Mark Brassington

For those who know me or have at least read any of my bios on Twitter or my about me know that I love comics. Comics used to be biggest interest and passion. I knew everything that was comics related or most things. I am not like the fat dude in The Simpsons. Before #babyhousemarriage I used to spend roughly £150 a month on new comics. So I plan on running a small series of blogs on comics.

Firstly I want to talk about how I fell in love with comics:

The year I discovered comics was 1996. I was in Art and Design and the class was given the subject of fantasy and the boy I was sitting next to said he would be heading to the comic shop at the weekend to pick up some comics for ideas and asked if I wanted to come along. In between classes I was quizzing him on this. I was 14 years old so of course I had seen the odd comic in the Newsagents but I had never heard of an actual comic shop and all I knew of comics really was Spiderman and Superman.

In between classes my classmate gave me the lowdown on what was going on in the comics worlds and it really peaked my interest, 1996 was a big year for comics and as I have found out since so is every year. The comics world is full of twists and turns, big events, reboots/relaunches, costumes changes, superhero replacements and so on. This was the perfect tool to fuel my imagination and it’s still as active now and it was then, I also discovered that many things had happened before 1996 which I also found fascinating. It was like learning the history of earth all over again.

Many things happened in 1996:

• Spiderman and the whole clone saga which is still massively talked about now by every comic fan out there for good and bad reasons.
• Marvel Vs DC was on issue 2 or 3 the day I walked into the shop of a four issue mini series. Which also launched one of favourite superheros – Access. I picked all of these up and still have these in my attic.
• Clark Kent married Lois Lane.
• All of the Marvel Heroes sacrificed themselves and all their titles were rebooted in and event which was called “Heroes Reborn”.

These are the top Graphic Novels that I picked up during 1996:

Spiderman The Original Clone Saga 

I remember coming across a small comic shop and picking up this graphic  novel which told of the original clone saga from the 1970′s. The story came about due to the death of Spiderman’s first girlfriend Gwen Stacey. I loved this story and the 70′s art and story telling. I read this book within a day.

Batman: The Killing Joke

As a fourteen year old I found this story far too dark for me however I have read it since and loved it. This story tells of the origin and how he shoots ends up paralyzing Batgirl from the waist down which still has ramifications now.

Batman: Knightfall

I picked up all of the Knightfall and Knightsend graphic novels.

These stories told of how Bane cleverly brought down Batman and how Azrael replaced him. Bane “Broke the Bat” – it was a brilliant story and its the kind of story I love where the big hero has to return to his old stomping ground and save the day.

The comic shop I walked into in 1996 was called Universal Comics in Staines which unfortunately doesn’t exist anymore. Like a lot of comic shops these come and go. Walking into that comic shop was one of the best things I have ever done.