THE FIRST COMICS SERIES YOU PURSUED | Day 5 of 31 Days of Comics!
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- čas přidán 11. 06. 2023
- Did you lie in wait or did you give chase? 31 Days of Comics continues with Day 5 asking us for our first (serious) comics pursuit. And what should have been clear-cut developed a hiccup pr two before finding resolution in a most agreeable manner!
If you've missed the earlier episodes, all previous days are collected in the 31 Days of Comics playlist here: • 31 Days of Comics
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What was it for you, lying in wait or a chase? 😁
The pursuit of Tintin has led you to finally buying foreign language editions 😂😂
@@DIZZYDAYS1one could say that the English books are 'foreign language editions'! 😁
Tintin for me too. There was a magazine that included one page from a Tintin album in each issue of the magazine - I would seek out issues wherever I went, so a lot of my early Tintin reading involved a random assortment of pages from different albums! And then, someone gave me a copy of Destination Moon and I read it to shreds.
Ashes to ashes, shreds to shreds.
The "you pursued" part made me rethink this many times.
Just like many here commenting I learned to read with comics. For me it was Donald Duck - which is the case for at least 30% of children from my generation in Finland. But as 99% of Duck comics was sold through subscription it meant that every week it just appeared to all homes. It was so important part of my life(still is) but there was no pursue of any kind.
And just like Donald Duck Tintin, Lucky Luke and Asterix were super important(and still are) but they were kind of un-comics. They were always there as inseparable part of my home. Local second hand book store had piles of them available with cheap prices if you needed more. I just don´t remember time without these characters.
The first time I remember actively pursuing the missing volumes myself was with Valerian. Certain volumes were sold out and never seen in second hand stores. I still get warm fuzzy feeling when thinking how I finally got the last missing Valerian album. Local library was selling away books that were too battered to be put back on the shelves. I found Ambassador Of The Shadows among them - and in hardcover! Hardcovers were only printed and sold to libraries back then. I had stumbled on a rare gem. I still have it and I have never owned other versions of this volume.
I keep saying thanks for this series. It keeps giving me those feeling things.
Those feeling things definitely bubbled up in me reading your comment. I especially applaud your process of elimination because the idea of 'pursuit' does indeed conjure up a sense of a driving need, desire, itch, almost compulsion, and the consistent application of efforts (even if they were, as in my case, efforts in persuading others).
And there's nothing that quite matches that kick of finding that one missing volume, that euphoria of making some sense of a chaotic world.
This feels like Wayne's World "in boxes of Tide"
@alejandrotoro9676 Success of Disney was combination of timing and culture. Disney & Ducks came in to Scandinavia before other comics characters after the WW2 when people needed fun and color back to their lives. Also the stories had the kind of tone that fit our way of life perfectly. Even parents liked the humor in Duck stories. This success has now been in slow decline for some years but still Ducks are available in every news stand, airport etc.
It must´ve been strange to finally get a "new beginning" to Bone when you found the missing pages!
My pick is also Tintin. When I was younger I read parts of “Tintin in Tibet” and “Land of Black Gold” in the smaller hardcover editions at a friend’s house, and a short time later I discovered the full-sized paperback editions at a small children’s bookstore. I was blown away by the fact that these existed, and over the next couple summers I slowly bought (almost) every Tintin book with money I earned mowing lawns.
And thus a (occasionally financially crippling) passion was born.
Yay for the financially crippling passion! 😁
And of course, i love hearing about minds being blown. As children, our assumptions and understanding of the world was being constantly challenged and reset. What drama! 😁
This one made me think! I'm pretty sure it was the UK Bongo Simpsons reprints. I would always get one when my mum would drag me along to the supermarket and re-read them endlessly until they were in tatters. The recent Treehouse of Horror omnibus brought back the memories!
Those Bongo comics are surprisingly good, and not just the obvious ones like Treehouse of Horror! In recent years I've started picking up the tobs whenever I run across them cheap, and have been pleasantly surprised at their zing and freshness! Solid taste you had as a youngster! 😁
I think the answer for many Indians will be "Tintin" by Herge, and it indeed was also the first ever series I (seriously) pursued. I still remember by first Tintin albums being "Cigars of the Pharaoh" and "The Blue Lotus". I still own those highly beat up copies that have travelled on countless flights with me as a kid.
Previous days: Day 4 - "Silver Surfer" by Slott & Allred, Day 3 - "City of Glass" by Mazzucchelli, Day 2 - "Usagi Yojimbo" by Sakai, and Day 1 - "Black Hole" by Burns.
Yes, how funny that I said in the video that this category will probably see all different answers, yet my answer is shared by so many in these comments. I think that kind of 'universal' experience with one series across varied lives speaks to why Tintin comics hold such a high place in many people's minds, often to the confusion of those who don't share that attachment! 😁
Here in Flanders (Dutch speaking part of Belgium) nearly every child either grows up with Suske en Wiske or Jommeke. I grew up in a Jommeke household so that would be the first comic series I pursued haha!
Did you spend your 'own' money or did you have to - like me - rely on the kindness of others? 😁
@@ftloc Used to rely on others kindness. Now I use my own money
As you know, I've been a huge tintin nerd. The first encounter i had with tintin was even before i could actually read. My uncle brought these from the UK and my mom used to read it for me. Tintin was the first comic i bought barring Archie magazines, i couldn't afford the standalones so i had those tiny 3 in 1s in my childhood, i bought the full sized box set on my first salary.
The first comic that I read was the tie in comics to Genndy Tartakovsky's Star Wars Clone Wars show, but the first series I can remember that I really went after was JLA by Grant Morrison. I was a huge DC fan and remember checking for the next JLA volume everytime I went to the library, which is where my love of comics began.
Surprisingly, i have actually read that run, at least the first four trades, and i was thoroughly entertained. It had a really wonderful mix of modern and classic storytelling, and outright 'stand up and cbeer' moments!
I read a few different uk comics at my grand parents (random issues) that they had picked up from car boot sales but the first comic series that I got into owning and reading myself was the Beano from DC Thomson. My parents took me to get it weekly from the local newsagent as a way to get me to read.
Beano and Dandy have made a couple of appearances here; I love seeing how the UK, Western Europe, India - all seem to have certain cultural touchstones in comics reading that emerge from such discussions. I think some of these comics don't get the credit they deserve for being gateways!
As a relatively new comic reader (proudly in my mid-40s), this is easy for me to remember. The answer for me is Mister Miracle. I started reading at the beginning of Tom King's amazing 12 issue run and it lead me to "pursue" the original stories by Kirby (which I picked up and read in a collected edition). And as they say, I was off an running.
Wow, what a start to reading comics! 😁
Lucifer, the Sandman/Vertigo title. I had read a half dozen or so Spider-Man or X-Men comics from newspaper stands beforehand but I remember seeing the cover of an early issue of Lucifer in a comic store when a friend of mine took me there. It was gorgeous, and I bought it. When I was trying out hobbies in my more financially secure stage of life years later, I remembered it and bought all of the collected volumes. 8 years ago now, and it lead to a collection of more than 700 graphic novels/tpbs today!
Woo-hoo! And Lucifer was a great series, not spoken of enough, I feel.
Tintin! Much like other Indians here. My introduction to Tintin is thanks to my father and my elder cousin brother (and I mean 20 years elder). My dad (before he got married) had borrowed a three part collection from my cousin which contained the Secret of the Unicorn, the Seven Crystal Balls and the Calculus Affair. Meanwhile, my cousin brother left for US to pursue his education and left the copy with my father. Today when I am almost 30, I still have the hardbound Tintin collection. In time I plan to pass it on to my cousin's son who is ~8 years old now. Also, much like you Angshuman, The seven crystal balls is my most read and perhaps favorite story of them all.
It's astonishing to me how much similarity is found in so many of us subcontinental readers, especially in the English language reading! 😁
The hardcovers of Storm by don lawrence! I was a student at the time and really had to hunt to keep it affordable. I still Smile when i see them in my self
I am not familiar with this!
Also, did you work/earn as a student?
You should look it up, he painted al panels by hand. Absoluut beauty and awesome world building.
I just started my study as a PE teacher when i start collecting it and was working i a showroom selling carpets, took me 3 years. I really miss that feeling of pursueing a comic
Storm and The Trigan Empire are both gorgeous series by Don Lawrence. Totally understand you were pursuing them!
Storm albums in english are on my Most Wanted list. Only couple translated to Finnish.
Sandman Mystery Theater by Matt Wagner and Guy Davis. I once went to the local book fair and found this strange book of a man in fedora hat and gas mask in the cover. This was back when I didn't even understand half the stuff I read and looked at the art work of usual Gotham comics reprints and cartoon illustration books. But sandman mystery theater hit me unlike anything else. Fell in love with Guy Davis' art. The setting was so unique. Could understand some of the Batman vigilantism. Still that image of gas mask was printed. Unfortunately my aunt didn't buy it and for a good reason cause now I know it definitely wasn't for a kid. Some years later with access to internet found the title. Later again completed reading the comics. Couple years back picked up some volumes and found out they didn't reprint the entire series. Waited a few more years. And now hopefully in a few days I'll have the Compendium on my shelf. And what a pursuit it has been. In the process my music making moniker is partly derived from the main character Wesley Dodds name.
Now THATS a pursuit! Congratulations on getting the compendium and thanks so much for sharing this great story!
Tintin for me too. I have the soft cover, the hard cover, the small hard covers, the black & white hardcovers too haha.
Truly, you seem a sophisticated person! 😁
For me, my first series I actually bought and collected myself was Asterix. Tintin was my second series.
A foundation in the classics 😁
My journey had been the same!
The comic series I started to read at the earliest age would be "jungle-related" Lee Falk's Phantom and ERB's Tarzan of the Apes, which fostered my love for wildlife/nature and adventure. But I read these more in the form of Sunday newspaper comic strips or in the form of Indrajal comics. The comic series I pursued would have to be Tintin, as others might have listed. It started with reading each one from the nearby library but loved them so much that decided I need to own them. I remain ever so grateful to my mom who, till today, always encouraged the love for reading -- ranging from comics to literature, history, science, environment and politics. My Tintin collection grew with each birthday and this was later expanded to include Asterix. Looking back, its not just the Tintin stories which I found magical -- it was the artwork, the adventures, printing and even publishing. Fiercely own the entire series (except Tintin and Alph Art) in paperback, but now will replace all with the hardcover editions (including Alph-Art) to ensure their longevity.
What a lovely, and comfortingly familiar, story! ♥️
The moment I thought of what your first serious pursuit of comics would be, I knew it would be none other than Tintin. Because for me, it's exactly the same except the book that started it all was 'Tintin in Tibet' inherited from my mother(a very old Magnet edition from her college days). I knew from that point on, I was in for this wild ride for the rest of my life. Till now, having re-read each book for umpteen times, I think I feel pretty confident I could instantly recognise any panel from any of those books.
Ah you started with the Qutb Minar and Red Fort in Tintin! 😁
What convinced me that comics what was great was Carl Barks, but the first series I pursued was Asterix! One of the greatest series ever!
Did the pursuit of Asterix happen before or after encountering Barks?
@@ftloc A few years after. I was about eight the first time I read Asterix.
When I was young-probably too young-I was entrusted with my reformed hippie father’s collection of Mad Magazines. Most of the humor flew over my head, and I hadn’t seen any of the films that were parodied within the time-yellowed pages. However, there was enough material there to spark an active pursuit for more, even for a curious 10-year-old.
I am aware that some might simply point to the title as a giveaway that Mad is not a series, and others might not even consider it a comic. However, as I grew up with Mad as a consistent presence, I became increasingly curious about its origins. Mad initially launched as a comic book series before it became a magazine, and it was those first 23 issues of the comic that became the lodestars of my pursuit.
For those who, by some slim chance, do not consider Mad a comic, I will simply leave you with a list of names: Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragonés, Jack Davis, Jay Lynch, Al Feldstein, John Severin, Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Duck Edwing, Dave Berg, Basil Wolverton...
I think not is safe to say that NOBODY here would say MAD is not a comic! 😁
Not only that, but it is one of the most important and influential comics of all time.
As for a series, it's a periodical, and definitely counts again, just like any monthly, quarterly, weekly comic would.
Terrace choice, and thank you for sharing!
the scott pilgrim movie is prolly the coolest film i've seen as a teenager. i watched that movie probably 5 at the times already when i found out the comic has a different ending and flashbacks to the past. when i discovered that, the scott pilgrim comics became like a mistery to me, and i needed to know the specifics that were cut from the movie.
luckly, here in brasil, the books are still been printed to this day, so they were cheap to collect.
the comic ending ended up been... not great, but i still have good memories of reading it on the bus back home from my job.
Haha fantastic! I read the books before I watched the movie, but i think the movie had been announced as Edgar Wright's next project and i checked the comics out of curiosity. Great movie, great comics!
I pursued New Gods back in the very early 70s... I was sure it eventually would become one of the most valuable series of all time. I thought it's transcendence would be clear to all...but being 11, 12 I didn't manage to find them all.
You were a sophisticated young man, weren't you?
@@ftloc That was the consensus opinion of all who knew me at the time!!!!
As a lot of people from the Netherlands and Belgium, Suske en Wiske (Bob et Bobette, Spike and Suzie, Willy and Wanda) was the first series I collected. Every year, there were a few new albums coming out and with my birthday, holiday or Christmas I got a new album. But really active pursuing it myself didn't apply to this serie (the first issue was published in 1945 an the serie is still running).
No the first serie I really persuit was a short serie of comic adaptations from a serie of youth novels called The Famoud Five. There were only six issues in this comic serie (three in English) but it took me a while to complete the set.
Back in the day my neighbour had a humongous pile of Suske&Wiskes, he had pursued all of them and I had to really negotiate with his daughter to be able to read them all, so in a way it really felt like the first comic I ever pursued... I HAD to read them all . Never knew the Famous Five had comic adaptations, so funny cause I did pursue all of the youth novels and got most of them for birthdays, christmas etc. My dad made very clear to us kids, that comics was for lazy people. I did buy all the comics I loved myself so much for my own kids though, not reading them myself no more but my son asked for Watchmen 3 or 4 years ago and told me I should read it... and the rest is history, Im back into comics, graphic novels with a vengeance 😁
If you mean the Famous Five by Enid Blyton, I read all those books as a child and was indeed thrilled to discover them in comics form by accident!
I actually encountered them in two different forms - one was a British magazine, the size of 2000 AD but not on newsprint, and the one issue I had (about them finding some smugglers by the ocean) gave me Black Island vibes with the rocks and cliffs and ocean spray. It also came with a iron on transfer sticker for T-shirts, the first time I had encountered such a magical thing.
The other version was in a Tintin/Asterix sized album, by a company that also put out comics album versions of The Black Stallion.
Wow, I haven't thought about those comics in literally decades!
I had quite many of these albums(Anu & Antti in Finnish). It was an odd one as I got them through subscription that my mom got me. I don´t remember any other album being subscription based.
@@ftloc Yes, same books! In Dutch these books were called 'De Vijf'. If only I would have had acces to the internet or lived in a big city... I would probably have known about these things and most definately pursued these comics.🚴🏊♀ I would have been so thrilled as a kid if I had known that there were kids out there enjoying the same books and comics as much as I did, even kids on the other side of the globe, it would have blown my mind! No kids in my direct vicinity enjoyed reading as much or at all and my little hometown didn't even have a comicstore. I was very fortunate as a kid 2 have lived near Dubai for two years though. There was a little store in the old Dubai that my mom and I frequented and whilst she was buying the things we needed I could glimpse through spiderman, wonderwoman comics etc. They were in english and I didnt speak english yet, but that just didn't matter. Brings back very vivid memories. The first week in Dubai, my dad took us to the baracks the Indian men that worked on the same building project as he did lived, the heat of the sun and the fires in the barrels they cooked large quantities of very spicy food. The smell of the food, fire and wood of the barracks, the friendliness and the taste of the food which was way more spicey then I was accustomed to, it was quite the experience. These first encounters, magical indeed but the fact one can remember them so vividly, what it felt like, smellt like etc. so much so that one can relive these moments. Where would we be without that kind of magic and libraries 🤔🧙♂😁?
@ftloc I'm glad I can return the favour of resparkeling a comic related childhood memory! The English comics were published by Hodder & Stoughton I believe. The covers were also absolutely mesmerising for me as a kid.
And comics that came with transfer stickers or a poster had also a enormous appeal to me as a kid!
I'm not familiar with 2000AD like versions. gonna have to look those up!
The first comic series that I pursued was ofc Tintin. The first book I purchased was Red Rackham's treasure, from International Kolkata Book fair. Indeed it was that cover, which attracted me the most, among the whole series. It took me many years to acquire the whole series.
But it was Sandman, which I acquired as a full set...one time purchase. Inspired from your videos.😊 Thanks to you.
Ah so wonderful to hear! And play a small part! 😁
My first was back in my childhood with a series called Turma Da Monica (Monica's Gang) arguably the most popular brazilian comic series ever. I used my school lunch money to buy them at newsstands. Managed to buy a few dozen issues which eventually I got rid of or lost with the exception of the very first one. It's in pretty bad shape but it's one I'll always keep in my collection. As a side note, my first pursue with my own money was... yeah you guessed it, Tintin!
I definitely think using lunch money counts as your own money, especially when you think of the sacrifice! (hard to get more passionate than picking comics over food!) 😁
Love and rockets by the Hernandez brothers.
Whoa, starting big I see! What a great series to pursue! Such a rich and textured history.
Until I saw your video I figured this would be a tricky one, so much to define. I mean I got into comics as my parents were so keen for me and my brother to read but couldn't really afford a library of books at home. They knew the way to do it was to buy us comics and so we both had two comics every week delivered with the newspaper. So 2000ad, Battle, Stars Weekly etc were stables but I didn't need to purse them. They were gifts - little did my poor parents know quite what they were starting. When I got into America comics in my early teens and discovered comic shop and if you skipped lunch at school you could save up and buy a load I tracked down Daredevil comics like crazy.
Your answer though is so perfect it is also mine. Kinda. For me it was Asterix. We couldn't afford to buy the lovely hardcovers, though my Dad did get us one ever year for X-Mas / Birthday as he loved them! So we, my brother and I (and me Dad if I'm honest) tracked them down in whatever way we could. Jumble sales, swapping things with kids from school, getting them in whatever format we could. From the soft covers to these horrible digests (novel sized with an BN page divided over two pages) these mini-sized (maybe half sized?) collections.
To this day Asterix is the one set in my collection that isn't in a nice neat single format. When i was working and Orion started to release hardcover versions I started to by them and it didn't feel right. So I went back to a rag tag variety (full size at least now) of formats. Which just feels right to me for this series!
How lovely and warm. Like several of the comments here, your story gave me little goosebumps as I read it.
And yes, that dawning of enough intention to pursue something, to take an active role in making it happen - that is indeed what i think this category is about, making it distinct from those first reads and gifts and supply that our resourceful family ensured!
Hmm, this is actually kind of tricky for me to figure out. I read comic strips and some Asterix as a kid, but I didn't really get into comics until my mid-20s. Watchmen and Maus really opened my eyes to the medium and from there I started devouring graphic novels and collected editions. One of the earlier series I picked up was The Invisibles, but I think the proper answer for me is The Sandman. I found some volumes second hand, and that created a hurried chase where I'd try to find others or last resort buy it new. That's the series I recall reading in a very deliberate manner, specifically hunting down each subsequent volume.
Great point! I too found that books that spur you to read more comics can't really qualify here because there isn't necessarily a series to get, just "more by Alan Moore, please' etc. Getting hooked on a series like Sandman really helps focus the hunt, doesn't it? Especially if one is reading as they search out more
For me it was the walking dead, when i got tired of the show after 3 seasons. It was the only comic I read for years. I put it on automatic order for the trade paperbacks and every 6-12 months one would come through the post and i would read it immediately. When it eventually ended I needed something to scratch that itch. The series means so much to me because it brought me back into comics as an adult
That's great - the first pursuit being a gateway or gateway back is such a powerful, and seemingly universal, story. Without these hooks, how different life could have been!
This is a series that I bought completely in digital - and I regret it. I wish I´d bought the analog comics(🙃) I re-read it once but I just can´t enjoy the digital reading as much. I liked how this series turned the zombie gore-fest into more human struggle. I really really hated Kirkman killing so many great characters. For the very same reason I loved the tension it brought. I don´t remember fearing us much for any comic characters.
My first pursuit was at about 9 years old when I discovered an LCS in my city. Before this it was more a matter of grabbing whatever I could from a convenience store spin rack. But the real pursuit didn't happen until I walked into that sexy LCS with all the comics in the shiny plastic protective sleeves lining the walls and the display cases. It was so colorful and I wanted to live there. I look back with nostalgia at flipping through the "oldies" for Iron Man comics that had cool covers and that I could actually afford. Once I got a bit older I pursued good stories over any particular character. But yes, my gateway drug were early 80's Iron Man comics. There is no profound reason for this other than I thought the suit was so cool.
Ah, sounds wonderful! Even though I first walked into an LCS with bagged and boarded as an adult, i will still hypnotized!
- my favorite comic: Nausicaa of the valley of the wind by Hayao Miyazaki
- a comic to reccomend to anyone: Peanuts by Charles Schulz
- a great adaptation: 1984 by Fido Nesti
- a great love story: A taste of chlorine by Bastien Vivés
- my first comic pursued: Dampyr (various artists - italian comic series)
I rember one day borrowing a comic by a friend: it was the first number of an italian comic series called Dampyr. I really loved the main character and also how these supernatural stories where well set in our modern society. Many episodes also had a rich historical background. The series was monthly and is still going today.
How interesting! Do you know if it is available in English translations?
@@ftloc I found out they translated some of the early numbers in english. For example the first two episodes are in one volume called "Son of the devil" by Sergio Bonelli Edition (is the same italian editor).
Suske&Wiske by Willy Vandersteen. I remember 'reading' them before I was actually taught how to read. Later on I also loved: De Rode Ridder (the red knight) by him, couldn't afford buying comics but read every single one available in the local library.
Where would we be without libraries?
Growing up in France, my answer is a bit of a cliché, it's Tintin (then Astérix). My grandma bought them for me and I could not stop rereading them. When I started to have my own money, I bought them for myself, not Tintin because I already got them all, but Astérix. Nice to see that non-French people also shared the same experience :)
In spite of thinking this category would see no matches, there have already been a couple! We are obviously individuals of impeccable taste! 😁
same here! I read Tintin, Asterix, Gomer Goof when visiting my older cousin since whe had no comics at home. nice family memories of reading hours with my brothers upstairs when adults were downstairs discussing among themselves.
The first comics series I pursued was Green Arrow back ups in Detective Comics in the 1980s. This is more than just Alan Moore's "Night Olympics" as it lasted for a few years up to DC's first Crisis.
Was there a particular writer/artist standing out in those backups?
@@ftloc Alan Moore and Klaus Janson "Night Olympics" is the most famous 2 parter. The other GA stories are written by Joey Cavalieri w/ a variety of artists usually doing 3 issues and then a new artist would pop up.
I was late to comics so did quite a bit of searching for highly rated things I might like. The first thing I read was Saga. I was lucky to finish the first half of the series just 6 months before the second half began publishing after a long hiatus. I read the first 9 volumes via my national library but bought volume 10 on preorder because I didn't want to wait for the library to get it, and I wanted to pay for a copy to show some small appreciation to the creators. It also happens to be my favourite comic. It's an incredible use of the medium. Its story couldn't be told as a series of novels or in film/tv.
You're off to a great start with serial long form comics reading!
Ultimate Spider-man for me. I was new to comics and came to this series somewhere in the 20's. I vaguely recall Peter trying to skip out on class to fight Rhino, but kept on being interrupted. As I was new to comics and Spider-man specifically, I was advised this would be a good series to introduce me to the comic world. I enjoyed what I picked up and went on a hunt for the back issues. Going to comic book fairs and trying to find decent prices for it. At the time, it was a thrill to find the single digit issues especially. I ended up amassing a full run of issues into the 100's.
It was a comic that allowed to to take the first step in the path to a hobby I now love. So, in that it was very successful. However, I grew to not enjoy the series. When I stated reading other books, I realised I didn't like the intent of USM and didn't really enjoy Bendis as a writer. Eventually, I ended up selling all my issues and haven't really missed it since. I still fondly remember it setting me on that path though, and there was a genuine thrill at finding some of those issues.
What a great story!
And I have to say that USM was very formative for me too - in getting back into comics and drawing a bridge between my childhood reading and my 'awakening' from the dark ages. I haven't returned to the series in a long time, but it holds a fond place in my memory. Some other things from those days - like The Authority - don't hold up for me, though, so it could definitely be the same for USM. Perhaps I'll avoid ever confirming that by never re-reading it!
For me it was Tintin also! My mother took me as a kid to buy a book. I chose Explorers on the Moon. I soon realized it was a second part but I read it nonetheless. Or course I had to get the first part next and from there every other title, which I would ask for in every birthday, Christmas or just because. These were paperback editions. I still have then of course, despite them being in very bad shape after multiple readings by me and my friends.
What a universal, and universally relatable, story this is! ♥️
The great Belgian comic series "Suske & Wiske" (English: Spike & Suzy, or Willy & Wanda). For those who love other Belgian all-age comics like Tintin or Asterix, you'll definitely love this one! It's one of the most everlasting popular comics here in The Netherlands. As a kid, I read/collected them together with my father. The deal was: dad would buy each new issue, I would hunt down older issues in stores and on the internet. I've lived on my own for nine years now, but in that time my father has completed his (/our) entire collection and he's so proud of it! :)
P.s. It's about two adopted kids and their extended group of adult family and friends, who go on wonderful adventures which incorporate history, countries and cultures, science (fiction), fantasy, religion and much more. There's something for everyone and there have been over 360 stories to date!
What a lovely story - thank you so much for sharing! I hope it is available in English!
I’ll take the term “pursued” as a hunt, my brother and I went hunting through so many comic shops in our area looking for the trade paperbacks of Akira. After a few months I had gotten them all. Dark horse has now reprint them and even have a hardcover set, but I refuse to upgrade cause of the journey my brother and I had.
Hear hear, a perfect example of when an upgrade isn't needed, not because of physical but emotional reasons! What a lovely story!
I feel the same way about my complete, but totally beat-up, collection of Tintin, which has been with me since childhood.
I'm so delighted to have found this channel and hope it will continue! I'm really enjoying seeing some of my favorite comics spoken about in a way that I haven't seen often elsewhere in comics discourse. I was also puzzled by the word "pursuit." If we're talking just about something I collected, then I suppose it must be Calvin and Hobbes, which I imagine I played some role in encouraging my parents to buy when I was very young. In another sense, it could be something that I actively sought out, which leads me to manga -- a comics form I found online and became obsessed with, reading everything I could. But if we're talking active physical collection, it would probably be Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, which I managed to get my hands on in Japanese and which formed the foundation of my comics collection. But pursuit might also require strenuous hunting for something, in which case the Carl Barks Scrooge Fantagraphics comics would be more appropriate, as some volumes were pricy and difficult to obtain by the time I started. Of course, the Corto Maltese comics were much more difficult to obtain and still are. I'm still trying to find a volume of real Dylan Dog in a comic shop somewhere and haven't succeeded. Anyway, glad to see this community celebrating comics that aren't always the mainstream of conversation and commerce!
Thank you so much, for your kind words as well as the excellent discussion!
I agree with you - most childhood reading gotten for us by parents would usually have some role played by us, but it's hard to think of simply that as a pursuit. One needs some structure, like a checklist, and perseverance!
Also, I didn't know until you 5old me that the Corto Maltese books are apparently hard to find now! I guess I'm never getting a copy of Mu now!
Started reading comics only five years ago as a way to relax in between long hours of academics.Wanted to start with batman as it was a world i was already somewhat aware of. So the search began on how to start reading batman and i was suggested the new 52 run by scott snyder and greg capullo. I was completely mesmerized by that run and thus my journey began.Since then i have continued reading batman while also dipping my toes into horror, romance and so much more.This series is also making my lists of comics to read longer and longer
Welcome to the hobby; it's a lovely, rich universe!
During college, I went through back issue bins and my first foray into online comic shopping (Mile High mostly) and completed a Marvel 2099 run. I'm still proud of those short boxes as the completion of a strange goal. I enjoyed 2099 in Exiles, but haven't enjoyed most revisits of Marvels 2099.
I think it is quite interesting to note what kinds of pursuits we had at certain ages while also checking if they would hold up today. I can think 9f a handful 9f comocs i looked forward to getting the next volume of and then loved them all being on the shelf together, but no longer read the same today!
@@ftloc I'm glad I have a complete Marvel 2099 run, but I wouldn't try to build another. I keep saying I'm going to weed out my short boxes and let go of comics I will never read again. I will one day.
@@johnm.withersiv4352 may those days forever be in our future, not present! 😁
As a newly enployed salaryman😅 my first collection was manga Hokuto No ken (Fist of the North Star) in 27 volumes in french (Ken le Survivant). I watched the tv series as a kid and bought only vol 4 in second hand as a teenager. The immense superiority of the series's original medium prompted me to acquire the remaining 26 volumes as soon as financially possible.
Congratulations on the new employment, the salary, and of course the first steps down that slippery slope we all know and love so well! 😁
@@ftloc thank you very much. Unfortunately i did not mention it was 28 years ago. I have indeed slipped many a time the beloved slope of the comics collector
@@javed324 haha i completely misunderstood but that's the kind of thing that can always be celebrated! 😁
Well for me its to be Amulet by Kazu Kibushi ( graphic novel ) but it feels like reading a full fledged comic.
Oh definitely, with the number of volumes/pages, it is easy to see how it warrants 'pursuit' especially if one was waiting for the next book to come out.
Hellboy. After the movie came out in 2004, I was fascinated.
Spawn. My cousin introduced me to Spawn with issue #8 when I was 14. I wanted to read and own the whole series. I remember entering the comics shop in the mall for the first time and I walked out with issue #26 and continued collecting monthly. Eventually getting all the first issues. I have a full run up to issue #106. I've since lapsed on buying Spawn but I always go back for a story arc or 2.
Congrats on your Comic Book Community Award nomination!
I've been so out of it I had to look up what you meant! Thank you! 😁
I might be the most vanilla answer lol, but I was lucky enough to be introduced to comics when DC's New 52 came out... so I pursued, among many things (though being the only series I still own): Scott Snyder's and Greg Capullo's Batman.
Hey, how vanilla can it be if this is the first mention?
On the other hand i count five other people saying Tintin! 🤣
The first comic series I bought regularly were the Garfield strip collections.
Kind of an embarrassing choice because I was probably 14 at the time.
It’s either those or one of the various Tokyo pop mangas in the early 2000s like Ragnarok or Chronicles of the cursed sword
I think Garfield gets a bad rap. I'm not proclaiming it an underrated masterpiece necessarily, but i think a certain amount of easy hating has become a bandwagon , exaggerating the valid critiques but pretending there's no charm in it at all. Nothing to be embarassed by, i feel! Plus,ANYTHING can be a gateway,! 😁
I think in my case I'd say it must have been Asterix... but maybe it's a tie with the old child-friendly Tenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics that came out with the tv series. You know, memory is fragile and especially your memories from when you're 6 or 7 tend to fuse stuff tighether.
I was born in Chile in the 80s, and as anyone who knows a bit of Latin American history, that was a time of dictatorship and tightly controlled cultural texts. Comics, aside from a couple of gag oriented things like Condorito, were not mainstream at all. One of the few "classics" that had somehow survived the purge of content that came after the coup was a comic called "Mampato". Many people in Chile came into contact with comics due to their parents fond memories of reading Mampato in their childhood and passing that on to them. In my case I didn't really have any contact with comics untill my parents moved to Germany in 89 to pursue their PhDs. I was 6 and my little brother 3. Suddenly we had SO MUCH reading material at our disposal. Good libraries, kiosks full of magazines and comics, bookshops... And for some reason my dad really enjoyed Asterix. I have never really asked him where he got in touch with it. At some point our parents gifted each of us one volume each and from there on we fell in love with its senso of humor, its casual depiction of a (somewhat) believable history and all of its characters and lore. I remember we saved our allowance to buy more books when we could. And since all of them had the full series on their backs (like the Tintins) we had this collector's drive. I think it was later that we completely fell into the turtles crazo of the early 90s and started to buy the monthly TNMT comics. The series was super fun, action packed (but not to complex) and later had some crazy interdimansional twists (all the ingredients a kid wants). This new series, and our need for new Game Boy games, of course, had us in trouble, since our allowance wasn't that big (our parents were technically speaking students after all); so we had to pool it together and split it between all our pursuits. But we never stopped collecting Asterix. We never completed it, but our tini little collection of German Asterix comics is still in good shape at my parent's house. Fun fact... after we returned to Chile some years later, I had a really hard time adjusting to the Spanish translation. To this day I really hate it (especially the character's names) and have never been interested in starting a new collection of Asterix in my mother tounge. Goes to show how strong early childhood imprints in our personality and tastes.
What a lovely story - thank you so much for sharing!
It is indeed incredible just how much force is exerted through the years by our childhood reading experiences. And the transformation you describe after moving really tugged at my heartstrings!
So did you read Asterix in the original, in German, or in English? I'd be interested to know which translation you enjoyed so much more than the Spanish.
Interestingly, my friends who read Bengali tell me that the Bengali translations are terrific, surpassing perhaps even the English!
@@ftloc I'm glat my little story got to you.
I read it in German. It was probably some of the first stuff I read in that language after learning it (I was 6, so I practically absorbed the new language by osmosis). My prefference for the German over the Spanish translation probably also has to do with the Spanish one actually being Spanish, as in from Spain. It tends to have a lot of words and idiosyncratic stuff that's very much only used in Spain, so it removes a bit of the "everyday" and close feeling I associate with some parts of Asterix. Even so, I think it's not a bad translation... I guess it's just not "my" translation.
Speaking of translations; it's fun to see so much effort put in going past just translation in Asterix worldwide. Most of the editions (I only have read it in German, Spanish and English), do a really sophisticated "localization" work, trying, for example, to bring over the wordplay and names that would be lost to almos all readers if just kept in French. I'm normally all for preserving a text as close a possible to the original form, but somehow Asterix would lose a lot of its charm otherwise (especially its appeal to younger readers).
Tintin! Yes, expensive but exciting! I waited for more than fifteen years to complete the series. It was worth the wait. My first book was King Ottokar's Sceptre (in Bengali). Love it!
I think the most i ever got to in my childhood was owning eleven or twelve of them. The others were strange, wonderful books that cousins or friends had. I probably went over 20 years before i got myself an upgraded full collection.
Ottokar was one of those books i never owned as a kid but a cousin did, and i reread it every summer greedily.
I still absolutely love that brochure. And the court. And the camera.
@@ftloc I was born at that exact fortunate time when all the Tintins were being translated to Bengali and serialized in Anandamela magazine, providing me a fucking cheap way to read and own all of them (albeit in Bengali)
I think I read the English editions for the first time well into my adulthood.
I got a late start to comics but my answer is Invincible. I read the 3 compendiums back in 2021.
What a propulsive and constantly inventive read that is! A great 'start'! 😁
Yep, like a commentator said, just like many Indians, TinTin was the first comics I pursued. Mind you, my pursuit was TinTin translater in Bengali. Now I know why I still like the Bengali version, it was a labour of love by the publishers, a direct translation from French to Bengali.
And, from what I have heard, often declared as superior to the English translations by those who read both the English and the Bengali, a product of that love you mention!
For me it was and still is Blake and Mortimer. Still searching for the secret of the swordfish and saving enough money to order the new ones (they haven't published anything after the 30 silver pieces in greek)
Have you read any of the ones done by new creators? Cinebook has Blake and Mortimer well covered and I´ve been eyeing the ones written by Jean Van Hamme. This is a series that I keep liking and then disliking and then liking again, but the art is so good!
A pursuit that still continues! Shows the massiveness of the task, and always dun when new books are still coming out!
@@analogcomics yes I have up until the 30 silver pieces but I still searching for newer ones as much as I am 2 old ones
@@empousa8680 Just counted Cinebook has 29 albums of B&M. That´s a formidable goal! I do hope you get them all. There is of course the danger I get the same fever if I like Jean Van Hammes versions that much.🤑
For me it’s probably a tie between Tintin, Asterix, & Calvin & Hobbes
What a great salad that is!
I'll do it like Tommy and split it into two parts: exposure and pursuit. The very first comics I was exposed to was Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Burne Hogarth and The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer, the latter containing the annotated origin stories of the most popular golden age superheroes. Though it was years before I learned how to read, I thoroughly enjoyed them, poring endlessly over their increasingly tattered pages. (Still have the book!)
Then my father started bringing home Tintin albums, introducing me to the concept of a series of comics. However, that falls under the category of pursuit by proxy. And, growing up in Denmark in the seventies, Donald Duck, Asterix and Lucky Luke don't really count, as they were more or less ubiquitous. So I guess my answer would be a weekly mag called the Marvel Club, which published stories featuring Spiderman, Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-men, Doctor Strange, etc., which I subscribed to with my allowance. Those were the days ...
Then I promptly "grew up", sold off the lot, and focused on reading "grown-up" novels, not to return to the comics medium for many a year. Which I regret to this day as I distinctly remember actually shunning titles like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, which I now hold in high esteem, especially the former. Alas, the arrogance of youth!
Those were the days indeed! 😋 I see a lot of similarities in our personal stories, shaped by location and circumstance!
@@ftloc Sure, me, too, in that location and circumstance determine what you're initially exposed to, thus influencing your horizon and tastes. But I get the sense that you had to struggle a lot more to get your little mittens on some decent comics back when, whereas I, not unlike Analog Comics, I think, grew up spoiled silly with local libraries abounding in titles like Prince Valiant, Tintin, The Phantom, The Spirit, Spirou, Gaston La Gaffe, The Smurfs, Yakari, Buddy Longway, Blueberry, The Incal, Valerian, Blake and Mortimer, Natacha, Alix, Yoko Tsuno, Franka et al and creators like Bilal, Tardi, Loustal, Boucq, Comés, Caza, Lauzier, Hermann and many others.
Which makes it doubly impressive and inspiring is that you are so extremely well-read and erudite a comics scholar, nevertheless. Sir. 😉Another thing that I think we might have in common is your oft-mentioned comic book haunt in Chicago. I forget the name of the shop I went to, but it was in one of the suburbs, maybe Oak Park or Evanston, but I'll never forget the book that I bought there, fresh off the press: Batman: Arkham Asylum. That one blew my mind! 🤯And continues to do so to this very day. Oh, and have a nice trip to Chicago, apropos.
Thank you for those very kind words! I am of course very envious of the spoiled youths you and Analog Comics share 😁
But i have been fortunate to have great recomenders and guides, something that continues with commenters here! ♥️
I worked at a comic book store and tried my hardest to collect every book by John Byrne. John Byrne Collection.
Ah, a pursuit of the 'complete works' , a hallmark of collecting! 😁
Lanfeust of Troy, by Arleston. French original, in a Dutch translation.
Another work i am not familiar with, I'd love to know more!
This is a series I´ve waited to be translated for decades! In desperation even bought a german copy years ago but Google translator not being invented yet I couldn´t really understand it. It´s one of those series I thought would certainly be translated to Finnish or English but nothing has happened...but I´m still keeping my thumbs up.
This one has been hard for me to answer. If I considered the question as the first series that I have faithfully followed it would have been the greek edition of Blek (reprinting the italian Il Grante Blek but also a plethora of italian, english and spanish comics). But for me pursued holds the meaning of searching and collecting.
So the first series I pursued must have been Asterix (again greek reprints). I remember myself thinking "I want to collect all of those". And then putting my pocket money aside for buying older Asterix volumes. And of course trying to find old Asterix issues (which was not that hard). ]
What I find werd is that by the time I completed my Asterix collection I was also pursuing many more comics series so I do not really remember the moment I felt that I completed the collection
Haha i know the feeling! Some searches become these extended pursuits. I was able to Chronicle my final completion of Asterix on this channel, that's how recent it was! 😁
Uncanny X-Men, the Chris Claremont/John Byrne era. I came in right around issue # 129, at the start of that whole Hellfire Club/Dark Phoenix business...
Love this series can’t wait for day 6!
So glad you're enjoying it! 😁
Flash Gordon - a chase that continues till today, with both frustration and joy. Started from IJC and gone through Marvel, Kitchen Sink, Pacific, Titan etc.
Sounds wonderful! How about you ship that collection to me, for video purposes of course?
@@ftloc get'cha ass to Bangalore
I had the comic version of Flash Gordon movie as a child. I´m not too fond of adaptations but that one I´d really like to get back.
Superman was the first series that I actively looked for in used book stores.
ny particular run or series? Or just any appearance by the character?
@@ftloc Curt Swan was drawing when I started. In Finland Superman was called Teräsmies. It is quite possible that Action Comics issues were also published in the Finnish Superman comic book.
Well, as a kid I got Dutch translated Transformers and Star Wars comics and read them without collecting. My dad had the full series of Asterix and Michel Vaillant which I read rigourlesly. After starting reading high quality Dutch translations of Spawn the first US singles series I started collecting was Spawn when issue 10 was not reprinted for translation
Are there still lots of reprints of American comics?
I have no idea what it will have been that I first actively pursued, as my memory is very spotty, but I know one of the things that I first passively pursued, and that is every Legion of Super-heroes issue ever printed!
I say passively because it's such a huge (almost impossible) task that I just grab issues as and when I see them, rather than actively hunting specific issues.
I know this will have been one of my earliest pursuits, as the Legion where the favourite comics of Seth Cohen, a character in the TV show 'The O.C.'. That show is oddly responsible for my love of comics, and so my Legion collection is like a tribute to that.
That's a mighty task indeed! Do you have a sense of how many you have out of what sort of a potential total to get?
@ftloc I know exactly how many I've got, and that's 668 single issues, all (some of those are spin-offs or crossovers, but all have the Legion feature in some way). However, I am far too scared to count up how many there are left to go in my quest 😅
When I first got into comics 10 years ago I remember being a broke collage kid so naturally I reading everything digitality (torrents) and one of my favorite series was Fables. Now as and adult I've collected almost everything I had read all those years ago. All save fables was always so expensive and elusive to complete. About 2 years ago I saw a listing on ebay that was very reasonable and I just pulled the trigger on it. When this box comes I see it's been through the ringer. I mean this thing was battered and ripped and the packaging inside was a mess. To add there was 3 missing vols, so I messaged the seller with some pictures and he thankfully had insured it. So in the end I got a full refund and got to keep the books, it was a good day that day.
Ha, what a turn of events!
Calvin and Hobbes the days are just packed was the first comic book I ever got. I think it was in 2015 and if I can count the Nate then it will be the first book of Big Nate cause I got it when I was in 3. grade. I started collecting them and now I have all of them. I have also Epic Big Nate book in wishlist with like 200 others and waiting for my order with nausica box set, contract with god trillogy and some other small ones.
I am not familiar with Nate, I'll need to look it up!
I know what you mean! In India there absolutely was no issue by issue monthly wait culture atleast like USA and it was tintin and asterix and archoe that introduced us to comics, I still have an old beat up copy of The blue Lotus that my dad bought back when he was a kid for 60 rupees (a big amnt back then!) I have new albs of all of these but also have the beat up tattered version just for the sake of it!
Yes, 50 60 rupees was a fortune, especially when compared to the prices of other comics available. Thank goodness for libraries, and what a shame that most of them are now gone.
@@ftloc tried words!
I would not think "Pursuit" automatically means monthly comics. I think it did to a generation. I once had Marvel subscriptions straight from them. I've had pull lists at local comic shops. Although, my daughter prefers trades over single issue floppies. I think she pursues trades. She is not alone. I find myself picking up more and more trades these days too. I like picking up the entire story arc at a time. I have pursued Savage Dragon and Cerebus phonebook editions more than the floppies in those series.
I agree with you, it is not a specifically single oriented category. I think the combination of 'pursue' with 'comics series' maybe creates that bias, but trades today are a perfect example of a comics series format that can be both waited for or hunted down!
And yes, once you bring specific editions into the mix, the sky's the limit!
For me.. the Fables series. :-) Wish I could say "Tintin" but all I did was go to the local library to read Tintin books when i was a kid, unfortunately I couldn't afford to buy/collect them on my own at that time
Makes complete sense to me, as that is the case for me as well. I just applied a more creative definition to 'pursuit' by including within it my begging!
Battle Chasers. I was a kid and I would drop in to random shops periodically and ask for it. The delays and eventual cancellation had me so confused haha
Did you ever complete the series or find collected editions etc?
@@ftloc nah, the series didn’t continue until just recently. It was left in limbo so I lost interest :)
Yup, Tintin and Asterix for me as a kid - wanted to read them all so much, but they just weren't actually. As an adult, it was the Fantagraphics Peanuts set - still hoping for a reprint of a couple of the later box sets!
Not only did that Peanuts series take years to publish. I, too, had to wait for a couple of boxes to be reprinted, the early seventies, i believe...
@@ftloc I've been waiting on the 1987-1990 and 1995-1998 boxes for years now :-(. I guess I should read them up to that point before complaining too much. I'm still in the mid 1960s.
@@fantumphool the itch is that box. I had to forgo the single volumes, even in HC. Hoping for those darn boxes to reappear, which often (with Fantagraphics) seems a lost cause.
@@ftloc I figured I wait until my reading caught up, and then give in to get the individual volumes if they're still not reprinted by then. I probably have a year or two until I get there. They seem to be in demand on eBay with people paying crazy prices for them, so not sure why FG thinks they're not worth reprinting.
Who knows how Fantagraphics make *any* reprints decision! 😁
Mine was chacha chowdhury comics while on train rides. But I too soon realised that even the digest size comics was too short for the journey, hence i too turned to prose...I remember indulging in Enid blyton and later to harry potter
That sounds so warm and familiar. I wonder if you've watched my latest 'A great holiday comic' episode...
Turma Da Mônica, you've probably never heard of it but it's a very popular Brazilian comic.
Do you know if it has been translated? You're right, I've never heard of it, but I'd love to know more.
2000ad was a must every week. I had an order placed for it every week in my local newsagents. Unfortunately, his system for organising customer orders was to write the customer's address at the top of each magazine, newspaper or comic. It took a great deal of persuasion on my part to get him to leave my comic address free. I eventually had to provide him with a lage envelope with my address on the front so that he could put my copy of 2000ad safely inside it, ready for collection.
What a wonderful anecdote, thanks for sharing! Did you at least get to re use the envelope? 😁
@@ftloc Yes. I had to write my name and 2000ad "clearly" on the front.
Uncanny X-Men #286-350 Scott Lobdell's run. In Ireland we would get reprints of the American issues by a UK company. Every monthly issue of the UK comic contained 2 or 3 single issues of an American release but we got them 4 years or more later. The X-man cartoon brought me into X-men but these issues brought me into comics. I still think it’s an underrated run, when you look back at some of the stuff in the 90’s this run was continuing to keep the X-men at the top of the pile. Just looked backed on some of the earlier issues in the run and I’m like ah this is why I love Bishop so much, he’s badass. Have the full run in the attic.
My X men reading is spotty at best and my memory even worse, but I remember reading the complete Age of Apocalypse in singles thanks to a friend who had the entire series, including spin off titles etc. I remember that Bishop I think was introduced there, or at least read to me at the time - would that be correct? Or have I muddled things up as usual? 😁
@@ftloc was introduced before AOA but his story was building up to that arc and then into the Onslaught stuff. X-men was my gateway. I grew up as a student in a school of gifted youngsters that lost my powers during M day found a green lantern flight ring and then broke my heart with Scott Pilgrim. The rest as they say is comics.
The corner shop across the road down our street had a small stand opposite the counter with a few weekly comics the neighbourhood kids would decend on like locusts - Beano, Dandy, Marvel UK, Bunty, Roy of the Rovers, Whizzer & Chips, there were no American comics, I wouldn't see those for years. For the princely sum of 4p .. four pence, you could get a comic. Highlight of the week, was it every week? I don't know, I don't remember, my favourite was the one that folded out and had another comic inside. I liked to get that one. I would look for it, if they didn't have it you would have to pick something else or go without. So maybe thats my first comic pursuit.
Whizzer & Chips.
I have a random and motley British comics of the kind you mention, including a couple of Whizzer and Chips annuals! Can you imagine a kid in India creating his idea of America from Archie and his idea of the UK from Dandy and Beano? 😁
@@ftloc Oh I never thought of that.. I mean yes, its all true, I had an orange giant snake with zigzag patterns across its back and next door there was a six foot tall talking cat. hehe. Fantastic image of the world through a kids eyes based on comics. Beware dad's slipper, naughty boys!
Whizzer & Chips Annuals .. nice.
I think It was Image Comic's Rasputin By: Alex Grecian & Riley Rossmo. I loved it. It was dark and supernatural; if that's what I remembered. This was the first comic I read, as I am living in Pakistan and there is no(too less) culture of reading comics. And I read it online as we don't have much hardcopy comics in our area(we have to order online from big cities like Lahore). I got my first hardcopy comic after 3-4 years and which was Munnu or David Boring; or this is the story for another time.
Lovely story of seeking out comics in spite of constraints, and i can't wait to hear your story about Munnu and the Clowes book!
@@ftloc Thanks!
'Gi Joe' from america. writing and art. first run i pursued, years ago before the internet.
My answer is actually three parts. The first two series I ever kept up with was Sonic the Hedgehog from Archie Comics and Ultimate Spiderman. When my Mom would grocery shop I would stand at the comics rack and read the new issues. I don't think they count as I never bought an issue due to low money.
The second series was One Piece, but those were collected editions and more like regular books than individual comics.
So, my official answer would be Green Lantern by Geoff Johns and others. I'm still working to get the complete set as well as the Corps. run and all the tie in issues. I'm also working on a complete Ultimate Spiderman run.
Nice, complex answer!
Finally an easy entry, thank goodness. For me it’s Oda Eiichiro’s “One Piece”. I haven’t checked the comment section for this video, but I don’t know if someone else has gone the same route as I have for what to consider the first comic series I pursued. Because for me it wasn’t a physical hunt, but a digital one. Trigger warning; this one involves discussion of sailing the digital sea with an eyepatch. My first contact with One Piece was through anime as a kid. I watched it with a terrible dub on a random cartoon channel here in Spain. And at some point I ran out of episodes. So I did what any eleven or twelve year-old kid with a PC would do on the early 00s. Go read it online.
However, even though it was extremely easy to find, the quality of these not so reputable sources wasn’t great. I’d find an scanlation group with decent spanish translation but the image quality would be barely readable. I’d find some decent clean ones but the translation would be absolutely jarring. I’d find one that was ok on both regards, only to find out after 50 chapters that they stopped releasing it or the quality went down. And back to searching. It was truly something very specific to that time. Not that many years later finding scanlations with good quality became quite easy. All in all it’s not as romantic as hunting down those missing single issues or albums on some old small comic store, but I’d consider this my first pursuit.
You know, a hunt through pirate waters remains a hunt nonetheless! And being old enough to remember a time when awareness, let alone access, was low, i can just imagine the fizzy joy of discovery of such oceans! 😁
Bleach - Kekkaishi - Yu-Gi-Oh
In my school library they had Kekkaishi 1-15?, bleach 1-3 and maybe 10 random Yugioh volumes from all three series, and I desperately wanted to read them!! A few years later and I binged all of them online. I can safely say these three manga got me started on my nerdy journey and I still regularly revisit them all. Kekkaishi in particular is severely underrated!
It's great when those early pursuits can still be favourites later in life, isn't it?
Asterix was definitely my first comic pursuit. Absolutely love that series and got me into history.
Asterix or Lucky Luke for me
Did you have your own money to pursue them? And were they expensive, relatively speaking? In India, one Tintin or Asterix album's price could probably fetch a dozen local comics, making them essentially a business class seat serving caviar.
Probably, the British reprints of Marvel in the early 70s that were black and white with some two colour embellishments. With no comic book shops, this was my access to US comics on a regular basis until about 1980. The only actual US comics I saw in my local shops during that time were a mix of DC conics titles, but not in any real consistency. Outside of that Tintin and Asterix.
I've read some of those reprints! In fact, i may have believed some X men. Comics had always been black and white because of them, only to be corrected many years later! 😁
I think the first comic/graphic novel i seriously pursued as child would be captain underpants ( the original black and white editions ) this was followed by tin tin because I wanted to know what happened after cigars of the pharaoh and I ( in the course of many years ) eventually bought the entire series for myself and am now lending them to my younger cousins…. ( As a side note I love how all the Indian comic readers find a common ground ,when it comes to how hard it is to collect these amazing stories…back before Amazon that is.)
The days before searchable online databases and stores is sometimes hard to explain to those who have never known it!
I'm not sure I *have* seriously pursued any comics series. Growing up, I had a sizeable collection of Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle comics. I don't have them anymore and I can't really recollect any specific volume. The artwork on some of them was fairly gorgeous, in my recollection.
The only series that I've read from start to finish is the Sandman, but I want to save that for a better category. :)
Haha saving for another category is a sign of playing the game seriously! 😁
And i agree, a general accumulation doesn't always indicate a pursuit. Why don't you pick one in which you had to seek out the next installment, in whatever form? Just so that you don't score a 0 in this category? 😁
In that case, Tinkle comics it is! :)
More of a magazine/newsletter for kids than a comics series in itself (although it did carry several comics such as Suppandi and Kaalia the Crow). I definitely waited for each fortnight's installment as a child.
I’m a bit late with this 31 series, but I just had to comment on this one. This is one of the best ideas I’ve seen on youtube. Not just the idea which was probably not yours, but the execution, subject, categories, editing and everything. And how you are able to answer every single comment I’ll never know.
Your dedication to this channel is admirable.
But another Tintin here. I got Tintin in Africa from my aunt when I was 6. I could already read because I taught myself. For reasons I still cannot figure out, I decided that I wanted to own all issues. It’s like a force of nature that determined Tintin was going to be a part of my life. Still my number one comic of all time.
Thank you so much; your praise is excessive but much appreciated! 😁
And a force of nature is a perfect way to describe certain pursuits!
The first comics series for me was a local magazine called Daga (Rainbow). It is similar to Epic Illustrated, but for kids :)
I had to look that up, it sounded intriguing. Did you mean Duga, the Bulgarian comic?
@@ftloc yes, exactly. I am very surprised that you know about it :)
Lol.....mine is definitely Marvel Team-Up. Childhood me loved Spider-Man, and Marvel Team UP was perfect because most issues were a self-contained story. No waiting for the next issue to find out what happened.
I believe the first time I ever encountered the Punisher was in an issue of Team Up, with Daredevil. But I may be misremembering!
In Czechoslovakia during communist time it was not easy to buy some comics. My parents probably didn't have any newspaper seller friend so they wasn't able to buy me the only periodic comics issues that was published here - comics for kids Čtyřlístek. It was imediatately sold out to the friends. So I read them when it was possible borrow it from some one but it really wasn't periodically. The similar was with magazine ABC for older kids where was komiks always on the last page. After velvet revolution in 1989 my parents bought me some standalone comics books but it was my last comics books for long years.
I started reading comics again as adult in 2013 when I started buying The Official Marvel Graphic Novel Collection. So this is the first series.
Fantastic story! Thanks so much for sharing his!
India had a closed, socialist economy until 1991, so there's some similarities between our childhood environments, including in high foreign exchange rates and lack of imports (or affordable ones)!so local reprints were the way to go, if they existed!
Today, are European and North American comics equally popular, I'd be curious to know?
@@ftloc Paradoxly, europien comics had harder start than American superhero comics. But maybe it's not so surprising. Comics stories in ABC magazine, as I mentioned, were similar to europien comics. It were often adventures comics from history or it were sci-fi stories. Publishers tried to publish europien comics as single albums and it didn't work well. Our market loves integrals. Today is situation much more better. It's not equal yet but it's better.
My first pursuit... hmmm... I guess it would be issues leading up to the "Death of Superman" event. I'd seen an article in Newsweek magazine announcing that DC would be "killing" Superman. This idea intrigued me (as those at DC intended). I'd bought and read comics before but mostly my reading was so casual that any comics I'd obtained to this point were by chance (gas station or flea market) and not by choice. The Death of Superman although certainly a gimmick taught me about comic shops, weekly, releases, story arcs, spin-offs, and put me inside a shop to be exposed to other comics.
What a fantastic story of how a pursuit can serve as introduction to an entire world!
I will come back after pursuing a comic series😄😄.
Haha, I find it hard to believe that there's never been a single hunt so far! 😁
1 - favorite comic : Rules of summer by Shaun Tan
2 - comic to recommend to anyone : The arab of the future by Riad Sattouf
3 - great adaptation from another medium : 1984 by Xavier Coste
4 - great love story : A sea of love by Lupano & Panaccione
5 - first comic serie pursued : Blast by Manu Larcenet
Known for his comics serie ‘Ordinary Victories’ the French Manu Larcenet published the 4 volumes of his very dark serie ‘Blast’ between 2009 and 2014. The author started to write the story when he was 15. It’s partly autobiographical (Manu Larcenet has been struggling with mental health issues for a long time).
I would start saying that the story is not the strength of this serie. But the artwork is stunning. It’s definitely not for everyone. It’s dark, it’s sordid.
It seems to be available in English but only as ebook. For the rest I will simply quote Manu Larcenet from his interviews.
Inspiration
“I wanted to do a slower narrative with more pages, more silence, more white space. I felt this urge when reading Japanese manga works, such as those by Jiro Taniguchi, where sometimes entire pages are filled with close-ups of “silence.” It creates a certain atmosphere. I wanted to achieve this Zen atmosphere, to allow more time for reflection… There is very little text.”
Topic
“It’s about change. How does one act when one feels bad in our society? What is our alternative? Ultimately, I don’t know.”
Now his books constitute a modern day hunt for me, i tell you!
The Blast serie is an absolute masterpiece! And it is mind-blowing that it has never been printed in English.
@@gedovanderzee1224 Especially because Manu Larcenet himself considers 'Blast' as his main work. I can see that French, German, Italian editions exist.
I have just finished last volume of Blast today and it is a masterpiece!
Garfield, starting when I was 6.
Do you have a final/ current count? 😁
As a small child I used to read The Beano and The Dandy (British humour anthology comics for children) every week. If say I was in town or at a supermarket with relatives, they may tell me I could pick a comic and if I already had that weeks Beano and Dandy then I would opt for one of the other kids humour comics such as Buster. Roughly around the same time I would start taking out Asterix books from the library (perhaps very occasionally buying one if I had enough spending money). When I was slightly older I started picking up 2000AD every week which I continued to do until (and sometimes during) I found out that a local record store also sold American comics and from there I was trying to pick up every new Spider-Man and Batman title with occasional dips into other books such as the X titles and Fantastic Four.
Edit- A friend of mine also had a big collection of Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes books that his uncle gave to him so that got me interested in these too around the same time all of the above was going on. 😂
It's always a big wonderful hodgepodge, isn't it? 😁 What would you say you first spent money on, deliberately?
I’d say that goes all the way back to getting The Beano and Dandy when I was 8 years old. I had enough with my spending money on a Saturday to get these two and some sweets. 😁 A few years later I was spending my Saturday mornings doing my uncles ironing to earn more spending so I could buy the much more expensive American comics. There were about 4 ongoing Spider-Man, 4 ongoing Batman and god knows how many specials and limited series every month in the 90s! 🤣
I learnt to read with comics but I'd been looking at them for years before that. I'm guessing The Beano counts as my first comic pursuit because the Newsagent would save me a copy each week (in the UK they would write your name on the cover!). BUT......I'd read any comic that I could get my hands on, so for me the pursuit in general was for "comics" and not really a specific series. 2000AD was a game changer for me as a kid and I would consider this comic my first real serious "pursuit" because I chose to read and collect it, whereas I feel The Beano was purchased for me by my Mum, and that's not quite the same thing.
That's exactly the distinction for this prompt, i think - where that individual choice and want and focus began!
As a side note, My Mum banned Tintin in our house for political reasons, so I wasn't allowed to read it. But I was allowed to read Asterix and like many Britons discovered them very early via the local library. I definitely pursued them but my answer is still 2000AD because I paid for them and actually owned them. I didn't own any Asterix until I was 48 years old 😕
I think mine would actually be a web comic, Homestuck. In middle and high school I mostly hung out with the weebs, nerds, and gays (my people) and they got me interested in the series. I had read a few traditional comics before then, but I hadn't done a deep dive or actively went after anything until Homestuck. The next thing would be the thick trade collections of Hellblazer
I need to take a look at Homestuck then! Thanks for the recommendation!
@@ftloc fair warning: it is very long and very weird and likely resonates best with middle and high school aged kids. That doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile, I just don't think it is one of those things that can be recommended without reservation
Really, simple answer for this one naruto.
I don’t really have a fun story, I guess. I never got into comics as a kid so I don’t have the long winded story that some will. I started reading comics (manga specifically, first), a little over 6 or 7 years ago. Berserk and Vagabond are what got me into the medium initially, and Berserk is the first physical comic i’ve ever bought, in the Deluxe editions. I’ve only started collecting physical comics maybe 2 or 3 years now, so pretty short. And yes, only collected editions or premium hardcovers which are great.
So with my experiences, i’ve never read Calvin and Hobbes, Asterix, Tintin etc as a kid. I’ve read them as an adult though and they’re all some of the best things in the medium still. Not read a lot of Asterix yet though, but I have the first 15 albums in the UK translation omnibus’.
So to answer your question fully:
First manga: Berserk
First US Comic: The Sandman
First European comic: I think it was either Dungeon by Lewis Trondheim or Moomin by Tove/Lars Jansson!
Since then i’ve gotten into a lot more abstract and weird stuff like Krazy Kat and Little Nemo which are some of my favorite comics ever. Popeye, Moomin, Mickey Mouse by Gottfredson, Polly and Her Pals, Prince Valiant, Pogo, etc. I’ve become a big comic/newspaper strip reader now, they’re fantastic!
Kind of going off track now, just sharing my experience with how i’ve progressed as a reader. I basically devour and read almost everything except superheroes (except every now and then). There’s still so much out there to read and explore, basically too much. And I have a problem of wanting to read more than I can handle in a lifetime.
How lovely, thanks so much for sharing! I hope you find plenty on this channel to discover! 😁
@@ftlocThanks, I certainly did get into Tintin and Asterix because of you, or at least you helped me decide which editions, I was already leaning into getting them!
Curious though - I plan on getting into Spirou & Fantasio by Andre Franquin. Do you have any love for Spirou?