by Russ Barkhimer

Created on: July 25, 2009

Like so many others growing up in the late fifties and early sixties, (I was born in 1952) I began my comics reading with the requisite Harvey Comics (Casper, Hot Stuff) Archie Comics, various titles based on real people (Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis) and of course, the almost required DC titles (All the various Superman, Batman titles as well as all the rest, Flash, Green Lantern, et al.). Then, sometime in the early sixties I experienced Amazing Adult Fantasy number 15 containing the origin of Spiderman (actually given to me by a neighbor and also, alas, just as quickly lost to the ages) and I was hooked.

It did not take long for me to become a regular reader of all the titles produced by Marvel (with the exception of Millie the Model and whatever other titles were being created for the fairer side of my peers) and subsequently I was reading each and every superhero title that, at the time was being written by Stan The Man Lee. These included at the time: The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man(who quickly had become hyphenated), The Avengers, Daredevil, Tales To Astonish (with Ant-Man soon to morph into Giant-Man and the Hulk backing him up), Tales Of Suspense (with the one-two punch of Iron-Man and Captain America), Journey Into Mystery (featuring Thor), Strange Tales (initially showcasing The Human Torch and The Thing from Fantastic Four and a back-up feature of Dr. Strange and then with Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. as the sixties evolved into the decade of the secret agent), The X-Men and even the solitary war comic that I bought: Sergeant Fury and the Howling Commandos featuring the aforementioned Nick Fury during World War II.

Somehow I managed to gather the coin needed for purchasing these nine titles every month (No, your count is not off, the X-Men and Daredevil alternated months, so there!) and occasionally would even pick up an issue of Two Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid or Kid Colt, Outlaw, but for the most part I was content with the superheroes and good old Nick Fury. This was not as difficult as it would be currently with the extremely inflated prices of this sort of reading material as back in those days, monthly issues were a mere twelve cents and the occasional annual (actually coming out just once a year. Gee, who'd a thunk it, what a concept!) a hefty twenty-five cents.

Also, there were numerous outlets where a body could find old issues (usually a month or so behind the current releases) for either a nickel or six cents. I was not above

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