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What was the first comic you can remember reading?
Pretty much what the title says.
For me it was The New 52 run of the Flash comics. I started there because that was the current run when I first started reading and then once I got caught up, I went back and read the earlier ones. Now I'm just reading various Marvel comics as I have time, but if anyone has any recommendations for new comics, I will gladly check them out.
I wish it was something far more indy and "out there," but it's DC's Adventure Comics, starring the Legion of Super-Heroes.
It was the '60s and the only source for comics was the spinning rack at the tiny grocery store two blocks from home. For my dime, it was either gonna be the Legion or Archie, and I went with the Legion. Came back for Archie a few days later, after hitting the jackpot in a phone booth's coin return...
The Savage Dragon #1, I thought it was the coolest thing I'd seen and I was sure that if I kept the issue in mint condition that it would be worth a lot of money someday.
One more for Savage Dragon! It wasn't my first first but it was the first series that had me searching for the next issue.
Savage Dragon might be my answer as well but it was just a random issue. I didn't really grow up with comic books, but in my teens I grabbed a couple random issues from random series at a Salvation Army store. I say it might be my answer, because there's no telling which one I actually read first. But as Savage Dragon and a few issues of Shadowhawk are the only ones I remember, it was probably one of them.
A teacher brought in a stack of issues in for an art project circa 1994. I remember thinking the Green Lantern issue I picked up was cool.
As for when I started really reading comics, I saw an article about Civil War and thought it sounded interesting. Went to the book store to pick up some civil war tpb's. After consuming all those and a chunk of Amazing Spider-man stuff from around that time, I started hitting the comic shop, and was a regular for about the next ten years.
I don't read much anymore. Certainly not cape stuff. Mostly burnt out on super-heroes. But I had a good run.
Asterix the Gaul was one of the first I owned. Growing up there were the classic French and Belgian comics around and Donald Duck. I recently revisited Lucky Luke, Spirou & Fantasio and TinTin, but sadly the everyday colonialism and stereotypical racism present in those ruined the reread for me. Asterix kind of sticks out a bit, but falls in the same trap as soon as they travel outside of Europe.
Maybe I’m a stickler and some might tell me that it’s not that bad, and I’d agree to some degree, since it was the casual everyday kind of subtle racism there. Bit it’s still racist. I found it sad that I can’t just hand them to my kids without addressing the issue. Kinda like what Disney is now doing with the disclaimer before their older movies. On the other hand, there is so much awesome stuff out there nowadays, that they don’t need the classics until some later time where they can recognize and take in account the time they where from.
Then there was Werner that is a German comic character, who is a biker guy that is causing all sorts of mischief with the regular square people. It’s kinda crude and probably nothing you should hand to a seven year old, but hey, my parents didn’t mean to cause harm. It prepared me for the appreciation of political comics in the Titanic and Pardon magazine that my father had laying around.
Some other notable comic that I remember from my childhood was Prince Valiant, which I found fascinating and creepy as the same time. Never owned them, but got them from the library.
(ETA)
Now I reread your post and saw that you asked for recommendations. I’ll leave my reminiscing ramblings up there and add a list of stuff that I would recommend today.
Since I now met various adults that hadn’t read them, number one recommendation would be Calvin & Hobbes. Then, there is the great metacomic Imbattable. Sorry for the French link, it was either that or German. I’m sure, there is an English translation out there.
Next up would then be a more adult series, Saga. A psychedelic sci-fi trip. Haven’t finished it completely, but can recommend.
For me it was The Tintin story The shooting Star. Ironically one of the weaker entries in the series, but I was more or less hooked from then on.
I can't necessarily remember if it was the first one I read but the first one I bought was X-Men vol 1 #51, "Ride the Death Train". That was the start of my collection that's now over 3500
All I remember was it was a silver surfer comic from the early 90s.
As a very young kid in the UK in the 60s and early 70s I was given things like Pippin and then later The Beezer and The Topper and would occasionally receive boxes of other mixed UK s/h comics from assorted relations, but the world of American superhero style comics really didn't cross my radar as a kid at all.
I did get a Star Trek annual featuring reprints of the Gold Key comics - a couple of which made an impact (especially my first encounter with what was essentially Cthulhu, who managed to scare Spock. Obvs I had no idea about Cthulhu otherwise until some time later...). Whilst visiting an older cousin on one occasion I got my hands on what I believe to be some early copies of Creepy, which featured an adaptation of Bram Stoker's The Squaw and Poe's The Cask of Amontillado - although, again, I had no idea of their authorship or significance at the time.
Anyhoo, the first comics that I actually chose were Warlord (issue 1), then Battle, which became Battle-Action and then I discovered 2000AD (Issue 32, I recall) and there was no going back.
Because of my brother, Archie comics were the first thing I read! I only though of comics being full of superpowers, so it was nice to have a slice of life style comic.
Civil War. I was in college and the idea of it was really intriguing to me. Heroes vs Heroes. I read that and got* into Spider-Man: Civil War as well. We know how that ended 🙁.
A few years after that, I got into The Flash: Rebirth and into the New 52. Still reading that series.
Aside from those, I read limited run DC series. E.g. Mr. Miracle or crossover events
Oh, man, it would have been '71 or '72... Too long ago to precisely remember. Most likely an old Richie Rich comic.
For me it was some random Judge Dredd and Spider-Ham comics in the mid eighties. I don't know which ones though. But I do wish I could look through those older comics and find the ones I used to look at.
Ravage 2099 #1 with the foil-ish cover. I may have read something before it (i feel like there's an xmen but someone gave it to me as a gift and it always stuck with me. It's so....weird
Alternatively it may have been an X men from around that time? I recall strong guy almost getting stabbed (the guy who was going to stab him had his weapon taken from him by a speedster, might have been shatterstar looking at images?) and professor x being in like...a bacta tank with black junk growing all over him...maybe from where he was shot? Can't find that issue looking around.
Robin #1 (the ongoing, not one of the previous mini-series). I was a big fan of Tim Drake all growing up, and that issue came out when I was definitely too young to read it (5, I think). Got about the first 12-15 issues, moved into some more age appropriate stuff. Then during high school I found those, and went on a spree of comic book stores and Half Price Books until I tracked down every issue I didn’t have. I think the series ended right after that and switched to Red Robin, which I also enjoyed. Then they did Tim dirty in the New 52 and basically made him an entirely different person, so that’s where we parted ways.
For me it was one of the Bionicle comics that came with a Lego magazine back in the early 2000s.
For me it must've been one of the Beano or Dandy Annuals. Not sure the exact year, but probably in the late 80s some time. I've still got them stored away somewhere.
Casper the Friendly Ghost and MAD Magazine, my dad normally read MAD first (he was friends with one of the artist, don't ask I can't remember which one)
Well, I basically learned to read thanks to Mickey Mouse stories, so that's an easy answer for me. Here in Italy we have "Topolino", that is a weekly Disney magazine that publishes (since 1949!) mostly new stories created by very talented Italian artists. My family had a lot of copies, gifted or borrowed from friends and family.
But the first comic that I owed and that is still in my heart was a collection of John Byrne's Superman, the reimagining of Post-Crisis character. This image is what comes to my mind first every time I think about Superman, and for me those are still the greatest Supes stories ever written (yeah, rose-colored glasses, I know)
Must've been either this little collection of Garfield comics, or some sort of Scrooge McDuck book which could have been an annual or a collection, I don't remember. I liked those Scrooge comics, I should go back to them.
GI Joe. Sepcifically a GIANT edition of a combined trade. Dont even remember what the story was just that it was like 3x the size of a normal comic (in dimensions not story wise) and that it was worth noooooooothng (when i got laughed at when i brought it to a comic shop).