Comic Book Characters!

This Blog is continuing to see more and more New Readers, (Welcome!).

My interest in this media was sparked by my Great Aunt Marge and Great Uncle Howard when I was a kid in the late 1950's.

When my folks would visit them in the LA area, there would be comic books waiting for my brother and me to read!

Which was great, because at our age then, talking with grown-ups was not exactly all that much fun with the questions we would be asked each visit!

Of course the earliest comics would be the cartoon comics!  The Aunt and Uncle would call them all 'funnybooks' no matter what the 'genre' of the comics was. Those earliest comics are where I developed my interest for characters like 'Chilly Willy', 'Huckleberry Hound', 'Woody Woodpecker' etc.

Add to that the 'cartoons' on TV, and the 'cartunes' at the Theater, and you would see that I was exposed quite early to the mediums that would interest me through the rest of my life!

My interest turned to TV Westerns in Comic Book Form. Which was because there were Great Westerns that had Photo Comic Book Covers!  Maverick, Bonanza, Have Gun Will Travel, Lone Ranger and so much more!

There was an occasional Batman and Superman in the pile of comics... but superheroes were just starting to make a slow comeback after the Flash was restarted in 1956 with Showcase Comics #4.

There wasn't a 'Marvel Comics' then... and their predecessor 'Atlas Comics' was publishing anything they thought were selling at the other publishers... HoRRoR, MoNSTers, War, Westerns, Romance, etc etc....

It wasn't until Journey Into Mystery #72 which featured 'The Glob' that I first realized that Comic Books were drawn by real people!  This one was drawn by Kirby/Ayers.

It was when I received a copy of Fantastic Four #3, (The Flying Bathtub Cover by 'Kirby'), that I realized I wanted to actually 'collect' comics.

Which was a good thing, as my Dad was transferred to a Navy Base on Kodiak Island, Alaska in 1963.  There wasn't much to do there as a kid, unless you were into fishing, crabbing, and hunting all the time.  Trust me, I got sick and tired of having Salmon as the main course real fast!!

It was there that I became a 'Marvel Zombie', which was someone that would buy 'Marvel Comics' almost exclusively. Sure there was an occasional Batman or ACG HoRRoR comic, but Stan Lee and the 'Bullpen' were 'speaking' to me in the Bullpen Bulletins! (LOL.)

We were there for the Earthquake AND Tidal Wave of 1964, when the whole island sank an average of three feet! The comics were a good thing to read during the time school was washed out!  The town of Kodiak itself was cut off from the Navy Base because the only road was washed away to the Ocean!

Then came time to go back to 'The Lower 48'.

(To be continued in Part Two...)

Note: This blog post's colors and 'theme' are of 'The Batman'. Just click on our pic at the top left to see our Batman listings, or the Batmobile pic to see all of our current DC Comics listings!

Thanks for reading this popular culture - comics - comic book - comic books blog post and feel free to post your comments below!

 

Michael