The first comic book I ever bought was Batman #384, in March 1985. This was the cover:

(OMG! The Calendar Man! Run before he steals your daily planner!)

(By the way, it says “June 85” because comics were cover-dated three months into the future.)

I was 11 years old. My parents were away on vacation and my grandparents were staying at our house to watch me and my brother. I was a big fan of the “Superfriends” TV show — especially Batman and Robin (I also liked watching reruns of their 1960s series, although the camp factor went over my head). I played with my Super Powers action figures all the time, and I wanted to buy a new one. So I had my grandpa walk with me to the local newsstand/drugstore a few blocks away to see if they had any.

They didn’t, so I was disappointed. But I spotted a tall metal rack of colorful comic books on a rotating stand. There he was on one of the covers: Batman. I’d never read a comic book before, but I figured if I couldn’t get an action figure, I might as well read one of these. And it only cost 75 cents, so why not?

That was the beginning of a love affair that lasted several years. Batman’s battle against the Calendar Man ended in a cliffhanger, so I had to pick up Detective Comics #551 to read the conclusion (a much cooler cover, I think):

I was addicted. From Batman and Detective Comics, I branched out to Superman and Action Comics, and then I discovered Crisis on Infinite Earths, which was unfolding at the time. This was a 12-part series that remade the entire DC Comics universe from the ground up, in honor of DC’s 50th anniversary, and it introduced to me to the vast canvas of heroes and villians that had existed over decades. Superheroes were so much more than the one-dimensional cheesy portrayals I’d seen on TV.

I looked forward to Fridays. Every Friday after I got home from school, I’d walk to the same store where I’d bought my first comic. There in the rack were the week’s latest offerings. I’d pick out the two or three (or four or five) that I wanted, and the cashier would ring them up and put them in a little bag for me. I’d carry them home and spend Friday night catching up on the latest developments in the lives of my heroes.

For three years I did this. But in high school we moved to Japan, where I despaired of ever keeping up with my comic book habit. Fortunately the Tokyo American Club had a bookstore where I could buy comics a few months after they were published, but they were only there sporadically, so it wasn’t the same. (And I’d miraculously developed a social life and gotten involved in theater, so I had less time for comics anyway.)

A couple of years after I started college I got back into comics again, but it didn’t last too long. They’d gotten too expensive and too glossy. The publishers had realized that adults liked to not just read, but also collect, comics, so they would publish special editions with multiple covers, and there were more and more titles to follow. I started to feel manipulated and bored. So I quit.

My comic book collection still sits in my parents’ basement. My dad has been pestering me for years to get it out of there. I don’t mind selling most of them, if I could figure out how. I just know that I could never sell those first few comics I bought — Batman #384, Detective #551, maybe not even Superman #408…

…unless, of course, someone were to offer a few thousand dollars for them. But they’re not that valuable.