[Jedifish]

Come to think about it, I wonder if Steranko's History of Comics was one of my first exposure's to comics. Seems like I checked it out of either the school library or the local library some time in the 70's.

[NightRelic]

sisibeck just jogged my memory. I'm willing to bet my true first Golden Age exposure was one of those Mad Super Specials from the 70's when they would bind in a reprint of one of the first issues of Mad. Those were really frustrating. I always wanted to detach them from the magazine, but they warned you how well bound in they were and removing them would leave you with a handful of pages.

[BobS]

When I was 5 or 6, I saw one/some of my older cousin's GA comics, probably Mad comic book and maybe Plastic Man.
I remember Batman (baseball bat man) and Plastic Man.

The first GA comics I possessed were ones I bought from an ad in Rocket's Blast - Comic Collector circa 1966:
some Captain Marvel comics, a Jumbo Comic with Sheena, etc.

Best,
Bob

[narfstar]

I remember Batman (baseball bat man) and Plastic Man.

I actually have that issue, really

[BobS]

I remember Batman (baseball bat man) and Plastic Man.

I actually have that issue, really

Are both of those stories in a single issue of Mad Comics?

An older cousin and wife of another cousin introduced me to some early r&r too...

& an aunt played me the 1st lp I ever listened to - Marty Robbins Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs.
She figured (rightly) that I'd like it because cowboy TV shows were big then.

Have fun!
Bob

[narfstar]

My reference was to an issue of Detective (I think but may have been Batman) where a guy wanted to either imitate Batman or replace Robin and put on a mask and used a baseball bat to fight crime

[Astaldo711]

I don't remember the first GA book I read. But I remember how excited I was when I bought Major Victory Comics #3. It was a hero I had never heard of before and the comic was pretty beat up but I didn't care. It was a piece of history in my hands and it was mine.

[arghhh]

Whiz comics #1-3.I never was one for the modern super hero blood operas, so I thought, what the heck, I'll try this stuff.At first, I wasn't really impressed, but the more I read Cap Marvel, the more the guy grew on me.Then I discovered Plastic Man,and the rest is history ( well, I've been into GA comics for a few months, actually, not really a history ). Now I read everything in the serials, but the ol' Cap and Plastic Man are favourites.

[boox909]

Whiz comics #1-3.I never was one for the modern super hero blood operas, so I thought, what the heck, I'll try this stuff.At first, I wasn't really impressed, but the more I read Cap Marvel, the more the guy grew on me.Then I discovered Plastic Man,and the rest is history ( well, I've been into GA comics for a few months, actually, not really a history ). Now I read everything in the serials, but the ol' Cap and Plastic Man are favourites.

I'm with you -- Captain Marvel and Plastic Man were to favorites of my formative days in comics. I tracked down every reprint that I could get my hands on (for both Marvel and DC) and there were plenty of fanzines offering reprints also. Golden days...golden days indeed.

B.

[Kurosawa]

First comic I ever bought was my first Golden Age exposure-Batman #242, which reprinted "The People vs The Batman" from Batman #7.

[narfstar]

Probably surprised you to see how different Batman was

[Marble River]

Wow, it's been a while since I posted here! A computer  clean-up reminded me about the GACM. My first exposure to Golden Age Comics was definitely the excerpt/preview of Jules Feiffer's "The Great Comic Book Heroes" from a 1965 issue of Playboy magazine. I'm pretty sure my old pal Mr. Door Tree still has the clipped pages from that very mag in his possesion. Just goes to show you how dedicated (or is it pathetic?) we were to save the comic article but not the centerfold...Anyhow, my Mom got me the Feiffer book for Christmas that year (first edition, thanks Mom!), and it's been the prize of my collection ever since. The first actual GA comic I ever had was an issue of Capt. Marvel Adventures from the early '50s. Maybe #120 or so? Sent away for it through the Rocket's Blast/ComicCollector. I still have it somewhere... Summertime always reminds me of GA comics, just because of the 4th of July NYC cons I went to as a young lad.
MR

[jeffcannell]

My first exposure-

Jules Feifer's book- loved the Golden Age Flash
The Smithsonian Book of Comic book Comics-Action Comics, Detective 27, Bernie Krigstein, and the Jingle Jangle issues
and I ordered a run of Fantasy Masterpieces thru Mile High Comics in 1981 with my oaoer route money

[JVJ]

My first exposure to GA comics was in David Butler's basement in Pittsburgh, PA circa 1955. David was three or four years younger than I and friends with my younger sisters. David had a variety of comic books but the only ones I remember were Tarzan (especially The Brothers of the Sphere), Looney Tunes (especially Mary Jane and Sniffles), Uncle Scrooge and Little Lulu. Did I have good taste at nine years old, or what?

We moved to California in 1958 and I didn't think of comics again until 1966 when I "discovered" them at 19 at Monson's drugstore in Mt. View when I saw the cover of Spider-Man #33. As I began to search out back issue Marvels I encountered people like Bud Plant, Dick Swan, John Barrett, Mike Nolan and other San Jose denizens, all four or five years younger than I was, who were already intimately familiar with the Golden Age. I guess at that point I was quite literally tossed into GAC over my head and had the maturity to really appreciate it. Gary Arlington had just opened his store in San Francisco and Bud and company soon followed with Seven Sons Comic Shop on San Fernando St. in San Jose. By 1968 I was buying and selling comics out of Pat Price's garage on the weekends and germinating the seeds of a fanzine with Bud that, eventually with the guidance and connections of Al Davoren (a couple of years older than I) became Promethean Enterprises #1.

That's the year I completed my SA Marvel collection as was inspired by an Atlas story by Al Williamson to focus my collecting on pre-superhero Marvels and art comics.

I was recently able to thank Steve Ditko for the amazing influence his art has had on my life. It's not often one can point to a life-altering moment or artifact, but that Spider-Man cover changed my life completely and totally.

The Feifer book sailed right under my radar at the time, though all of the San Jose crowd had copies and I, too, eventually got one. And it wasn't until the early 1970s that I began to remember those books in David Butler's basement. Wonder whatever happened to them?

my 2

[DennyWilson]

We moved to California in 1958 and I didn't think of comics again until 1966 when I "discovered" them at 19 at Monson's drugstore in Mt. View when I saw the cover of Spider-Man #33. As I began to search out back issue Marvels I encountered people like Bud Plant, Dick Swan, John Barrett, Mike Nolan and other San Jose denizens, all four or five years younger than I was, who were already intimately familiar with the Golden Age. I guess at that point I was quite literally tossed into GAC over my head and had the maturity to really appreciate it. Gary Arlington had just opened his store in San Francisco and Bud and company soon followed with Seven Sons Comic Shop on San Fernando St. in San Jose. By 1968 I was buying and selling comics out of Pat Price's garage on the weekends and germinating the seeds of a fanzine with Bud that, eventually with the guidance and connections of Al Davoren (a couple of years older than I) became Promethean Enterprises #1.

That's the year I completed my SA Marvel collection as was inspired by an Atlas story by Al Williamson to focus my collecting on pre-superhero Marvels and art comics.

I was recently able to thank Steve Ditko for the amazing influence his art has had on my life. It's not often one can point to a life-altering moment or artifact, but that Spider-Man cover changed my life completely and totally.

I AM IMPRESSED!

[Fortress Keeper]

My first exposure to the Golden Age was through early-1970s reprints in those giant Detective Comics issues that also featured the Simonson/Goodwin Manhunter! I especially remember being stuck by a GA Green Lantern story illustrated by Alex Toth.

I really caught the GA bug with Jim Steranko's two-volume history of GA comics, though I wouldn't actually see most of the comics mentioned until sites like Golden Age Comics came to light! 

[CharlieRock]

My introduction to the Golden Age was the Conan series written by Robert E. Howard. My introduction to the comics from that era came much later when I got hooked on the old Shadow Radio shows preserved on CD at my local library and went to do more research on him discovering the whole cast of GAC characters previously unrealised. (which also, btw, lead me to here)

[josemas]

I first became aware of the Golden Age of comics when I was a kid in the 1960s via the occasional reprint in some of the DC Giants and Marvel's Fantasy Masterpieces' reprints of the 1940s Captain America, Sub-Mariner, Human Torch and others.  The concept that all my favorite superheroes had histories behind them that were decades old fascinated me. 
I also began learning of the old pulps via the paperback reprints of Burroughs, Howard, Doc Savage and others.  These same reprints also exposed to such wonderful illustrators as Frazetta, Krenkel and Bama.  Exposure to OTR via LP collections and Golden Age cinema via television broadened my interest in vintage popular culture.
By the 1970s I had discovered fanzines such as The Rockets Blast Comic Collector and The Comic Reader and read whatever books on the history of comics I could acquire (Steranko's History of Comics and All in Color For a Dime are couple that really stand out in my mind from this period).  Both DC and Marvel continued to reprint Golden Age material and by mid mid decade I had begun purchasing the occasional Golden Age back issue.
By the end of the 1970s I was attending the Joe Kubert School where I continued to learn more about Golden Age comics, illustrators, cinema, radio, etc...from both my teachers, fellow students and any book, magazine or broadcast I could find on the subjects.
Since then my interest in Golden Age popular culture and the history behind it has only grown.  I continue to watch, read and research  all the time.  Now-a-days there is such a plethora of books, DVDS, and magazines that it is hard to keep up with them all.
This last decade, as I got into the computer age, I've also found wonderful folks via forums, groups, blogs and sites such as this where we can share our interests and information.
This is truly a Golden Age for those of us who love the Golden Age!

Joe M

[Tbolt66]

This huge book, that looked even bigger as a kid.

[narfstar]

Oh yeah I snapped those up when they came out.

[boox909]

I bought my first copy of the All-Star #3 for forty-cents at a convention long ago. Good memories.

[gorillamydreamz]

I think my first exposure to the golden age where the DC giants.. especially all the Batman titles with the crazy stories. That was the first time I think I put the old style stories into a context.  I even went to the same no talent barber to re-read the same, coverless DC giants they had out with the magazines over and over.

[Mystikos]

Steranko's History of Comics Vol 1

I had it when I was in my early teens and loved it!

[narfstar]

I have vol 1 and 2 and have always loved them

[disknerd]

Casually reading comics for the last 20 years, I have occasionally come across reprints of Golden Age stuff, but I can't say that I was completely turned on to them until a few years ago when I really started getting into film serials.  After watching the Spy Smasher serial, the next step was naturally reading the Spy Smasher books.