-22

i remember dark they were and golden eyed.
for as long as i can remember i have loved comics. it probably started off with beano and the dandy, a splash of whizzer and chips. some tv 21 not to mention look and learn. then came the discovery of dc and marvel comics.
odd that it was probably dc characters such as superman, batman and superboy that hooked me on comics as a kid when several years later i would become a marvel zombie (that’s what too much exposure to claremont and byrne will do to you). (as a digression i suspect the true reason for my love of marvel comics was more due to the weekly british reprints in such comics as ‘the mighty world of marvel’).
once i had discovered the four colour majesty of superhero comics i became a collector. i would buy everything i could get my hands on, which wasn’t much. i hunted for comics in newsagents and second-hand shops i had no idea what i was doing i just wanted to get more comics to read. the collecting gene had been awakened.
while i picked up comics from wherever i could find them i was pretty much unaware that there was a fandom out there. that there were others like me, others who collected, and others who had turned collecting from a passion into a science.
i don’t remember how i found out about dark they were and golden eyed – but i did. a shop in soho that sold comics. yes a shop that sold comics. joy of joys. i mentioned it to my dad. i wanted to go. he wouldn’t let me go to soho on my own. he would take me on the next saturday he had off. when that exciting day came i went to the west end with my dad and my pal joe.
we got there and it was all i could have imagined it to be and more. packed to bursting point with comics and books. comics and books i had never even heard about. wow. wow. and wow again. it was the ever loving freaking motherlode. of course now i know it was just a large pool in the potential sea of collecting – but ah what a clear gleaming pool it was.
i looked around. so much to buy. so much i wanted, no i craved it all. comics and books. books and comics. a treasure trove.
i bought a bunch of comics. i bought my first official proper back issues (jim steranko’s ‘shield #1” and jack kirby’s ‘new gods #1’ if you must know). i was that pig in shit.
if i am honest it was one of those days where my life changed.
now i know where to find comics. i would travel to dark they were for many more saturdays. i would follow it to its new location. i would be there when it morphed into forbidden planet and when key members of the staff formed their own shops such as comic showcase or gosh.
but that day all that was ahead of me. that day i had bought all i could afford and all i wanted to do was get home so i could read the comics i had bought that day. little knowing how that simple day out would affect me for the rest of my life.