Comics Bought to Read, Before I Actually Began to Collect

The earliest comic book that I talked my mother into buying for me came out in 1959 (when I was 4), but I began to beg for D.C. comics in 1960. By the time I bought Adventure No. 318 in late 1963, I already had a stack of comics about 8 inches high, almost all of which had bee bought at a local market, which had a spinner rack at the end of the checkstands. That made it easy for me to find a comic or two while my mother was paying for groceries and othe mundane purchases with sufficient time to run back and beg. It also allowed for insufficient time for her to think about what I was carrying on about or to otherwise scrutinize my requests.

Actually, my parents were exceptionally good to me throughout my life. Other than there unwillingness to pay $100 for the Superman No. 1 which I was after at the time we first went to Collectors Book Store in 1966[something I now understand, at age 66 but which seemed rather unreasonable when I was 10], I can't remember a single instance when they refused any request to buy comics which I wanted. Soon after I became seriously interested in comic collecting, in early 1964, my mother would pick me up from elementary school during the lunch break every Tuesday and Thursday [when new comics were released], get us something for lunch, and then go to at least one of the main sources for new comics in our area, wait for me to go through what had come out that day, and then pay for all the comics I had picked out for her to purchase. If I felt that more new ssues should have come out, she would drive me to the other stores which might have received additional comics, any one of four drug stores and one other market, so that I could try to fid even more comics for her to buy. This went on for years, and she never said no to any request I made. Both of my parents were great when it came to the purchase of older comics as well, and they would drive the 50 or so miles to the Hollywood comic book sellers to enable me to ask for more money for comics. I always received an allowance for other, less important things, such as toys, but the comic book spending was outside the limits of allowance money. On top of these indulgences, my parents never threw away any of my comics --my mother kept them neatly stacked on a shelf above a broom closet, where they waited for me to grew old enough to actually start real collecting. By the time I was in sixxth grade, I allready had about 2,500. By the time my parents died, I had at least 50,000, half of which were prpbably bought over the years with my parents' money.

My parents finally made up for their initial failure to buy me a Superman No. 1 in 1966 when they bought a really nice copy for me in 1969 for 5 times the cost. In 1971, I wanted an Action Comics No 4 that Bruce Hamilton was selling for $125 at the San Diego Con. My father initially refused to buy it for me, but as were drove back to the hotel where we were staying, I noted that it was hiding in a folded newspaper that was next to me and my sister in the back seat of the car. I maturely didn't say a word, so as not to spoil the surprise, and I pretended that I had no idea what my father had done when he pulled it out after we got into our room. And as late as about 1979, my father, much to the displeasure of my mother, gave me $735 out of the money my mother was saving for new kitchen appliances so that I could buy three Mile High comics from the Carter Bros. at a San Diego Con.

Late in their lives, when I was making my own money, I did help my parents out with major purchases, but there is just no way that I gave them anywhere near what they had given me. I was fortunate beyond imagination to have had such generous and supportive parents, and I will always be more grateful than words can express.

PS I bought all my comic art with my own money!