My first comic, I think it was Iron Man; the first appearience of War Machine. The cover was of War Machine with all his weapons ready to fire and the title was scratched and War Machine was written all over. Then again it might have been a Spectacular Spider-man... Either way none of them lasted my furious childhood. I think I drew on them or something... After that I remember picking up a Fright Night comic in a supermarket. Like before... this one did not escaped my furious childhood. But from that last one I started drawing from it, instead of drawing on it. A bit later I picked a copy of Batman versus Predator number one. It was my first number one issue and I felt proud of that. This book was so cool that I kept re-reading it every five minutes, until I wore it down but sadly... it did not escaped the wrath of mom! In my teen years, I collected a couple of X-Men comics and discovered the joy of collecting. I collected a lot of crap. I did not have any ground breaking run and the two or four titles became twenty and then forty.
Soon the joy of collecting became the pain of continuity. The first comic book shop was small but the people there were cool. Sadly they went out of business. Since my comic habit was so strong, I went to another comic book shop two towns further but the guy there was an idiot. My wednesday fix was becoming something of a force, tedious problem. So I did what every other comic book geek does. I made a big order focusing on crapy books and quit the comic book shop two weeks before the order arrived. I didn't want to go back to another obnoxious parody of the Simpson's comic book guy, so I fully quit buying comics.
Sometime later I bought the Watchmen trade paperback. Everything from that point on was a hunt for mature comics. Watchmen opened the gates for quality material, Alan Moore showed me the way and the way was good. From that point on I did not stop, I got back on the comic book wagon or the graphic novel wagon, Sandman, Preacher, Sin City, Madman, Hellboy, among many others gave me the food to satisfy my hunger!
The imagination from those books were superb and a big influence in my life. These characters were more than just a childhood fixation. These were my secret empires. The knowledge that kept me ahead of the herd. You see ten or fifteen years ago the comic book movie franchises were non-existent nobody knew who Doctor Manhattan was heck-- ten years ago nobody knew who Iron Man was. But I knew and I always knew it was cool no matter what other people said. I'm glad that comics are more accepted these days. Still we are all freaks and geeks. But I'm glad I kept buying comics, this is the best time to be a comic book nerd. Sure the parody of the comic book guy is a cliche in every comic book shop. You know the obnoxious, fat, bad smelling little man with sarcastic opinions? If you don't want to deal with a guy like that F-it! You can always order online but don't miss on what is the best time for comics.
Right now I live in a room full of comics and... Is kind of a pain in the ass because the earphones of my iPod are located somewhere in this room and I can't find them. But untill then I'll read some comics.