A Stroll Down Comic Book Memory Lane

October 17, 2012 2:33 PM

Mike's Amazing World of Comics has a section called The Newsstand that lets you select a year/date/publisher and then view a collection of cover images from that time period.

It only includes the major American publishers, so you won't find any alternative, underground, or non-American stuff right now. Still, for many of us, this will bring back fond memories of heading down to the convenience store, newsstand, or comic book shop on Saturday mornings with money saved from doing chores. Enjoy! (via Boing Boing)

posted by lord_wolf (25 comments total)

July 1976, Crazy magazine #18 proudly introduced the bionic baby. I like to think that was me. Neato post!
posted by Renoroc at 2:54 PM on October 17, 2012

COMICS, THE DAY I WAS BORN

Looks like Archie was up to some hijinks!
posted by dubold at 2:57 PM on October 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Cool! I actually own at least three of the comics that were on sale the month I was born. Thank goodness for Jim's Books.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:02 PM on October 17, 2012

Stan Lee: Here’s what happened between these two pictures
posted by Artw at 3:07 PM on October 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

Hee. The issue of The Amazing Spider-Man that was on the stands when I was born.

The issue of The Amazing Spider-Girl that was on the stands when my first daughter was born.

COINCIDENCE? OMEN? or sign that comics repeat themselves a lot...?
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 3:23 PM on October 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

I've just sampled a few years but... it's amazing to see the way diversity takes a dive over the years. In the 60's you have funny animals, romance comics, westerns and comics based on TV shows.
The 90's are a WALL OF SUPERHEROS with smattering of Archie comics.
posted by hot_monster at 4:05 PM on October 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

It probably goes that way shortly after 63.
posted by Artw at 4:06 PM on October 17, 2012

I got Welcome Back Cotter #9 for my birth month.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 4:06 PM on October 17, 2012

There were lots of kids comics, and reprints of science fiction and horror stories from companies like Gold Key and Charlton well into the eighties. DC had horror and war anthologies in that same period as well. It was the demise of newstand sales and the rise of the comic shops in the mid 80s that led to today's superhero focus.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:12 PM on October 17, 2012

This is interesting, but while I was looking my mouse finger accidentally hit the right button, and my cover-admiring reverie was rudely broken by a nagging right-click trap dialog box, sternly warning about copyrights and blah.

Right-click traps are evil. And if I wanted to save some of these covers anyway I'd go right to Javascript options and turn that fucking feature off. (It's only on in the first place because Google Docs makes good use of intercepting right-clicks.)
posted by JHarris at 4:30 PM on October 17, 2012

I love the internet and the world we live in.
posted by marxchivist at 4:35 PM on October 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

On the stands when I was born: that Frank Miller-drawn Daredevil where Hulk beats the shit out of DD, and approximately 80, 958 issues of Richie Rich.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 4:39 PM on October 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Fantastic Four #10 when I was born!
posted by marxchivist at 4:42 PM on October 17, 2012

Maxell Smart. Posted from my shoe phone
posted by Mblue at 5:38 PM on October 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Aaaaahhhhhhhhh
posted by The Whelk at 5:54 PM on October 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
posted by Artw at 6:00 PM on October 17, 2012

Wow, that was a trip. I had a look at Marvel comics covers from a few months in 1977/78 -- around the middle of the time I was into comics, before I gave it up and sold my collection to a friend and turned a bit more towards computers and music (and a couple of years after that, rye whiskey).

It totally brought back to me the thrill of walking down to the corner store in our tiny town and finding a new swath of issues had arrived, and trying to decide which ones I could afford, at 25 cents each. Oddly, one of the dominant threads of the memory is the chalk-dust smell of the place, which was also the town pool hall at that point.

So long ago.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:38 PM on October 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

Seriously, this is a treasure trove of important and fascinating cultural information. Thank you.
posted by mediareport at 7:22 PM on October 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wendy, the Good Little Witch was my first love.
posted by SPrintF at 7:59 PM on October 17, 2012

Does this ever bring back memories! Interesting to see that when I was born (January 1959) Marvel was pretty much out of superheroes...5 years later, and other than Millie The Model and Kid Colt they're almost exclusively publishing superhero comics. Wish I could find the copy of Turok, Son of Stone I read in 1965 as I recovered at home from measles, and that was probably the first comic book I can recall reading.
posted by motown missile at 10:10 PM on October 17, 2012

This answers my lifelong question of why my parents named me Fighting Oil Demon McCoy
posted by fallingbadgers at 11:35 PM on October 17, 2012

COINCIDENCE? OMEN?

Swipe Homage.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:01 AM on October 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is interesting, but while I was looking my mouse finger accidentally hit the right button, and my cover-admiring reverie was rudely broken by a nagging right-click trap dialog box, sternly warning about copyrights and blah.

Irony because a) I bet my bippy that the covers have been stolen from the Grand Comics Database (comics.org) and b) copyright in any case lies with the original copyright holders, not with the site anyway. (Unless it's public domain of course).
posted by MartinWisse at 3:11 AM on October 18, 2012

Pretty pleased with my birth month - three utterly iconic covers that pretty much everyone's seen at one time or other, on Captain Marvel (The most COSMIC superhero of all!), Kull the Conqueror (By this Axe I rule!) and Luke Cage (Bustin' Out!), and a super sweet John Romita "Hulk vs. Thor" Defenders cover.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:36 AM on October 18, 2012

I love love love this. I just took a stroll through every cover Bill Sienkievicz ever worked on, and watched him evolve from a stock action pose artist to the best illustrator in comics.
posted by damehex at 1:34 PM on October 18, 2012