Did Your Parents Read Comics?

[Ish Kabbible]

How did your family influence your comic collecting when you were young?
I was raised by my mom and fortunately she never gave me any flack for all the comics I was buying. She never really read much of them when she was younger but sometimes I would catch her reading my copies of Mad Magazine or Lois Lane at breakfast when getting ready for work. I know she enjoyed them as something quick,funny and entertaining. When stories about valuable comics started appearing in newspapers ,she thought her young son might be very rich soon.
I had more disagreements with her over rock n roll than comics

[Shellhead]

Both of my parents read comics when they were kids.

My dad read comics casually, just like most of the other kids of his time. He preferred the cowboy comics, but generally treated all of them as disposable entertainment, like you or I might treat the little cartoon in those old Bazooka Joe gum wrappers.

My mom was more of a comic fan than my dad. She liked the kid stuff like Archie or Little Lulu, but she was also a fan of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.

Neither of my parents kept any of their old comics, and they didn't go out of their way to encourage my interest. When I continued to read and collect comics as a teenager, my dad got uneasy about it, until I pointed out that it was a healthier habit than smoking, which he started doing at 15.

[emb021]

Don't know about my Dad. I know he enjoyed reading Prince Valiant as a kid, and I loaned him my old FBI collections.

My Mom I know is a fan of Little Lulu. She read them as a kid, and I've been getting her copies of the DH collections.

As a kid we got Mad Magazine often and read them in the family, along with many of the Mad book collections. I grew up reading the Disney and Gold Key comics and have most of the Walt Disney Comics Digest and Golden Comics Digest, and had subscriptions for a while to some Gold Key Comics (Looney Tunes characters and Disney characters).

[Slam_Bradley]

Like most kids in the 40s my parents read comics. My Mom liked Andy Panda and later Katy Keene. My paternal grandfather worked for the Union Pacific and at the end of the day the workers would divvy up the comics, magazines, etc. that were left on the trains. My Dad was the recipient of a number of free funnybooks that way. They didn't keep any of them and didn't read them past kidhood.

They never had a problem with my comic reading. I bought them all with my own money. We had a kind of library room under the stairs in the house in which I grew up. There was a banana box full of funnybooks that had been acquired by my older siblings. Mostly funny animal and Archie books. There was another box full of Mads and CarToons. None of my siblings ever read comics past maybe early junior high.

[The Black Guardian]

Not really. But among my oldest comic book memories are my stepfather having Marvel characters folders (one showing Thor's origin and another with Mole Man on it) in his schoolwork binder when he was going to college, and he once read the Hulk "Shanghaied in Space" (#111) issue to me.

[FanboyStranger]

No, and to be quite frank, my mom always gave me a hard time about reading them.

[Polar Bear]

My dad was big into comic strips, especially Buck Rogers, Pogo, Prince Valiant, and Mickey Mouse, but he didn't get into comic books. He tried with Dazzler (of all things!), but stopped when they jumped the shark and put Galactus in there. Maybe he'd have read Tarzan or Conan if I'd been buying those.

My mom read a few comics, notably Roy Rogers and Looney Tunes (the latter for Al Hubbard's tales of Mary Jane and Sniffles).

Both parents were supportive of my hobby.

[Scott Harris]

My mom's side of the family was kind of anti comics, but she never really gave me a hard time about it, probably because my dad used to read them. He was familiar with early Marvel stuff, Thor in particular; my guess is he read them during high school and when he was in the marines in Vietnam. When I started reading comics in the 80's, he would occasionally read them as well. The one title he read regularly was Groo; when I finished the new issue I would hand it over so he could read it as well.

[Romero]

No, they didn't but they never had a problem with my doing so and would buy me comics as gifts and what not.

[Roquefort Raider]

As a kid, my mother read Bécassine and Prince Valiant, but was by no means a comics fan. My dad didn't read comics at all until Astérix first came out. I was lucky that both of them read voraciousy, though, and encouraged me to start reading at an early age (with the Tarzan comic strip, initially). The three of us and my sister became heavy comics readers as we kids came of age, and even today comics make up a large part of the birthday and Christmas presents I find for mom!

[MRP]

Neither of my parents were much in the way of readers. My dad remembered reading Captain America and Captain Marvel as a kid in the 40's, but his love was for the old serials and the comic strips-Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Weismueller Tarzan movies, the Phantom, etc. Both enjoyed newspaper humor strips as well with Peanuts, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible, and Dennis the Menace being favorites.

My dad would read the Conan comics from the 70's when I got issues as well.

I was an only child and a voracious reader, but from an early age I had a fascination with super-heroes. Comics, TV, toys, etc. My mom had no problem when I would spend an entire day reading a Hardy Boys or Three Investigators novel, but was upset if I spent a day reading comics. For a time in the late 70's when I was 9 or 10, she felt I was "too into" comics and forbid me from reading them. This lasted for about 6 months and only fueled my desire to do so. I later found out the reason for it was that my older cousin, who was a bit of a role model for me and also heavily into comics, had been caught by my aunt and uncle doing hard drugs (coke & heroin) and it freaked my mother out so she tried to distance me from everything linked to that cousin. Classic parental overreaction but it happens and it wasn't out of malice, just over-protectiveness.

My dad never understood why I didn't leave comics behind with childhood, but he never objected to me collecting when I began to do so seriously in high school. My mom finally understood the passion I had for these and that they wouldn't corrupt me, so she didn't object either as long as they didn't get int he way of things like paying bills, having a social life, etc. So in high school I could spend a lazy day reading comics as long as I showed up for family dinner, paid my car insurance bill, etc. She even began to like the characters enough that she would go see the comic movies when they started coming out, beginning with Burton's Batman.

-M

[CromagnonMan]

my guess is he read them during high school and when he was in the marines in Vietnam.

wow, if my Dad was in Vietnam id have endless discussions with him about it. Very interesting to hear that stuff 1st hand rather than from movies and books. Being from the UK ive never met a Vietnam vet before in real life.

Regarding my parents reading comics, they probably read the British kids humour comics like Dandy and Beano. My Dad was the one who persuaded me to start reading those when i was a kid instead of FF and Spider-man. Wow, cheers.

[dupont2005]

My dad read comics when he was a kid. My mom continued to pick up Mad and Cracked and the occasional Archie digest after she had me for many years.

[Wild_Child]

My dad is middle-aged but I remember when I was in my early-preteens, he would take me to a latino themed grocery store.After he paid his groceries, he would go to a magazine stand and buy Kaliman comics.It's about a middle eastern guy who fights bad guys and he can talk to animals.The series already ended so it was only reprints.

[Wild_Child]

Surprisingly, they did a Galactus and Doctor Doom special






I was going to add at the same latino grocery store I still go to all these years later,I saw a Spider-Man magazine.It's was for kids though.It just talked about Spider-Man villians and had some comic panels about Mile Morales and Peter Parker.I saw kids picked it up who were 5-6 years old.They could barely read it but they were so cligny to the magazine.It was funny to see.