First Ever Super Hero Comic

Back to the comics. This is my first ever super hero comic bought off the spinner by me with a precious quarter--no tax. I had seen other super hero books in my family's collection, but this puppy was mine. I had been having fun pressing silly putty onto the Sunday comic pages and lifting off reverse images (didn't you use to do that?), and we went to the drugstore that day, and this Superman comic just leaped right into my hands. The color, the boldness, the...goofy Superman? I was already used to seeing Alfred E. Neuman on my brother's Mad magazines, but what was this all about? I had to have this comic. And I've had it for close to 48 years now. Never let your first super hero comic go. I had already bought a lot of comics by then, you know, the Little Lulu's, the duck books, even Turok, Son of Stone. And I had even read a few of my brother's Batmans. But Wayne Boring's rendition of Superman got me started on SuperStuff.

And this layout of the Fortress of Solitude captivated me. I had no idea what it was all about at that point, but I wanted one. Even then I got the notion that Superman was pretty stuck on himself, but I thought it was pretty cool to have a fortress of any kind.

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And these house ads grabbed me by the short hairs and jumpstarted my desire for the other comics I didn't have. (Actually these kind of ads were so captivating to me, that for years I would clip them from the comics and kept a separate box to store them in, pulling them out once in a while to moon over them. God I ruined the later resale value of an otherwise perfectly kept collection. My mother never threw out my comics, but one day she threw out my box of these clippings and I've never forgiven her for it, bless her heart.)

 

Wayne Boring had a distinctive style, and I certainly liked his female renditions. God I was a dork.