What comic books did you read as a kid?

I never really got into to superhero comics. I preferred Casper, Hot Stuff, and Wendy. Then I got into Eerie and Creepy and all those old horror comics. I was before my time. Now they're called graphic novels.

The only comic books I ever bought myself were of the Archie ilk, back in early grade school. My brother did read the superhero kind along with horror, S&S, etc -- sometimes left hither and thither around the house like his sci-fi paperbacks. At our maternal grandparents there was a stash of old romance comics and a few Classics Illustrated, that I would browse through. Can't really remember, but maybe Hank Williams' favorite was among the former antiques.

Merle Kilgore: He would read True Romance comic books. My sister had True Romance comic books, and I’d say, “What do you read those sissy comic books for, Hank?’ And he said, “Sissy, hell! Where do you think I get my ideas from?"

(Oct 25, 2014 12:28 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: What comic books did you read as a kid?

I don't recall ever reading comic books as a small kid. In high-school, I got into reading those old Ace double-novel science fiction things. The front and back of those were both front covers, of two different novels bound as one. They used to have that old 50's-60's pulp sci-fi art that I loved (and still do) on both covers. That was probably what first attracted my attention.

(I positively detested the 'literature' that my high-school English teachers made me read, but I loved reading pulp science-fiction. That hasn't changed, I still feel that way!)

It wasn't until I was off at university that one of my roommates introduced me to comic books. He had an incredible collection of comics, hundreds and hundreds of them. I preferred Marvel; the Fantastic Four, Thor and the Silver Surfer were titles I liked.

I was even more recently that I discovered graphic novels. I used to hang around 'Dark Carnival' in Berkeley and places like that, reading them. Some were seriously weird, creepy and haunting and I loved that. (If H.P. Lovecraft were alive then, he would have been doing it too.)

(Oct 25, 2014 09:26 PM)Yazata Wrote: ...In high-school, I got into reading those old Ace double-novel science fiction things. The front and back of those were both front covers, of two different novels bound as one. They used to have that old 50's-60's pulp sci-fi art that I loved (and still do) on both covers. That was probably what first attracted my attention.

I recollect a few of those oddballs. My brother swapped paperbacks at a used-book store and sometimes came back with ones dating from that era. I guess they still produced the double-novels even through the '70s and early '80s, but I only recognized them by that older kind with the upside-down cover on the opposite side. It seems like Jack Vance's The Dying Earth was part of a double, but it was surely a single instead. Heck, I'm not even sure it was Ace now that I reflect on it more. I know they did re-publish a lot of his other work, though.