribution problem, was released later, in case you didn't know."
From covering comic books for a local newspaper to distilling comic book's history into an 800-page book, the historians of comic books soldier on, despite their negligible impact on the direction or quality of comics itself.
"When you're writing comic book history, you have to make some hard choices," said Mulchrome Ditweiller, one of the editors of …For Your Oddball, Weirdo Needs. "Do you give equal space to influential artists like Dan DeCarlo, Herb Trimpe and Mort Lawrence, even though they're not as well known as L. B. Cole, Matt Wagner and Nick Cardy? Making a decision like that can take an entire weekend of soul-searching."
"I don't mind, though, because I love comic books," added Ditweiller, slipping a Dotty Dripple and Taffy just to the right of Double Action Comics in the Golden Age section of his comic book collection. "Comic books are just so spontaneous and full of life."
Not all comic book history is comprehensive. Many comic book historians choose to focus on individual artists who can barely tolerate the authors when they meet. In-depth comic book bios have been written about artists ranging from Pat Morisi to Nicholas Alascia, with biographers desperately trying to attain coolness by association with their subjects.
"Young Romance was a crucial comic for its time," said Ochiltree Jark, author of Pin-ups, Girl Reporters, Wimmin’s Libbers and Riot Grrrlz: The Adventures Of Women In The 20th Century. In romance comics, the most a woman could aspire to was the position of nurse, private secretary or model. And they always gave it up anyway to get married and become housewives. If you have a couple hours, I'd be happy to talk at you about it."
Although comic book historians provide a valuable service to comic book fanatics, Princeton sociology professor Hutchcock McDolphus said that their focus on comic books hinders their accumulation of knowledge in other areas.
"From discussing long-defunct comic book publishers to analyzing the impact of a comics personnel changes, comic book historians cannot see beyond their acne-scarred noses to realize that there are interesting subjects in the world besides comic books," said McDolphus, a self-professed "ex- comic book-nerd." "If you ask them who the U.S. attorney general is, or what's going on in the park around the corner, you'll get a blank stare. But ask which philosopher Steve Ditko worshipped at the feet of or who Joe Tuska punched out in the artist’s bullpen, and you'll have to dodge all the flying spittle from everyone trying to be the first to answer."
Added McDolphus: "It was Ayn Rand and some prankster…I forget."
Around a century after their inception, comic books remain popular due to the ardor of their fans and the hard work of writers, artists, and editors. But in the vast universe of graphic literature, there exists an oft-overlooked group of dedicated individuals who devote their ample free time to collecting, debating, and publishing the minutiae of the funny book genre. They are the losers who write sequential art’s rich and storied history.
28-year-old Carstairs Bagly, Jr spends a Friday night cataloging his comic book collection on a computer spreadsheet.
"Charlton comics are about more than just a third rate, mob-connected publishing grind-house and it's certainly about more than Steve Ditko or early Jim Aparo and John Byrne artwork," said Bagly, Jr., a comic book historian. "The blasted heath where once stood the ancient presses in Derby, CN. is full of history, but Charltons are still vibrant right now on ebay. Someone needs to record all the amazing things that went on, even if it means that person will never have a social life."
For Bagly, Jr., comic books are the only topic of conversation and the only form of entertainment. While other men his age go on dates or enjoy the sunlight, Bagly, Jr. haunts the rear corners of local comic shops like Things Your Mother Threw Out, where he squats alone, hunched over long boxes of old and mildewy comics. During the day, he works in his windowless bedroom compiling facts about comic book history for his web site, CavalcadeOfCrap.com.
"Comic books are so important to me," Bagly, Jr. said, gesturing to a mountain of boxes where he files his comics. On a table next to him is a large stack of notebooks of all the internet forums he regularly post on and detailed transcriptions of interviews with artists and writers whom he has met at comic conventions. "If I couldn't write about comics and collect comics, I have no idea what I'd do instead."
The social misfits who chronicle comic books seek not only to log facts, but also to influence public opinion about obscure comic book issues, something most people care little about.
"Joe Lunchpail would say Action #1 by Siegel and Shuster was the first real comic book, but that's dead wrong," said Pfaf Hufnagel, a line cook in Salisbury, MD, who occasionally writes for Geek magazine and has a collection of more than 10,000 comics. "Action #1 just brought the comics to the mainstream. Anyone who knows anything will say the first comic was either Obadiah Oldbuck or The Yellow Kid.
Added Hufnagel: "Old Mother and her Funny Kitten was actually printed earlier but due to a distribution problem, was released later, in case you didn't know."
From covering comic books for a local newspaper to distilling comic book's history into an 800-page book, the historians of comic books soldier on, despite their negligible impact on the direction or quality of comics itself.
"When you're writing comic book history, you have to make some hard choices," said Mulchrome Ditweiller, one of the editors of …For Your Oddball, Weirdo Needs. "Do you give equal space to influential artists like Dan DeCarlo, Herb Trimpe and Mort Lawrence, even though they're not as well known as L. B. Cole, Matt Wagner and Nick Cardy? Making a decision like that can take an entire weekend of soul-searching."
"I don't mind, though, because I love comic books," added Ditweiller, slipping a Dotty Dripple and Taffy just to the right of Double Action Comics in the Golden Age section of his comic book collection. "Comic books are just so spontaneous and full of life."
Not all comic book history is comprehensive. Many comic book historians choose to focus on individual artists who can barely tolerate the authors when they meet. In-depth comic book bios have been written about artists ranging from Pat Morisi to Nicholas Alascia, with biographers desperately trying to attain coolness by association with their subjects.
"Young Romance was a crucial comic for its time," said Ochiltree Jark, author of Pin-ups, Girl Reporters, Wimmin’s Libbers and Riot Grrrlz: The Adventures Of Women In The 20th Century. In romance comics, the most a woman could aspire to was the position of nurse, private secretary or model. And they always gave it up anyway to get married and become housewives. If you have a couple hours, I'd be happy to talk at you about it."
Although comic book historians provide a valuable service to comic book fanatics, Princeton sociology professor Hutchcock McDolphus said that their focus on comic books hinders their accumulation of knowledge in other areas.
"From discussing long-defunct comic book publishers to analyzing the impact of a comics personnel changes, comic book historians cannot see beyond their acne-scarred noses to realize that there are interesting subjects in the world besides comic books," said McDolphus, a self-professed "ex- comic book-nerd." "If you ask them who the U.S. attorney general is, or what's going on in the park around the corner, you'll get a blank stare. But ask which philosopher Steve Ditko worshipped at the feet of or who Joe Tuska punched out in the artist’s bullpen, and you'll have to dodge all the flying spittle from everyone trying to be the first to answer."
Added McDolphus: "It was Ayn Rand and some prankster…I forget."
posted by LUXXXCORP at 11:04 AM
0 comments
Links
Previous Posts
- Speciman Collector
- Trouble Man by Marvin Gaye
- Outlaw Man
- Paul Revere & The Raiders Lyrics - Kicks
- Sunday 10/5/14 - Facebook of Louis Cook James, Jr....
- Just got banned, again, by CGC. I was Speciman. ...
- Louis James 4 hrs · Edited · ...
- U. S. Jones: Comic Book Hero, Adolph Hitler/Skull ...
- 6 Great Movies That Criticize Religious Faith
- Britney Spears - 3 (Metal Remix by bliix)
Archives
- April 2006
- September 2006
- June 2007
- July 2007
- August 2007
- September 2007
- October 2007
- November 2007
- December 2007
- January 2008
- February 2008
- August 2009
- October 2009
- May 2010
- June 2010
- July 2010
- August 2010
- September 2010
- July 2011
- May 2013
- July 2013
- August 2013
- December 2013
- February 2014
- March 2014
- July 2014
- October 2014
