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

[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.

[AnnaLandin]

Calvin and Hobbes, Tintin and Asterix have already been mentioned, and those were staples of my childhood - Asterix more than the others; I didn't quite appreciate Calvin and Hobbes properly until I grew up.

Yakari
Derib, the guy who drew/draws Yakari - and who is also responsible for the art of Buddy Longway, IIRC - is almost entirely responsible for influencing how I draw grass and stones and the outlines of distant trees. I don't draw them nearly as brilliantly at he does, but it's a work in progress!

Thorgal. I'm not sure I was supposed to read this back when I was oh, all of ten years old - it's definitely too violent and sexual to be age-appropriate - but it ran as a backup comic in Swedish issues of The Phantom (of which I also read a metric ton: The Phantom was never a big hit in the states, but he's a huge deal in Scandinavia).

Horse comics. I mentioned these earlier this week, but seriously, they were a big deal. I've read so, so many horse comics, and collected a metric ton. My inner horse-geek still misses reading them sometimes, but I think I gave them away; I kept them all in a giant cardboard box, because they were too many to fit on my bookshelves.

[Pandastrophic]

We hardly had anything where I'm from, comics and manga weren't big in the middle east they didn't even sell comic books in book stores. I do remember reading W.I.T.C.H comics translated in arabic though, it was really popular comic series here, it was sold in the supermarket and you'd only find the comic volumes of the week and maybe the week before, so if you missed it then you can't find it any other time.

[guilleum2]

I too grew up with Calvin and Hobbes and Garfield. I don't know if it counts but I also bought Captain Underpants books when they would come with the book fair purely for the comics in them.

When I got into manga I started reading Naruto and Fruits Basket and Fullmetal Alchemist
I've never really been into like... super hero comic books though except for the brand new Ghostrider series that's been out recently. I really like the art style in it.

[shaneoid77]

Dale Keown's Hulk run is why I'm here doing comics today

[sorrelma]

i learned to read using sabrina the teenage witch comics :^3 i'm not sure how much those really ""inspired"" me to be an artist or.. stuck with me at all.. but they definitely made reading fun, so i guess i owe them that thanks

[Mharz]

Archie Comics definitely is my childhood comics. I've been reading them since I was in elementary. I never really got into manga until I was in college already cus I was more into watching anime.

[indagold]

calvin and hobbes, far side, garfield, anything by Edward Gorey? Does his work count as comics? It's sequential...

No one seems to know who he is...

[TheVoidchildProject]

Western comics are what first piqued my interest in the medium. Spider-man was always the no. 1 favourite. I loved his bantering, his fanatical morality and his rogues gallery. But The Hulk, X-men and most any Marvel comics I coul led come across. Hell, I'd even read Power Pack of i got my hands on it!

I did like strip comics as well, but never fell in love with them like I did the soap opera contemporary fantasy stuff of super heroes.

And finally The Phantom. A huge deal in Sweden, considered pulp in the US (I believe). I collected that stuff and it always came with plenty of other comics baked in. The way I saw it, he was sort of like a version of Batman, only with a neat historical perspective. The Swedish version made a thing of splitting up the comics between current day adventures and the historical adventures of the phantom. For those that don't remember, or know, the theme of the phantom is that he's believed to
Be immortal and to have existed for over 500 years. People believe that because he had a forefather who started the whole phantom thing back in the 1500's. After a while they just rolled with it. I loved this concept and he often utilised theatricality the same way that batman does.

Some of why I read this stuff obviously had to do
With availability. There wasn't much stuff available in Sweden and I had to make due with what I had. That's not to say the stuff was bad. I still look back on those 90's spider-man comics as some of the best in its run (except the clone saga of course).