Magnum Mania!

Ask, Little Garwood, and you shall receive!

It started on the "What are you reading" thread and before it took over I figured we should give that former bastion of nerdity, the Comic Book, it's own place.

Hi, my name is Peter, and I'm a comic book fan.

Grew up on DC's Justice League of America, Batman and World's Finest as well as Marvel's Conan, Avengers, Invaders and Iron Man back in the 70's and went full blown geek in the 80s with the comic shop explosion. Badly stored unsleeved in boxes (and still in my parents attic) but well read are runs of The X-Men (and all their subsequent expansion titles and miniseries), Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, Savage Sword of Conan, King Conan, Avengers, West Coast Avengers, Micronauts, Firestorm, Warlord, The Justice League, Teen Titans, Justice Society . . . I could go on. I am mostly a Marvel person, thought that DC screwed up a good thing with the first Crisis (even though it was a great story and event) and never really got into the smaller independent companies, although I did like The Elementals.

Lately, IMHO, the Big Two have mucked up enough of their continuity that it seems like they enjoy torturing "those who brought them to the dance" so I have really cut back on new runs. My big thing lately has been getting collections of runs from the past I missed out on at the time.

Marvel's Essentials, a black and white line, has been great for me. The Defenders run, Power Man & Iron Fist and early Avengers have been good reads. I have also done the same with DC's version, Archives, where I picked up a run of the Legion of Superheroes just before they were to take off as well as some old, and quite corny, JLA.

Currently I'm reading the beginning of the Frank Miller/Klaus Janson run on Daredevil, featuring Elektra and Kingpin and am looking forward to the return of Comic Book Men after The Walking Dead in a couple of weeks.

So . . . what comics do YOU like?

I'm of the age in which Star Wars was most every kid's favorite thing and it is because of Marvel's Star Wars comic thatI began reading comics. I've always liked super-heroes though: X-Men, Master of Kung Fu, the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Batman, and especially DC's "Battle Books" which were all anti-war: Sgt. Rock, the Unknown Soldier, the Haunted Tank, Enemy Ace, and whatever Star Trek comic was being published--DC's was best.

I quit comics around the time I started high school (1985) but only because the quality of the books declined in my view. In 1997, I came back to DC Comics because Doug Moench was writing Batman. When his run with Kelley Jones ended, so did my brief return to comics.

I was really into comics from '90 to '96. Mainly Marvel and a bit of DC. Thor and Daredevil were my favorite characters. I stopped reading around the time of Marvel's Heroes Reborn storyline. I tried getting back into them in the early 2000s, but they had changed so much by that point that I have no interest in revisiting them. Decompressed writing and more "adult" (sophomoric in actuality) characterizations aren't my cup of tea. Getting online and finding out that many of the writers and artists I enjoyed are jerks didn't help either.

Sometimes, I'm temped to buy some old issues, but I think I may be better off with my memories.

Mad was the only comic I ever bought or read. I had a subscription as a kid and my dad gave me his Mad comics from the 50s, which I still own.
I have this one framed, in my den.

I think a comics book thread fits really nicely into the Magnum Mania Forum. I remember that we learn that Magnum is himself a comic book fan in Season 7, Episode 15 "On the Fly" when Magnum discovers Bonnick's comic book collection. Magnum mentions he is a fan of Tales of the Crypt, and I think Higgins sells off Bonnick's comics book collection at the end of the episode to pay for the damages caused to the estate during that episode.

Myself, I must say I never got very deep into comics book. I loved the Star Wars Marvel comics when I was very young. They were gifts from my grandfather and they really kept me spellbound. I think I didn't become a bigger fan because I just didn't have much any access to them in my small, rural town while I was growing up. But I did make due with the "choose your own adventure" books in the public library.

But glad to see a comics book thread. Anyone got any suggestions of comics that people obsessed with all things Magnum PI might find interesting?

I think Thomas, with his Little Voice, would be a reader of a The Haunted Tank.

I think you may be on to something.

marlboro wrote:I think you may be on to something.

You're really good Marlboro!
Very creative!!!!
Love to see more (assuming this doesn't take long to do).

marlboro wrote:I think you may be on to something.

Ha! PERFECT!!

Cool thread, Conch. I've never been a huge comic book fan myself (not really sure why as I've always appreciated the medium). Like Stealth, I did read MAD magazine quite a bit when I was a kid and teen. I got the Watchmen graphic novel not long after it came out and loved it. I also have the entire Big Book Series by Paradox Press, which will always be treasured.

Something I've been trying to collect lately is The Dark Tower comics series, as I collect anything and everything Stephen King related. The ones I've seen so far are really fantastic. Jae Lee and Richard Isanove are incredible artists.

I'l like to see the illustration of the lobstrosities.

I believe The Prisoner #5 (which covers The Drawing of the Three) will contain the lobstrosities. #1 and #2 are out now. Here's the only pic I've seen.

Makes me hungry.

Slightly OT, but I'll toss it out there for my fellow Magnum-Mania colleagues...

When did girls start liking comic books? As a 1980s-era comic-book-reading teenager, it would not have been imaginable: actual living girls in my local comic shop (LCS) and interested in comic books!!! When I was a kid, the only women one would see in a comic store were the mothers of the boys who begged them to drive them there. In recent years, however, there are just as many women shopping for comics and comic-related items as there are men. When did this all begin?

Most guys around my age associate this type of person with comic books/sci-fi interests:



Now, however...there is the "Cosplay" phenomenon, where super-gorgeous women dress as their (or our) favorite heroes or villains. Even if my LCS happened to have female customers, they most certainly didn't look like this girl:



Is it merely a case of exhibitionists knowing that the nerdy, comic-loving audience will worship their beauty? Is it because these women are making money from this mode of dress up? Or is it just that there was a stigma against women liking comic books? Once again...when did this all begin? I'm not complaining, mind you. In fact, I'm thrilled beyond belief! However, the girls-interested-in-comics thing seemingly came out of nowhere in that thousands upon thousands of gorgeous women would descend upon nerdom's most cherished inner sanctum sanctorum.

I hear ya Little Garwood. It used to mean being banished to the Table of Misfit Boys if one was found with a comic book back in the late 70s and 80s when I was growing up. If a girl saw you with one? Gigglefest and instant banishment to the caste "untouchable".

Checking in on Newsarama and Comic Book News, it seems like things, in some cases, may have gone too far the other way.