As a little one I was a fan of a few different kinds of comics. Superhero comics were my favorite but I also was exposed to the “funny books” my dad often bought my siblings and me.
Richie Rich, Archie, Hotstuff, Sad Sack,Spooky and the odd horror comic.
At the local barbershop I was exposed to goldkey/whitman comics like bugs bunny, pink panther and supergoof while i waited to get my hair cut.
only when my friend as a teen showed me a specialty store did I know comic shops existed. I saw more companies outside of dc, marvel and harvey and read books like strontium dog, pj warlock, kamui, etc..

what is your experience with comics growing up?

I had one superhero issue that my brother had left behind. Otherwise I wasn't too interested in the dramatic tone. There's a few more in my collection but I find them hard to read and just admire them.
I collected Asterix. Simpsons. Disney Adventures Magazine (so Duck comics, I suppose, but Darkwing Duck stories were my favourite).
Apart from those, every weekend we'd go to the local market bookstall and I'd pick out a secondhand snoopy book, or anything else in comic form, but it was mostly gag comic collections. Garfield, Footrot Flats, Snake, Wizard of Id…
Much later, Pokemon started getting comics. And then I found a place selling Dragon Ball, and things went out of control at that point.

I had to go to summer church school. It was kinda lame, but as a reward for completing bullshit, they gave me a copy of the entire freaking bible in comic book form. I didn't actually read it but I copied a lot of the pictures.







Later on I got a hold of an issue of TANK GIRL.

Donald Duck was obligatory reading material.

When I was a kid I read a lot, but really a lot of italian made Disney comics.

Then when I was in middle school I started reading Dylan Dog, an italian horror comic that was very fashionable in my generation.
It had a very weird mix of anti-machism and splatter.

Then starting from high school a lot of mangas.

I never was into superheroes, nor franco-belgian comics, although since I really read a lot of comics I ended up reading some of them too (I have the whole Smurf collection, bought as an adult).

I usually would read the strips from the newspaper's funny pages, or comic book adaptations of the cartoons I watched on TV growing up - particularly Cartoon Network shows, with especial interest in COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG, ED, EDD N EDDY, and COW AND CHICKEN.

As for the newspaper comics, I could never go wrong with PEANUTS, ZITS, FOX TROT, NUTTS, GARFIELD, GET FUZZY, LUCKY COW, THE FAMILY CIRCUS, BALDO, ROSE IS ROSE, STONE SOUP, MOTHER GOOSE & GRIMM, BEETLE BAILEY, BABY BLUES, PICKLES, SNUFFY SMITH, and mother assorted others. Our daily paper ran SHERMAN'S LAGOON for a very brief period of time, but that didn't last long.

My father was a cartoonist, and he was friends with many of the creators in the San Francisco underground comix movement in the 60s/70s. So as a child, I grew up reading mostly underground comix. Richard Corben, Vaughn Bode, Spain Rodriguez, Robert Crumb, Larry Todd and S. Clay Wilson were some of my favorite artists.

Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes and whatever I could get from newspaper stands, 2nd hand stores back in the 90's. That was usually issues of Spiderman and X-men. We could say that up until I was around 13-14, comics were a part of my life, after that the adults at home had a spring cleaning sort of thing and just got rid of my small, 30-something collection and I sort of stopped collecting, I watched movies all the time instead. I was never a fanatic, really, an enthusiastic kid at the best. Later on, in my 30s I started getting into manga and read a few, bought a few series (most of which I was forced to sell afterwards, but originally I've spent many paychecks on these) and it wasn't 'til a few years ago since I came to get into webcomics.

I'm kind of surprised as big as CALVIN & HOBBES was, our newspapers never ran it. The only way I could read CALVIN & HOBBES were collection and treasury books.

As a kid I started with the Harvey line (Ritchie Rich, Casper, etc), Dell Gold Key (Space Family Robinson, Turok Son of Stone, Boris Karloff), and various Archie titles. I got the occasional Superman or Batman, but it was Batman #238, one of the 100-Page Super-Spectaculars, that really got me INTO comics. After that, I ate every DC comic I could get. I didn't start with Marvel until just before the Dark Phoenix Saga.

After that it was almost completely superhero books with the occasional dip into Archie and the B&W Magazine/comics like Eerie and Creepy until Elfquest and Gold Digger got me into more varied fare.

I have a lot of the same answers as others…

As a young little kid it was Scrooge, and issues of Commando war comics. LOVED them.
Also the British version of Denis The Menace.

Later it was Asterix, then some Tintin. Even Garfield
From the newspapers it was Wizard of Id, Footrot Flats, Modesty Blaze, Mandrake the magician, Torkan, Crock, B.C. and Hagar the Horrible.
The Phantom!

In 1985 I was introduced to Punch magazine and became addicted to the political comics in there. I read and reread them. My family acquired a massive collection of old punch magazines going back decades so I was reading about political history from the perspective of Punch magazine in comic form for years LOL!

Mad Magazine of course… The lighter side, Spy Vs Spy, movie parodies etc.

Also loved “Alex” in the Australian Financial Review newspaper and would make my dad buy it just for that comic strip.

As a younger adult I read some Heavy Metal, Tank Girl, Appleseed.

I think I once read an issue of Spiderman and a couple of issues of Lady Death. The only mainstream proper comic style comic for me though was The Phantom. But I think that's the case for a lot of British commonwealth countries for some reason. People of a certain age grew up with that comic.

I kinda forgot about newspaper comics. My go-to's were Doonesbury, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Peanuts, most of the well-known ones most newspapers carry. I got into Funky Winkerbean later on, and For Better or For Worse, both of which moved in real time and had long continuing storylines.

The ones I truly loved, though, were the 80's Holy Trinity of Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Far Side.

Only one of those I've never heard of before is FUNKY WINKERBEAN. That almost sounds like the title of an old 70s sexploitation movie.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
Only one of those I've never heard of before is FUNKY WINKERBEAN. That almost sounds like the title of an old 70s sexploitation movie.

Funky Winkerbean was a 1970s-2000s newspaper comic about high school kids. Unlike a lot of others it let its characters grow up and age. A couple of the characters linger in a comic about school bus drivers. My favorite bit from that was when pulling hall monitor duty Funky's desk would have a machine gun on it.

I grew up with SGT ROCK, HAUNTED TANK, FIGHTING ARMY and other war comics. Had a collection of MAD comics and the paperback compilations as well as PEANUTS complications going back to the first strip. Of course there was newspaper comics including Prince Valiant and Tarzan and I am old enough to remember LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, STEVE CANYON, DICK TRACY, L'IL ABNER. Never got into superhero comuc until I started getting the three issue packs you'd see in supermarkets. I actually delved into the history of comics and read Steranko's history of comics. Then there were the Warren black and white comics of the 1970s and 80s and Heavy Metal. Had a bunch of the graphic novels. Even considered going to the Kubert school but didn't have any work to show.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
Only one of those I've never heard of before is FUNKY WINKERBEAN. That almost sounds like the title of an old 70s sexploitation movie.

It starts off as a typical joke-a-day comic strip about teens in high school. It runs like that for a time. Then it starts taking a serious turn with stories like one of the main characters getting pregnant, etc. There is a five-year time jump to make the main characters young adults and also intro some new high school kids and, I think, that's the point where it starts at ‘times passes in real time’. Characters grow up, they die, they change, more adult-level issues are addressed.

Another comic I forgot about because I've only ever seen it online is Frazz. Frazz is a janitor in an elementary school. The tone and art style are VERY reminiscent of Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) to the point that some used to think it was Watterson returning to comics under a different name. It's mostly joke-a-day mixed with wry observational comedy.

marcorossi wrote:
When I was a kid I read a lot, but really a lot of italian made Disney comics.

Those italian Disney comics were great. I read so much Donald Duck and Scrooge comics when I grew up (but I never cared about Mickey Mouse). I still have a few from the 90s and my kid is reading them now.

Mostly Marvel and DC superheroes. Some Casper and Richie Rich. Some Charlton….

I'm from Latin America, most of the comics I read when I was a little were Condorito and Disney comics.

Though from time to time I had the chance to read some Argentine comics like Mafalda and Nippur Magnum.
Also some newspaper comic strips like Garfield.

Amalockh1 wrote:

Though from time to time I had the chance to read some Argentine comics like Mafalda

It our latest Quackcast Tantz talked about that comic for our Patreon video!

and Nippur Magnum.

Wow, that sounds really interesting!

Interesting. What lead me to comics was watching cartoons after school and waking up early on Saturday morning watching cartoons. The Sunday comics from the Dailynews NY was my intro to Spider-man, Calvin and Hobbes, and soooo many others. But I have to say, Calvin and Hobbes adventurous space imagination got me thinking about making comic books. Since I loved drawing at an early age, I created my first comic, “space ace” (yeah I know, real original. I was kid. I didn’t know any better.) I love the flow of the space adventures more than other adventures C & H had. I wanted to mimic it in my comic.

I didn’t start buying comics books right away. My TV gave me the push. You see, My father hated that I watched too much TV. Specifically cartoons. so buying comics for 0.75 became my new entertainment. That 75 cents per book quickly became a dollar in like month of me collecting. Then a year later $1.25. What’s cool is that I still have those books. All Spider-Man titles Daredevil, man without fear, Then X-men, and then the Avengers. A few years later I was able to afford to go to my first comic con in NY Roosevelt hotel. That was the first time I met Jim Lee. He signed my book, shook his hand, and was star stuck for the first time in my life. Since then, X-men was my go to comic over Spider-Man.

Overall, thank you DailyNews for the Sundays funnies & comics in the 80s.

Though from time to time I had the chance to read some Argentine comics like Mafalda and Nippur Magnum.
Also some newspaper comic strips like Garfield.

Nippur was published in Italy too, but I didn't read it.

Later in my life I read Gilgamesh, that I think was based in the same continuity?

The argentine comic school was quite famous for some decades but now I think it is being forgotten, it's a pity.

marcorossi wrote:

Though from time to time I had the chance to read some Argentine comics like Mafalda and Nippur Magnum.
Also some newspaper comic strips like Garfield.

Nippur was published in Italy too, but I didn't read it.

Later in my life I read Gilgamesh, that I think was based in the same continuity?

The argentine comic school was quite famous for some decades but now I think it is being forgotten, it's a pity.

Nippur and Gilgamesh were from the same publishing house named Editorial Columba, which sadly closed in the year 2001. Gilgamesh appeared as a guest star in other comic series, including Nippur.

And yes, is sad that many great Argentine comics are not getting much recognition these days outside a couple of titles. (Such as Mafalda, and maybe Cybersix) Though apparently now Netflix is working in a series adaptation of El Eternauta, so maybe things could change for the better in the future.

The Archies, Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Catwoman, Sonic the Hedgehog (the Archies version), Dragon Ball manga, Sailor Moon manga and Yu-Gi-Oh! manga.