Scans_Daily

How I got into comics... hmmm. Well, the first comics I ever got into were probably Tintin - I have no idea when I got my first album of Tintin, but it must have been pretty damn early, because I can barely remember a time when I was NOT reading Tintin. Big Tintin fan. Also Asterix at some point, although I'm not sure when - it was well after Tintin, I know that much.
After that, I started picking up issues of Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge stuff - I don't remember precisely when, but it was some time around when Disney Comics was transferring back over to Gladstone, if that means anything to anyone. Early '90's. There were also various issues of Harvey comics, Archie, Scooby-Doo, Felix the Cat, Sonic the Hedgehog - that kind of stuff. I was pretty much limited by what was available on the spinner rack at the local market - there wasn't a comic book store anywhere near where I lived at the time, so I went with what I could get. Most of it has NOT dated well - I thought most of the Harvey stuff was pretty dumb even when I was the right age to enjoy it - but I'm still a big fan of Donald and company.
As for superheroes - well, that was a rocky road. I had a major attitude about superheroes from an early age. Sure, I knew who Batman and Superman and Spider-Man were - a badly-drawn caricature of Spidey is actually one of my doodles from kindergarden - but I eschewed them for reasons that now seem rather ridiculously narrow-minded. I really was a pretty damn snobbish, opinionated little kid in retrospect - I refused to debase myself by reading 'comics' (by which, of course, I meant superhero comics) because they were for losers. EVERYBODY knew THAT. Tintin? Uncle Scrooge? Don't be ridiculous - THEY weren't comics, because they were GOOD. I LIKED them, so they COULDN'T be comics. (I had a similar opinion about Looney Tunes VS Disney cartoons - Disney was better, end of story, full stop, despite the fact that I had barely SEEN any Looney Tunes - and I wouldn't, because I had already decided that they were inferior, so why watch them? I don't know precisely how long I kept this circular logic up, but it was well into the third grade, at least. I was pretty weird back then. I've gotten weirder.)
Then - epiphany! Or almost. Someone gave me what should have been a gold mine for a kid my age - a package of an entire month's output of DC Comics. Every single comic - there must have been at least twenty or so of them. (This was, I believe, during the big Eclipso crossover.) I don't know whether this was some sort of package deal that DC used to do, or what, but damn, do I wish I had been a little bit older when I'd gotten it.
Because I was still in my no-superheroes snobby stage back then, you see. I accepted the gift - I had to, it was a present - but complained loudly about it as soon as I could do so without being rude. It was dumb! It was stupid! Everyone knew that superheroes were for losers! Rant! Rave!
And yet, I still read them, at least partially because I was a voracious reader, and would read anything. And... I liked them. Sorta. They were very different, and I couldn't quite admit that my snobbish views had been wrong, but they were... well... hmmm....
Just at the point where I had gotten around to admitting to myself that yes, I WAS kinda sorta enjoying these, I got home from school to find that my Mom had given them all away to someone else, since I'd been so vocal about how dumb those stupid ol' comics were. And given my position on the subject, I couldn't really complain, now could I?
But the seed had been planted. That little voice going 'hmmm' was there now, and there it remained.
Fast forward to when I was about thirteen or fourteen and saw 'Batman Returns' for the first time. Whoa! It was cool! OK. That did it. I was now officially interested. In rapid steps that I can't quite remember the details of, I went from being interested to enthusiastic to obsessive - and here I am, just over a decade later, an ardent fanboy, and looking into making comics of my own.
In a sense, I think my earlier snobbery was actually good for me, because it gave me a slightly objective distance from things. Comics weren't woven into every fiber of my being from the word go, so I can appreciate them more for their own merits than simply because they've always been there. There's no 'YOU'RE RUINING MY CHILDHOOD!' moments for me, comic-wise, because I didn't really get into them until my age hit double digits.
Anyway. Sorry that this got a little wordy, but there's my comics history for you.