"Comics are for all Ages" (reading for 30 years now ...)

I like to read comic books. I read my first comic book back in 1976 when I was nine years old. I traded some books for a stack of Batman comics with a friend. I was hooked right away. However, in those years comic books were hard to get in The Netherlands. Only a few American comics were translated and published. Finally, I found a small store that could order the Batman comics in Dutch.

About six years later other comic books were translated and published like The X-Men and Spiderman. At that time a real comic book store opened in my town. Now it was possible to get my hands on the original American comic books also!

I found a nice comic bookstore in Amsterdam (called: Wonderland) in 1985. They sold a lot of back issues and my collection started to grow.

In 1987 I discovered www.milehighcomics.com and started ordering my comics in the USA. My first titles were: Batman, Daredevil, Detective Comics and Swamp Thing. I'm still using their services after 19 years.

I've read and collected quite a lot comics over the last 30 years. Some of my favourite artists are: Jim Steranko, Steve Ditko, John Byrne, Jim Aparo, Barry Windsor-Smith, Mike Kaluta, Charless Vess, P. Craig Russel, Marshall Rogers, Bill Sienkewietz, Berni Wrightson, John J. Muth, Frank Miller, George Pratt and George Perez.

This image is the cover of Amazing Spiderman #50. This was one of the first silver age comics I got. I like this cover very much (still). Some of my oldest comic books are: Batman #6 (1941), Detective Comics #84 (1944), Amazing Spiderman #5 (1963), The Avengers #2 (1963) and Tales to Astonish #41 (1962).

I'm not very active as a collector anymore, but I still read comic books weekly. I'm thinking of selling parts of my collection to clear some space. Lately, I started reading hardcovers collecting older comics. I just finished the hardcover collecting Jim Starlin's Dreadstar #1-12. A great story it was!!

As a sticker once said: "Comics are for all Ages".