I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. As I’ve occasionally acknowledged, it took me a bit of time before I plunged into the world of superhero comics. As was my wont at that age, I clung to the kiddie material I loved longer than I probably should have. At different times, I’ve probably retrospectively tagged various comics as my gateway into the supposedly more mature fare populated by the costumed do-gooders of the Marvel Universe, but it’s probably … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: The Mighty Marvel Superheroes Fun Book

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. As I’ve confessed many, many times in this digital space, there was no character who held greater sway over me during the years that my time was most clearly monopolized by superhero comics than bashful Benjamin J. Grimm, also known as the ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Thing. The craggy colossus of the Fantastic Four, the first family of Marvel Comics, was a character I’d follow just about anywhere. I religiously purchased the title featuring … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: The Thing by John Byrne and Ron Wilson

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. For a variety of reasons, superhero comics rarely provide more than glancing attention to the holidays. That was especially true years ago, when there was limited pages for the roiling sagas because publishers were wary of flooding the market. (That’s not really an issue now.) That often meant that any dose of holiday cheer was more likely to arrive in strange, non-continuity corners of the fictional universes. In the late nineteen-eighties and … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: “I’ll Be Doom for Christmas” by Scott Lobdell and John Byrne

I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. When I was a young, I didn’t know too many other kids who were into comics. I had no one to commiserate with about the latest developments in the Marvel Universe, nor anyone who could turn me on to new and different stuff by sharing issues and titles that they loved to which I’d been previously unexposed. There were rare exceptions, which made them memorable. And if one of those exceptions … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: “Foul Play!” by Bill Gaines, Al Feldstein, and Jack Davis