What Are The Comics That Changed YOUR Life? Options

[G-Man]

Hi everyone.

Want to thank everyone who may have taken the time to read the first Life In Four Colors column and I hope you enjoyed it (despite the two typos that snuck past me.... )

I thought it would really be cool and interesting if you could share a couple of stories concerning some of your favorite all time comics. How many of you out there remember the first comic you read? Why do you remember it?

I know I would like to see some of those responses and I'm sure Chuck would as well.

Not very long ago I interveiwed several different comic shop owners in my area, all in the same day. and asked that question....all for a series of interviews I was doing for another website. They all had some pretty great books and interesting stories, but none as good as Bill Thade's reply to the question. For those of you who don't know who Bill is he owns a comic book store in Dayton Ohio called Fearless Readers and he's the primary financial backer for the annual Gem City Comic Con also in the Dayton area (April of every year.)

Bill has literally HUNDREDS of great comic stories....and he told me this great story about a rainy day in the fifth grade when he read a friend's copy of Amazing Spider-Man #122 and #123 as well as Uncanny X-Men #94 !!! WOW!!! What a great couple of books to start out reading comics with! He also had a really awesome story about when he bought a copy of Incredible Hulk # 181 at the once legendary but now long closed Dayton comic book store, The Bookie Parlor.

The next time you're in the Dayton area, stop in and see Bill....at Fearless Readers Comics 1613 Huffman Ave.
Great Guy. Great Store.

In the mean time....let's hear some stories about some Great Comics !!!

Watch for Life In Four Colors #2 Friday, June 20th. It's gonna be called "Bring On The Bad Guys." I know what you think it's about.....let's see if you're right.

[Ron Fortier]

That's a great story, Aaron. Thanks for sharing it with us. The first comic I was ever given, I too must have been 5, was a Kid Colt Outlaw. And I've never lost of my love of western comics from that day forth. But it wasn't the the comic that I remember the most fondly.

In the summer of 1960, I was 13 and truly loving comics. Marvel had come on the scene and there were big, big changes over at DC. Slowly DC has started to bring back classic golden age characters via their try-out titles, Brave & the Bold and Showcase. Within a period of one year we'd been given a new Flash, a new Green Lantern and a new Hawkman. And all of them were fantastic. Just like that DC's universe wasn't just Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Then one day, flipping through one of those titles, I found an ad for an upcoming issue of Showcase where all these great characters were all together on the same cover fighting a giant alien starfish and the legend proudly proclaimed the all new JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA!! I was in seventh heaven and for the next four weeks drove my bicycle all over that small town hitting up every single drugstore spinner rack that I knew off. I so did not want to miss this new comic title. And sure enough, one day, in a small Mom & Pop store, there it was!! I think I paid a dime for it (though don't hold me to that...been a long while. Ha) Coming home, sitting in my bedroom and reading Showcase Presents The Justice League of America was one of the greatest comic book thrills I ever had. And then when DC gave them their own title, I was a huge fan.

Some thirty years later, when invited to go into New York with an artist friend, I had the opportunity to visit both Marvel HQ and the DC offices. While walking through the halls of DC, I noted their walls were covered with giant poster images of some of their classic 60s covers. Then turning the corner there was that issue of Showcase debuting the JLA. I froze in my tracks and stood there looking up at it mesmerized. Told my friend, "This was one of my all time favorite comic books ever!" It remains so to this day.

This post has been edited by Ron Fortier: Mar 8 2011, 01:50 PM