What Comic Books/Strips/Manga Did You Grow Up On?

[Greg_Dickson]

As the title says, what comic books and strips did you grow up on? This isn't about influences to your comic in particular, or even about the first comic you read. I'm just wondering what's the most memorable stuff that you used to read. What comics get you feeling the most nostalgic when you think about them?

For me, it's funny, because I never grew up on superhero comics, and yet here I am making a comic about superheroes. However, my bread-and-butter as a kid was mainly reading goofy comic strips, or comics relating to the cartoons I was watching or video games I was playing at the time. Here's a few that really impacted me:

Garfield

This was the first comic strip I ever started to read. In fact, Garfield is what taught me how to read. I remember when I was really young and I had to take trips to the doctor and dentist, which I always hated, my mother would buy me a Garfield book afterwards. I read these books over and over, constantly. I collected every volume up until the 37th...which at that point, I was starting to find the formula very repetitive, and the jokes were becoming uninspired. Still, I cannot deny all of the laughs and good times that I had growing up with Garfield. Really, it's the most nostalgic comic I can think of.

Calvin and Hobbes

Speaking of nostalgia, how can I forget about Calvin and Hobbes? This comic strip was an absolute masterpiece, and captures the feeling of being a child perfectly. The best part is, the comic strip is really fun to read as a kid and as an adult. In a word, it's timeless. I had always wished that more books had been produced, as I have them all, and even growing up, I desperately wanted this to be a cartoon series. You know what this strip needs? The Peanuts movie treatment. I would cry tears of joy if Calvin and Hobbes were made into a movie by the same studio.

Sonic The Hedgehog

Ahhhhh yesss....this was the main comic book that I obsessed about as a child. I loved Sonic so much growing up, that I collected over a hundred issues of the series, plus just about every special that came out on the side. Archie comics did such a fantastic job working off the saturday morning cartoon concept into establishing a well-thought out universe with it. Oh, and the covers and occasional issue that was penciled by an artist named Spaz (who made the cover in this image) were just incredible! I read all of these books over and over, and kept them in mint condition...and then stupidly sold them a little less than a decade ago when I moved out and needed more space. I'm crushed, because my 20 month old daughter loves anything Sonic-related. She cuddles my old Sonic stuffed animal, and always wants to watch me play the games. I wish I still had this series to show her. Maybe I can collect it again in some form some day. Oh, and Archie does a Mega Man comic now, which is pretty sweet.

So as I've said before, what were your most nostalgic comics growing up?

[Kura]

I was more into T.V shows, and I already read more manga than comics, and the comic series that interested me tended to come and go very fast (I liked superhero TV shows but I was not allowed to read superhero comics when I was a kid) but there were three series that I remember I really really enjoyed as a kid.

Sonic the Hedgehog was favourite comic when I was a kid. I loved the games so having a comic series about my favourite game was just the best to me.
Tintin was also one I really loved reading. Most read this one at the library though in the graphic novel form, Astrix and Tintin were just the most commonly found comics at the library, so I would read them often (though I liked Tintin much more) sometimes I would check out the English AND the French version of the same volume and compare the dialog cause it was neat seeing the languages side by side.
Spawn This one... was actually a series that there was no way in heck my mom would have let me read, I actually read it at my older cousin's house as they were HUGE comic readers. I didn't really understand the story at that age (I picked up on he was dead or undead, came back years later because some reason in hell, lost his wife to his his friend, worked for hell but hated hell??, anti hero I think, demon monster with really long jaws and a creepy as all heck clown) , but I just loved how cool everything looked in it, and I just really liked the main character and the creepy hell stuff. It was just cool.

[J.Lovelace]

I grew up on Donald Duck comics :U
They were a huge part of my life.

I think I started with them when I was 6 or 7 years old. My mom used to read them for me, and then she got tired and said why I don't learn reading myself? And as stubborn as I was, I tried to learn it quickly so that I could enjoy the comics by myself XD
I used to buy the Donald Duck magazines (around 50 pages long) and several comic books with 250 pages that appeared monthly. (I think I collected up to around 500 magazines? There's a huge cardboard box of them)
Now, 20 years later the thick comic books are still standing proud on my shelf, and I read them every now and then. Even let my sister borrow them to read, she loves the comics too. I stopped buying the books long ago, but my sister bought some of the newest DD books that appeared last year and I borrow them from her to read XD

I missed a lot of the books, but I managed to find some of them scanned online, and I considered completing my collection by buying the old comics from other people online, but that may be a little too expensive for now XD

[Greg_Dickson]

Oh, Manga is included in this thread as well. It's really about any kind of comic you grew up on. Nice to see a fellow fan growing up with Sonic too!

@jutawi Oh my god, I loved Donald Duck comics as well! Specifically, the Uncle Scrooge comics, as he was my favourite duck character and had really good stories entered around him amassing his fortune. I wish I kept these comics too...

I get really nostalgic over this issue as well. The life and times series was great.

[aFistFull]

I grew up on The Beano.

90/00's Spiderman (Amazing and Ultimate).

As well as The Simpsons.

[J.Lovelace]

Oooh I didn't see this one, but I recognize the artist, his work was always so incredibly detailed And there was always something going on in the backgrounds
The most nostalgic to me was a story about Duck Avenger and the Return to Villa Rose (I wish I could show you the cover page but I can't find it :U )

[Kura]

@Greg_Dickson man, uncle Scrooge was my favourite Disney character when I was growing up followed close second -maybe possibly just enough to kinda tie- by Donald (Max would probably be the next favourite

As for manga I was a little older when starting that, but remember enjoying titles like Dragonball Z, Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura. Then when scanslations became I thing I was introduced to all kinds of stuff, but I think Hunter x Hunter is still one of my fav manga I read via scanslation both then and now (I immediately started collecting the graphic novels for that when it got licensed and sold over here, since by the time that came over I was finally old enough to have a job and actually buy more comics)

[Greg_Dickson]

@kurapikasuki Uncle Scrooge is simply a badass. He really is my favourite Disney character too. I did wish I saw a bit more of Donald in his comics though. If you mean Max, as in Goof Troop, I also used to love that show, but we're talking about comics here (unless there was a comic?). I never did read any manga growing up, as I discovered anime years before that, but I remember watching Cardcaptors. That's about all of the exposure I got to that. The first and only manga I started and finished was Naruto. I remember starting that when I was around 16 to 18 years old, and it took me until a few years ago to finish reading (I think it ended one or two years ago).

@aFistFull I didn't grow up on Spiderman (I only watched it a bit), but I did actually have some Simpsons comics. I didn't find them as good as the show, but I took what I could get and enjoyed them, regardless.

[Kayke]

I used to read a lot of Archie comics... and still do because my boyfriend has kind of been amassing them lately. I feel like every time I go over his place there's a new Archie collection book laying around.

I also used to follow the Teen Titans really closely! When I was a kid they had three different comic series running Titans, Teen Titans, and Teen Titans Go and I collected all of them! (I read Batman and Robin comics too, but I preferred super heroes that worked on teams)

I think it makes sense that now I do a super hero comic where half of the plot is the characters having crushes on each other hahah

[Kura]

@Greg_Dickson Max was more prominent in the TV series, I only remember him in the small 3 - 5 page comics, probably for the Disney Adventures magazine series that used to come out back in the day. I forgot that I used to read that from time to time as well (it wasn't all comics though, but the comics were pretty much the only thing I read in it unless they were doing some kind of article on a movie I liked), they had small mini comics for a bunch of their series in that thing. (Usually I read them waiting in line at the grocery story because mom could not afford them, so I had to manage my reading time to the comics in it)

[Varethane]

Oh man, I definitely also read a lot of Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and Tintin as a kid! And I also read a bunch of Simpsons and Archie comics too, though I never owned them-- it just seemed that everyone else did, so I'd have chances to read them whenever I was visiting someplace for a few hours. A few others I read:

Asterix, a Belgian comic series about a Gaulish village (in France) during the Roman occupation period under Julius Caesar, as they resist Roman incursions through magic and wit-- the series sounds a little serious when described that way but it's 100% tongue-in-cheek humour.

I also read a lot of superhero comics-- especially batman and superman, as we had a couple of big compilations: The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, and The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told (I read the batman one more so that's the cover I dug up lol)

In addition to that, at some point I obtained the trade paperback compilation of the Return of Superman comic (the finale of the Death of Superman) arc-- I guess my parents didn't want to buy me the Death comic because the cover was pretty bloody, but they were a-ok with buying me its aftermath XD I really enjoyed those too.

When I was 11-12 I picked up ElfQuest, which became a HUGE influence on my art and storytelling-- still is, really. I was a little younger than the target demographic (the series is full of le sex and le violence) but I was enthralled anyway.

[Ringarune]

For me it's mostly magical girl shows in the 2000s like shugo chara and tokyo mew mew. I also loved pokemon when I was younger ^^

[Kura]

Oh man I completely forgot about the Pokemon manga, I used to read that when I was a kid too xD

[Zanreo]

Loved Donald Duck comics as a kid Also read quite a bit of Calvin and Hobbes

As for my first manga (around 10/11), probably Ranma 1/2, mainly because they had the whole series at the library

[joannekwan]

I never really read comics as a kid aside from the Sunday funnies. I remember I liked Hagar the Horrible, Born Loser, and especially Mutts in particular. Actually I liked Mutts so much I bought the books for it.

I didn't start getting into comics until high school, when I started reading Shaman King because I was watching it on TV.

[greenraptorstudios]

I was more into TV as well, but actually what you have there, I was raised on Sonic comics and Garfield as well. I was also raised on comics based of my favorite TV shows such as Batman the animated series.

[igneriss]

I didn't really read a lot of comics as a child- which is kinda funny because I used to draw them a lot, wanting them to tell a story like a cartoon. I think first comics I read were W.I.T.C.H series, I used to love those : D Later, I bought my first manga when I was about 10-11, I think? Though I'm not sure : D and it was a random volume of Oh! My Goddess. I used to redraw it a lot CX and later there was Ranma 1/2 and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. And FullMetal Alchemist during my teen years, still my favourite series ♥ But yeah, nothing much earlier. I know there were some comics in magazines my parents were buying me and my sis when we were kids (it was a disney magazine and one to help kids write etc) but I used to skip them and go directly to tasks CX I prefered doing grammar tasks instead of reading haha ; v;

[Shanny8]

Grew up reading Marvel & DC...when I turned 15 and started buying my own comics, X-Men was my title.

Then came the 90s boom and I started reading my fave creators as they formed Image Comics.

My tastes began to diversify as well; I started reading (converted/dubbed)manga like Silent Mobius, Battle Angel Alita, You're Under Arrest, & Gunsmith Cats.

I also read other material like Sin City and OMAC, which further strengthened my appreciation for black & white comics...

Towards the latter part of the 90's my tastes changed to more solid line work. I started to read books like Battle Chasers, Out There, the Dirty Pair, Danger Girl, and Body Bags...

[R.n.P]

I grew u reading supa strikers and archie comics before i was enlightened to the world of manga

[Simon_M]

Hey, except Beano, I had all of them, here in Spain haha. I liked Bartman a lot, even though I never really understood how he became a "superhero".

Anyways. I read american comics (Spider-man, Deadpool -Joe Kelly's run-, Spawn, Bone, Usagi Yojimbo, Groo and Sin City), some manga (Dragon ball, obviously, Rurouni Kenshin), some spanish comics (when I was very young, since they tend to be very silly). And that's about it.