When did I start liking comics?

Okay, so I decided to start a comic book company. Well, where do I start? You see, I have no experience in publishing of any kind. All I have is a life-long love and passion for comic books. So as I embarked on building this company, it got me thinking of my earliest memories of comic books in my life.

Like many fans, my love of comics started off with Saturday Morning cartoons before I could read. Superfriends by Hanna-Barbera, Tarzan, Zorro, The Lone Ranger (and yes, Fat Albert) by the great Filmation production company and Marvel Super Heroes were some of my favorites.

Continuing to think about the past, I remember that my great-Uncle had a huge comic book collection. But the collection however was hands-off to my grubby little 3 year old hands, and I would have to sneak into my great-grandmother’s basement just to look through his massive comic book collection. Once, my uncle even caught me going through his books and immediately “changed” into the Hulk and chased me around the house for touching them. Ahhh…. good memories….

It seemed that everything was being setup for me to start loving comics as much as my uncle, and to even start drawing much like he did. But before I was old enough to read and appreciate my uncle’s massive comic book collection, my great-grandmother THREW OUT THE ENTIRE COMIC BOOK COLLECTION (all of those poor 5, 10, 15 and 20 cent comics….gone *sniff, sniff*). She was moving and was not taking the comics with her, so when my uncle did not pick up his collection, she THREW THEM OUT. As the story was told to me by my grandmother, all of the neighborhood kids ransacked the boxes within minutes and there were ripped comics littering the street after they were done. Arrgh… bad memories…

When I was finally old enough to read and earn an allowance to buy my own comics, a whole new world opened up to me which complimented the Saturday Morning Cartoons. It was great, I would get $2 and go straight to the newsstand (not the comic book store) and pick up about 5 comics (man, I miss 0.40 cent comics). But I couldn’t help thinking how much more substantial my collection would be if my great-grandma had given me and my cousin even some of my uncle’s collection. Many years later when I asked why she threw the comics out, she told me she gave my uncle months to pick up the comics and he never did. Neither me nor my cousins were old enough to read, so she didn’t think they’d be useful to us. When I told her that those comics could have potentially sent me and the other great-grand kids to college, she admitted to only thinking that the comics had sentimental value to my uncle and not any real monetary value. SO… to all of the moms, grandmoms and great-grandmoms… DON’T throw out your kid’s comics until you assess the value of the collection. You never know what valuable gems they might have.

What about you dear readers? When did you first start liking comics? Feel free to share your story by posting comments. While you’re contemplating the answer to my question, here’s a sneak peek.