1. What was the first comic book you remember reading (or looking at if you were too young to read)?
The first weekly comic I got was the Topper on a Thursday but I also "read" TV Tornado and TV21. One of my earliest memories of Marvel, however, is a Power Comic reprinting the Wedding of Reed and Sue. I also remember my mum reading me the Mimic's battle with the Super-Adaptoid. For some reason, I thought the latter was The Blob; stupid kid.
There was also a JLA Giant I remember looking at in my dad's garden and a World's Finest 80 pager.
2. What was the first series you tried to follow every month? Conan the Barbarian; then The Invaders and The Avengers.
3. Who was the first hero to really inspire you? Batman. If by "inspire", we mean "dress up as..."
4. Who was the first villain to give you the creeps or scare you? I was more scared by "weird mystery" comics than by comic book villains. However, I found the battle between Turpin and Kalibak pretty ugly.
5. What was the first story to have a big emotional impact on you? GL/GA "Snowbirds Don't Fly" unsettled me. I felt I wasn't ready for it; I was nine.
6. What was the first action scene to really impress you, make you go "Wow!"? Early Claremont scenes, like the All- New X-Men breaking out of the SHIELD space platform.
7. Who was the first artist whose style you learned to recognize immediately? Jack Kirby.
8. What title's cancellation saddened you the most? All the Fourth World titles.
9. What title's debut excited you the most? The aforementioned All-New X-Men, probably. Much, much later, the Baxter paper New Titans.
10. What was the line-up the first time you saw the Avengers? Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and the Wasp from the début of Goliath in a Power Comic.
11. Who was the first character whose death upset you? A tie between Pam Hawley and Junior Juniper in Sgt. Fury. I was angry at the death of Karate Kid in LSH in the early 80s.
12. What was the first back issue you went hunting for? Adventure 354 ("The Adult Legion") It took me about three years and I came upon it by accident in a shop in Glasgow's Candleriggs. More about that on the 'Optikon in the late spring....
There are no prizes; it's just for fun...
Next: A Butterfly on a Wheel
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Candleriggs? That'll be John McShane's, Pete Root's and Bob Napier's AKA comic shop then?
ReplyDeleteI don't know for sure. There was a little shop where The Dhabba restaurant stands now. In '82, it sold role-paying games and I found Adventure 354 in a box there. This was immediately after the comic mart in the hotel on Jamaica Street that's now a hostel. I don't have my 1982 diary up here but I didn't think it was AKA.
ReplyDeleteI knew McShane and Root to say hello to, from the days when they were in the Virginia Galleries
Oops, my mistake - I was confusing Candleriggs with the Virginia Galleries. I think you're referring to Bob Shaw's shop, Second Foundation.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds right. I don't remember going in there very often.
ReplyDeleteI only remember being in a handful of times myself. In fact, I only just (relatively) recently learned that the street had been 'redesigned' and that the original premises no longer existed. As you may know, Pete Root sadly passed away a few years ago from cancer. By that time he had space in a shop in Parnie Street, after being in Forbidden Planet in Buchanan Street for a while.
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