What was the MAIN comic company of choice growing up?

[bminor]

I am excluding all the Golden Age comic companies.
My thinking is that most of us here at DCM started reading comics comics in the early 60's.
I myself did not start until about 1968, and was a Marvel guy mostly.
Is there a company that I am missing?
Yours,
Bminor

[Yoc]

I started actively buying in 1979.
I grew up on Marvel but enjoyed the clearance bin Atlas/Seaboard Comics at the time.
3 for $1 when I couldn't get anymore Marvel titles on that trip was a good buy.
I'd still like to know how Phoenix and Vampire Planet were going to finish...

[Geo (RIP)]

I started in the '50's myself with DC, Atlas, Marvel, Dell, Fargo, etc.
It was a mixed bag, but mostly the DC brand.
My folks hated the EC's, but I liked them.

Geo

[movielover]

Well, Marvel had most of the properties for comics for series I liked, so Marvel. ACG was long gone, DH, Image and IDW didn't exist and Whitman and Charlton were in their death throes.

[bcholmes]

I started reading comics in 1973, when I was in grade 2.  I even remember the comic that first caught my interest: Justice League of America number 100, guest-starring the Justice Society and the Seven Soldiers of Victory.  It was the first of a three-part story, and it took years for me to get the middle part.

I was mostly a DC reader after that although, really, I was happy reading most team books: Avengers, Teen Titans, JLA, JSA, Legion, Infinity Inc., X-Men, etc.  I wasn't really into solo heroes from any company.

[Roygbiv666]

At the time I would identify myself as a DC fan. Looking back though, I do have quite a bit of Marvel. I had a sneaking admiration for their shared continuity (and house style). But Batman is still the Man.

[jfglade]

I am excluding all the Golden Age comic companies.
My thinking is that most of us here at DCM started reading comics comics in the early 60's.
I myself did not start until about 1968, and was a Marvel guy mostly.
Is there a company that I am missing?
Yours,
Bminor

 "Growing up" covers a lot of ground and I'm a bit older than average, so I did read some material from companies early on which aren't listed but I doubt any of them would garner many votes. I finally went with DC because the first comic I remember buying (on my fifth birthday) was an issue of "All Star Western" and DC was a very stable company with good distribution so I probably read more DC comics than any others from the time I was six (the year my older brother married and left home and I started selecting my own comic books instead of reading what he was bringing home; that also happened to be the same year the Comics Code came into use) until I was I was sixteen and Marvel's distribution improved. There were times between those two ages when I read books from many other companies but only Dell books seriously rivaled DC for a few years when I was seven to nine. I began collecting golden age books when I was seventeen but they were never by primary comics reading material because of the cost.

[narfstar]

I started as a DC fan. Being an oddball collector I fell in love with all the "other guys" superhero comics with Dell superheroes, Crusaders, Chartlon Action, Fatman, ACG heroes and Myron Fass' Captain Marvel . I became more of a Marvel fan after their demise but like bcholmes I was fond of most teams.

[cimmerian32]

First Comics... Growing up in the 70s, I read Batman, Green Lantern, Daredevil, later X-Men and the Avengers... But overall, First Publishing was my favourite-I-Love-every-title company. They had Badger, Grim Jack, Nexus, Dreadstar, Whisper, Jon Sable, Hawkmoon, etc. Loved every one of their titles, even Warp

[Drahken]

You neglected harvey comics.
Various harvey titles (mainly casper & richie rich ones) and archie comics were neck & neck when I was growing up, but I think harvey just barely edged out archie.

The only time I got any marvel comics was when I got one of those random bagged 4 for $1 ones. While I've always been a big fan of spiderman, I despised marvel comics especially & "serious" comics in general because of the publishers' money-grubbing tactics of forcing you to buy 40 issues each, of 12 different titles each, of 20 different & unrelated heroes/groups, just to get one story. I swear, all the issues of spiderman that I saw back in the 80s had far more "see incredible hulk #xxx" and "continued in x-men #xxx" than actual current content.

Now, if you're talking about stories/characters rather than actual comic publications, then it'd probably be DC, with marvel as a close second. I was a big fan of the 60s batman show, the superfriends show, and the filmation batman cartoon, as well as the 50s superman show, a vaguely remembered 80s superman cartoon, and the wonderwoman show. I was also a big fan of spiderman (there was the classic 60s cartoon, the 70s live action show, the 80s solo cartoon, the spiderman & friends cartoon from the same timeframe) and the incredible hulk (the live action show & the 80s cartoon).

[bminor]

I knew I was forgetting a big company.
Harvey has now been added!
B.

[JonTheScanner]

I voted DC since I started reading comics well before Marvel hit their stride. I was a big fan of Flash and Adam Strange.

I'm wondering about the ordering of the companies in the list.  I suspect it's just the order in which you happened to thin of them, but a great deal of thought (and fight) goes into the ordering of names on a ballot. Apparently being listed first is a benefit. For example, the rule in CT is something like the party of the serving governor gets to be listed on top, but this year there was something of a fight about it.  Dan Malloy (D) is the governor of CT; however, when he won election he was also endorsed by another minor party (I forget which). Although he had more votes than the Republican candidate, he had fewer votes as a Democrat. The original ballot was designed with Democrats on top and the Republican party sued. The Supreme Court of CT decided the Republicans should get top spot.

[Geo (RIP)]

I voted DC since I started reading comics well before Marvel hit their stride. I was a big fan of Flash and Adam Strange.

A couple of my favorites too, from their start in the '50's. For Adam Strange I still have the 'Showcase Presents' books of 'Adventures on Other Worlds'.

http://imageshack.us/a/img717/6776/sho17.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img585/2379/sho18.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img805/6240/sho19.jpg

Geo

[JonTheScanner]

Geo, I never saw the Showcase Adam Stranges at the time. For some reason the place I got comics never seemed to put out either Showcase or Brave & Bold, so I didn't get the first appearances of any of those DC's. Atom's first appearance was the first Showcase I ever bought -- and I think saw. It might be just as well in the case of Adam, since I much preferred Infantino's Strange to Sekowsky's.

[darkmark (RIP)]

Back then, in the pre-Johnson days, comics were plentiful, cheap, and good.  No matter what town you lived it, you could find a place that had them, and they were buyable.  Also, there were a LOT of step-on titles for kids...funny stuff, adaptations of TV cartoons and movies and the like.  You got into those and you graduated to superheroes.  Now, we don't have them, and that's why kids don't read many comics these days, among other reasons.