And we’re you more of a kiddie or more of an adultie?
12 Likes
Mine was wow!!! And I was but a Munchkin.
4 Likes
What a neat idea for a thread!
I was eight when I went to my first comic store. I thought it was really cool. It wasn’t a “Holy Potatoes, this is cool!” reaction. I just took everything in piece by piece, my interest building seismically as I came across each new thing.
It was a nice store too. Brightly lit, well organized, friendly staff. Not your standard troll cave with Mr. Know It All sitting on an old, beat-up stool watching bootleg home video releases.
5 Likes
Overwhelmed. Confused. I didn’t know where to start. It felt kinda like a library. I don’t feel that way anymore though. Now I love the comic book store.
6 Likes
My first one was when I was 13 (although that store had been around for like 10 yers before that) and I fell in love. Went there for 10 years before taking a big break then got back into it. Quit going when I went to work for a different store as a regular, but I still go from time to time. The guy who owned that store opened it in the 80’s and it is still around to this very day (different owner but still seems to be going strong), he also opened 2 more stores in the 90’s with that same name, one of them is also still in business to this day. No one can say that guy didn’t make his mark on the comic book scene, at least in my city.
2 Likes
@JL I gotta say, that library feeling-- a library of comic books… that’s a big part of what I instantly loved the place.
3 Likes
I was 9 and it was stimuli overload.
3 Likes
I was around 12. The Reign of The Supermen had just ended. I hadn’t yet become a collector and didn’t know much of anything about comics. I picked up a three part Spider-Man mini and was so excited. I was just about to drop my Spider-Man phase though and become a DC fan. It was love at first sight and I continued shopping there until I was married. Quarter bins built a life long love of the DC universe. And that store had tons of quarter bins.
4 Likes
pretty much same as JL… I think I was about 11
2 Likes
I was around 5. It was cool but intimidating, because it was so big. You had to walk up stairs to get in, and then it was just wall to wall comics and statues, and the lighting had an eeriness to it. My dad would take me there some weekends to get graphic novels to read to me. My grandparents would also take me in whenever we went to the restaurant across the street, which is probably why that was my favorite restaurant as a kid. It was upsetting when it closed around 10 years ago because it was the only comic store in reasonable walking distance from my house.
2 Likes
Amazement. I was 6 or 7
2 Likes
I was in awe. I came from the spinner rack days of the mid 70’s. I discovered Cosmic Comics in beautiful downtown Cleveland, OH run by the creator of Black Lightning, Tony Isabella.
I was 13 and had to ride a bus close to an hour from the suburbs to exciting downtown once a month to get my favorite books. I soon discovered the direct market, independent comics, and magazines like The Comics Journal & The Comic Reader. Also found cool record shops and hobby shops with selection that was unheard of back in the suburbs.
Comics introduced me to a whole new world. The energy of the city. The grind house movie theaters showing Kung Fu movies. That first comic shop helped me love the city and all kinds of genre entertainment.
4 Likes
Really awesome I love all DC Comics
2 Likes
I was 12 the first time I went to a comic shop and it’s was because my best friend suggested it. (Well actually she didn’t say it was a comic shop. She called it by the shop’s name. ) My first reaction was how cool it was that all these comics were there all in one place. Before this time I’d only ever seen comics on spinner racks so to discover that there was an entire store dedicated to comics was both awesome and overwhelming. I spent many a day there growing up as it was within walking distance of both my parent’s house and my school. A lot of my school crowd hung out there after school discussing the latest issues. (I was quite taken with Marvel’s output at the time though I was also deeply into Batman as well.)
3 Likes
Atomic Comics!!! Mesa Arizona baby. The first store was huge I was just a young buck they moved to a smaller location before they unfortunately closed down
2 Likes
I was probably in my thirties. I lived in NYC. Around thirty Fourth Street, there was a place that kept comici books up to three months and sold old comics too.
After my mother died in 1998, I became almost current with the three months ago issues, mainly Marvel Avengers and X-Men Comics. The old issues bin gave me Wein Swamp Thing and Green Lantern/Green Arrow. Last time I went there, they were Graphic Novel Trades only.
For many years, I was close to Forbidden Planet, near fourteen street.
Later there was a store near World Trade, where I would buy all the new 52. By then there was a long staircase and my legs were going kaput, so I stopped going and buying comics for more than a year.
Then I started to buy digital, first Nook, then Kindle, then Comixology. I like the convenience, as I can’t walk very far or upstairs and there are no storage problem.
2 Likes
@ RobertDeBeero
Atomic Comics! I lived in Gilbert and bought a Superman comic every week at the gas station. But once in a while, if we were going to be in the area my mom would take me to Atomic Comics. It was the coolest. It made me want to own a comic shop one day just so that I could read all of the comics. (Even though I don’t own a comic store I get to read pretty much whatever I want with this service; three cheers for the future!)
1 Like
@tenzel. Nice my friend!!! Did you ever make it when they had the huge shop? Or did you go when they moved around the corner. I loved that place you get home and pull your haul out of their custom atomic Comics bag and dive Right in!!! Big shout out to Gilbert as well, last time I was out there my sister took me to eat there, that downtown is really getting cool. While Mesa’s downtown is starting to look like crime alley.
1 Like
Ah, hello fellow former Atomic Comics regulars! I too graced their doorstep hundreds of times. That yellow bag was nifty.
3 Likes
The first pull list I ever had was at a comic shop that was a converted house in Brenham, TX; I was an adult who just moved there to be with my fiancé at the time. The back wall of the living room was where the new comics were kept, and the rest of the room was a disarray of long boxes stacked everywhere and the cash register. They also sold used books and rented movies, which filled up the remainder of the rooms in the house. It was an amazing place. The proprietor was a sweet older German woman, whose husband had started the shop and had since passed. She was carrying on the business in his honor. And she offered a discount if you had a pull list. Other shops since have not been so generous. I have been in much more fancy shops with much more merchandise, but none of them have ever come close to the charm and connection I had for that place.
1 Like