Friends, I have talked on the Pop Culture Retrorama podcast as well as on the site about how I was a fan of comic books from a very early age – thanks to my Father picking me up a comic from the local gas station now and again. Even at a point when I couldn’t read the comics themselves I would thrill to the artwork in the pages of the Captain America and Batman books. Once I entered grade school and was able to read them for myself it wasn’t uncommon to visit that local gas station and pick up an issue off the spinner rack as well as one of those sweet, sweet Slush Puppie beverages. As much as I have often professed my love of the protector of Gotham City on this site – the truth of the matter is the very first comic book series I collected was Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew. A funny animal book co-created and scripted by Roy Thomas (The Avengers) with illustrations by Scott Shaw! (Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies).
I mention this because it is after following that series I truly got bit by the comic book bug – and while I would more than likely pick up any book that looked interesting – most of what I bought was published by DC Comics. This all started to change after the end of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew – perhaps it had to do with the likes of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends or even The Incredible Hulk animated Saturday morning cartoons – but I began picking up Marvel Comics titles. By the mid-eighties I was regularly collecting The Transformers, The Thing, Captain America, Fantastic Four, as well as the movie tie-in adaptations.
In fact besides The Amazing Spider-Man #222 – I actually have all of the comic books featured in this 1981 ‘Summer Escape’ commercial – or did before I had to seriously purge my collection. This television spot originally aired in mid-August on local television stations in Chicago – we know that thanks to The Museum of Classic Chicago Television who uploaded the commercial.
What about you though – what were some of the first comic book series that you followed?
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