My earliest memory of comics is from the early 1960s. When we made our annual four-hour drive to my aunt's cottage on the lake, my mom would always give me a buck and tell me to get three giant-sized comics and four candy bars (my littlest brother was not old enough to read, but he still got a candy bar). And I'd still end up with a nickel left--weren't those the days?
Most of the comics I bought then were probably Harvey--Little Dot, Richie Rich, Baby Huey, etc. The only thing I can remember from those issues was a story where Baby Huey helped Papa out with the crossword by coming up with "tintinnabulation" which means a ringing in the ears. As a result, I always check out the Baby Huey comics posted in ABPC, but still haven't located that issue.
The first superhero comic I can remember is Adventure #320; I think I read it in my cousin Larry's basement. When I was 10, I started getting into Archie comics. I still wasn't much on superheros, but then came 1966 and Batmania. Unfortunately, although the stories and art had improved over the Jack Schiff era, they were still pretty crude and I lost interest as the TV series waned. But then one day I had to get a hair cut, and while I was waiting I picked up the barber shop's copy of World's Finest #179, a giant issue with lots of Dick Sprang artwork. Man, I was hooked!
Back then there were almost no comic book stores; I remember taking the train one day to Passaic Book Center (you can still see their ads in the Marvel Comics of the early 1970s), and bought up a whole slew of late Golden, early Silver Age Detective (unfortunately not including #225). I also went to the NY Comicon in 1971 or so at the Statler Hilton, although my only memory from there is all the swapping and buying I did; I was not at all into the fanboy aspect of comics, and at that time didn't even know that the Batman artist whose work I adored was Dick Sprang.
