Stories of the places you bought comic books as a kid

[Ami_GFX]

My first comics were contraband. I persuaded my grandmother to buy me Walt Disney comics without telling her my mom didn't approve. I think I had a plan about this becuase I was allowed to watch the Walt Disney TV show on Sunday and when I was caught with a stash of Walt Disney comic digests and Walt Disney's Comics & Stories, I already had permission to watch the same characters on TV so my mom dropped her opposition and let me have them. I was 8. The floodgates had been opened and they would never close again. Within a couple of years she actually became supportive of me reading and collecting comics.

[Yoc]

I firmly believe comics helped me become a reader unlike my sister who never touched them nor is much of a reader today.

[Ami_GFX]

I remember the fact that I was reading something, "even if they're only comic books", being part of the argument that brought down the opposition to me buying comics. And by the time I was 12 or 13, I was reading a lot--at least a book a week--besides comics and had a college reading level. I alway got good grades in reading and litterature from elementary school through high school.

[bminor]

Another story of comic book teenagerhood, not to long after the ice cream pail period.
It was the summer of 1974. I was about into enter tenth grade that fall. I played trumpet and had joined the summer high school marching band, we marched in parades all over the state of Minnesota.
We practiced in the evening after dinner. That night my Dad took me up to the high school and halfway there we had to rush back home, I had forgotten my band hat, the kind they put a plume in on top. Well, we needed that for practicing marching in straight lines, so we could see the other people in front of us.

Well, I ran up stairs to my room and grabbed the hat and was out of the house in a flash.

......... We practiced for two hours.
A TRUE STORY...
I got a ride home from a friend, and arrived home...

To a dark empty house. There was a big hole chopped in the roof right above my room!

There had been a fire!!!

My older sister and her husband were waiting for me in front of the house in their van to take me to the motel where the rest of the family was.

Only my Mom was home and she was o.k. My next thought what about the comics in my room?!!?

The story I heard was, everybody in the neighborhood knew I collected comics, and the cry went up "Save Brians' comics!  They went and did just that!
I walked over to the van where my sister was waiting, lo and behold they had them all in the back of the van!
Some had a bit of damage not from the fire, but the water from the very enthusiastic firemen who had chopped the hole in the roof of the house to put out the fire! Some had some smoke damage that I can smell to this day.

So, in the end we lived in a rented home for a few months down the street, while our house was gutted and whole new inside was put together. My Mom was very happy with her brand new/old house!

Later when I got to go up and survey the damage their was a dark burnt spot in the carpet in the middle of my room. When I had run upstairs to grab the hat I must have knocked over the table light (I must have left it on) and it got the carpet smoldering, next thing there was fire!

This last thing note, believe it or not is absolutely true. I swear it. When I ran out the door with my band hat in hand, I rushed by the living room. My Mom was watching,   Gunsmoke....

Bminor

[narfstar]

Thanks for shareing B Oh the things of our past

[stubby]

V J Elmore's 5 & Ten in Monroeville, Alabama, late 1962. I purchased World's Finest Comics 129 and ws hooked for life. What I liked about that place was the comics was at my eye level and below. It had all the Superman / Batman titles, Sugar & Spike, Tomahawk, Blackhawk and Mystery in Space. I would buy 8 every two weeks (seven if an annual was out if I could find an extra penny somewhere for I had an allowance of one dollar every two weeks (Mom's payday).

[Lady Sky Skipper]

My family used to live on the Big Island at Hilo until 1992, my sister was into comics earlier than I was so we went to this comic store I couldn't remember the name of and I bought a stamp.

Much later when we took trips to Honolulu we would go either to Jelly's at University Square near University at Manoa and Pearl City. They also sold books, videos, cds, records, and tapes. However I mostly bought manga, EC Comics, and a few independents. I didn't get into superheroes until around 2002 when I hit eighteen.

Actually, we mostly bought them from the bookstore since they had spinner racks although we were more likely to buy graphic novels since bookstores don't carry back issues

[Poztron]

My family lived in Lakewood, Ohio from 1953 until 1962. I was born in 1950 and started buying comics when I was 6 or so. Due to the limits of magazine distributors in the Cleveland area, the only comics that were readily available at Winton Drugs in Lakewood were DCs and maybe Harveys. In order to get ACGs, I had to ride my bike halfway across town to a mom & pop corner store that had those. And to get Dells, I had to ride my bike over to a 5 and dime (which is where I got Jack Davis's YakYak). When we visited family friends in Upper Sandusky (a few hours away), they had piles of Uncle Scrooges and Donald Ducks, which were a treat. A drug store in Upper Sandusky was also the only place where I was able to score copies of Kurtzman's HELP!

Our next door neighbor in Lakewood, once gave me 5 GA comics that had belonged to her now grown son, including a Plastic Man and Blackhawk. These were pre-code and I was thrilled, but my mother was horrified and confiscated them before I even got a chance to read them. And she somehow got rid of them without me being able to find them in the trash. (Damn!) That certainly whetted my appetite early on for GA comics.

I got involved with early comics fandom in the early '60s and that was an era when other fans and I would mail each other comics (such as old Simon & Kirby Prize comics, and even ECs) to read and mail back. I read about exotic MLJ superheroes in an early Alter Ego, but never really saw any of those comics (to read, at least) until I discovered GAC and DCM. I did have the good luck to pick up a decent number of Quality, Fox, and Fiction House comics at some comic cons in the '70s, when one could get them (in fairly rotten shape) for a couple bux a piece.

I have to say that DCM is a dream come true and I especially commend JVJ for his selfless sharing of his collection for scanning. That is in the true spirit of early to mid '60s fandom. 

[Drahken]

I used to get nearly all my comics used. I had 2 primary sources;
1) There was a local convenience store that had a rack of comics with no covers, these were all $0.15 each. They typically ranged from the 1960s to the 1980s (this was in the mid-80s), with most being relatively recent (late 70s-early 80s).
2) Fairs & flea markets. Any time we went to one I would look around for anyone with a box of used comics. These would usually be about $0.25 each, be mostly from the 60s, and still have the covers on. I mostly got casper & other old harvey comics this way.