Comics were a massive, massive, MASSIVE part of my childhood. Its real hazy after all this time but i think i started on the IPC and DC Thompson comedy titles mixed with DC titles (mainly Batman and Worlds Finest) and, when i reached double digits, all the action titles.
I'm covering the British titles on my "AIEEEE!" Blog page, so lets go with something different.
This one pretty much kicked off my exposure to Marvel characters. think i'd come across Spidey and the FF in the pages of Pow! and Fantastic, but they were chopped right down with some downright odd colouring.
Here i had the real deal, in nice big chunks and in plain black and white. How i poured over every issue of this title, along with all its successors (bought them all, along with the British one's. Every week. HOW much pocket money was i getting????)and its the love of them that has me still not minding reading the B/W strips in the "Marvel Essential" collections. Something i can't do with the "DC Showcase" equivilant as those tales must be in colour for me.
I haven't got this issue but will have to track one down to see what i think of it now - if only to see what the covers boast of "3 Big Supernatural Movie Length Adventures" actually means.
I was born a couple of years after you in '64 so the Mighty World of Marvel appearing in '72 caught me at an ideal time. 8 years old and looking for something to read above the normal funnies (although I still loved the IPC titles, too). I distinctly remember my first MWOM, it was #11 and after hassling Mum (I'd seen the previous week's issue in the shops) it came with the papers on a Saturday morning. From then on I was hooked. I'd sometimes be able to pick up the odd US issue from a newsagents or an older title from a guy on the local market but the UK weeklies were my Marvel bread and butter. I would jump ship every time a new title would appear (yes, I did wear the Spider paper bag mask) only moving more onto the US versions around the time of the two pages on one horizontal titles like The Titans. The physical excitement I had for a new issue or a new title then is something I've never felt for a comic since. I remember getting told off for being late in when #1 of The Super Heroes came out as I was hanging around the local newsagents waiting for them to unpack the next day's comics. Great times. Every now and again I'll get out some old early '70s Marvel UKs on a Saturday morning and wallow :)
ReplyDeleteIts good to wallow isn't it? Can't see the kids of today looking back so fondly on their comics...
ReplyDeleteYup, i wore the Spiderman paper bag with pride too. And remember the frustration of not being able to convince me mum to get me a white plain t-shirt so she could iron the Hulk transfer on.