We forget at times the kind of sales figures comic books once had among adults and children. Up until the whole SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT witch hunt many adults read comics with some books clearly aimed at slightly older readers.
Fiction House’s whole line was aimed at a slightly older audience than most comics being produced in that era and genres varied widely from superhero to Western to SF to horror to romance to detective to funny animal with something for just about everyone.
Some of those photos were obviously staged. I liked the more candid ones, especially those that showed newsstands or kids with stacks of comics. That would have been me, that’s for sure. Lots of memories.
And lots of thoughts as always of going back in a time machine, knowing what we know now.
Yes, comics were serious business when I was a kid. I don’t really remember adults reading them, but when I was young we read them, swapped them, went to other kids’ houses to read them, went to the local mom-and-pop stores to buy them at half price.
As I recall, and I can picture this vividly, these stores always had a box of well-read comics on the floor for a nickel apiece. I don’t know where they got them. Some kids must have traded them in, but I never did.
Strangely enough I don’t remember seeing any Marvel (1940s) or Atlas (1950s) comics amongst all of this reading matter. Nor EC comics, for that matter. I must have lived in the back woods.
Other than a few funny animal comics and some Westerns I didn’t get into comics until I was eight, well after the EC implosions and the Congressional hearings.
My main comics reading period was from 8 to about 17, after that I read some but not that many, and while I collected in the late sixties it was certain artists and not titles as much. When it came down to comics or books books won.
There were two drugstores in my town and a newstand attached to a motel and those were hit every Saturday for books and comics. I don’t recall any other friends who read them much other than my female cousin who read BETTY AND VERONICA until she was 13 or so.
Of course, back then you could buy comics and paperbacks get lunch and still have change from a $10.
November 25th, 2021 at 10:49 pm
We forget at times the kind of sales figures comic books once had among adults and children. Up until the whole SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT witch hunt many adults read comics with some books clearly aimed at slightly older readers.
Fiction House’s whole line was aimed at a slightly older audience than most comics being produced in that era and genres varied widely from superhero to Western to SF to horror to romance to detective to funny animal with something for just about everyone.
November 26th, 2021 at 12:03 am
Some of those photos were obviously staged. I liked the more candid ones, especially those that showed newsstands or kids with stacks of comics. That would have been me, that’s for sure. Lots of memories.
And lots of thoughts as always of going back in a time machine, knowing what we know now.
November 26th, 2021 at 8:20 am
What people did before they had cell phones! I can almost picture the same pictures with the people reading their phones instead of the comics.
November 26th, 2021 at 1:54 pm
Some of us can still relate to those days, but we are a vanishing breed.
November 26th, 2021 at 3:50 pm
On “Burke’s Law”, a woman tells the hero that he’s “part of a vanishing breed.”
Assistant Regis Toomey speaks up: “It’s the game laws!”
I loved comic books as a kid and still do.
I remember the rapt attention the other kids and I paid to the comic books we were reading.
November 26th, 2021 at 4:09 pm
Yes, comics were serious business when I was a kid. I don’t really remember adults reading them, but when I was young we read them, swapped them, went to other kids’ houses to read them, went to the local mom-and-pop stores to buy them at half price.
As I recall, and I can picture this vividly, these stores always had a box of well-read comics on the floor for a nickel apiece. I don’t know where they got them. Some kids must have traded them in, but I never did.
Strangely enough I don’t remember seeing any Marvel (1940s) or Atlas (1950s) comics amongst all of this reading matter. Nor EC comics, for that matter. I must have lived in the back woods.
November 26th, 2021 at 8:28 pm
Other than a few funny animal comics and some Westerns I didn’t get into comics until I was eight, well after the EC implosions and the Congressional hearings.
My main comics reading period was from 8 to about 17, after that I read some but not that many, and while I collected in the late sixties it was certain artists and not titles as much. When it came down to comics or books books won.
There were two drugstores in my town and a newstand attached to a motel and those were hit every Saturday for books and comics. I don’t recall any other friends who read them much other than my female cousin who read BETTY AND VERONICA until she was 13 or so.
Of course, back then you could buy comics and paperbacks get lunch and still have change from a $10.