Time to get this place active?

[Paul Burke]

We're all a bit quiet here aren't we? Come on folks!

Let's start with a good ol' simple question to break the ice.

Which comic / graphic novel got you into the scene?

For me it was Preacher. It had rude words, boobs, a vampire and a kid named Arseface. Sold.

[wesleycraiggreen]

Like most kids, I put comics behind me once I went to college. While at college, I found a comic shop was a couple of blocks from campus. Growing up, I always had to get my comics from the local 7-11 (this was when they still had the spinner racks) and grocery store. So finding this comic shop was like discovering the Holy Grail. This was around the time Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT started. For me, I would then have to say THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS is the one which brought me back into the fold.

Good topic, Paul.

[Mike Henderson]

I have to say, I couldn't really put comics behind me when I went college. Mostly, it was because I went to the Joe Kubert School. Prior to that though, Batman: Year One and Sandman got me going on making comics for a living.

I agree, good topic. We need to make some noise up in here.

[Paul Burke]

Seems like we've got a few more members trickling in anyway.

WAKE UP! SPEAK TO US!!!

[Bill Cunningham]

Word!

[Greg Carter]

I'm not embarrassed to admit it was Buffy the Vampire Slayer that led me back to comics this round. As a little kid I read Richie Rich, Donald Duck, and that stuff. Then in the '80s I read Howard the Duck, but nothing else really clicked. Then the Buffy comics came out and since the whole family were fans of the show we checked out the comic.

It was right when Amber Benson, the actor that played Tara, co-wrote a one-shot with Christopher Golden and in interviews she listed comics she had been given to read including Kabuki and Strangers in Paradise. I fell in love with those two especially and have become enough of a comics fan that when I decided I wanted to tell stories again that's how I wanted to do it. And there's so much good stuff out now compared to a few years ago. It's still not a lot of titles number-wise, compared to the capes, but it's all I can afford. Thank the internets for webcomics! And I still end up buying print copies of the stuff I really like. Doh!

[Bill Cunningham]

I have grown up with a steady (some would say unhealthy) diet of comics, b-movies, paperbacks and Famous Monsters Magazine. After a few sidesteps along the way I now work writing and producing those same kinds of things that fascinated me as a kid.

I think what hoked me though were the B&W comic mags from Warren - CREEPY, EERIE, THE ROOK, as well as Marvel's B&W CONAN and MASTER OF KUNG FU mags. Violence, gore and boobies - it made my pubes grow page by page.

It wasn't too much longer that I discovered the paperback reprints of THE SHADOW and THE SPIDER. Then it was all over with...

[David Doub]

I would get comics from my local 7-11 spinner rack as well. I actually started with Marvel Handbooks and then I started collecting their Acts of Vengeance crossover. I kept going to 7-11 and then Waldenbooks to keep getting comics until I missed an issue of West Coast Avengers and I went to this rumored place that had back issues, a comic book store.

Then during the 90s I got all wrapped up in the indy black and white explosion. I read everything from Millennium Comics to Faust. If it was dark or angsty (or both) I read it.

[Rafer Roberts]

Do you know if Faust: Love of The Damned ever finished? It's been a long time since I was following the book, so I would assume so.

[Ben Fisher]

Originally -- Claremont's X-Men and Gaiman's Sandman.

Recently, stuff like Ex Machina, Y:The Last Man, Walking Dead and Fables brought me back to the table. And folks like Brian Bendis, Mark Millar and Warren Elllis have made reading superhero stories fun (for me) again.

[Dalles Cheatham]

I can agree I loved preacher how you not like jesse when the man had the abilty to kill god. For me I think manga and bone were my reasons for making my book a graphic novel.

[Rafer Roberts]

The first comic that I can remember reading was ROM: SPACEKNIGHT Annual #2 when I wass but a tyke, and I don't think there's been a month since then that I haven't been reading comics. There's a list of my all-time favorites in my profile here, so I don't want to bore everyone by re-listing them. The comic I probaby read and re-read the most during my growin' up years was Fantastic Four. I was reading current to the middle of John Byrne's run, but I bought every back issue I could find. (For what it's worth, I still think that Roger Stern's run is wildly underrated).

Cerebus is what got me into publishing my own comics in high school, though I had been drawing them since I was nine.

Of course, I now barely read any of the super-hero stuff (except for Civil War, which was HILARIOUS) and make comics for dope-smoking hippies.

[Paul Burke]

Civil War hammered the nail in my Marvel coffin. Except for the Punisher deadpan blowing away a couple of bad guys, that was a truly awful book.

I've pretty much commited to seeing through DCs Countdown and I imagine I'll pick up Final Crisis next year, but after that no more event books for me. I've learnt all I need to from them now. And that is, by and large, they suck.