THE FANTASTIC FOUR #1

It's Thursday, August 10, 1961. It's my ninth birthday, and
we're at my maternal grandparents' house in Greensboro,
Pennsylvania, where my grandmother and grandfather
have just given me some money. I have already been
collecting comic books for almost three years, and these
are the main titles that I'm following:

ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN
ADVENTURES OF THE FLY
ADVENTURES OF THE JAGUAR
AMAZING ADULT FANTASY
BATMAN
CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN
DETECTIVE COMICS
FORBIDDEN WORLDS
GREEN LANTERN
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY
MY GREATEST ADVENTURE
MYSTERY IN SPACE
STRANGE TALES
TALES OF SUSPENSE
TALES TO ASTONISH
THE FLASH
TOMAHAWK
TUROK, SON OF STONE

I decide to walk down the hill to Longo's Confectionery
and see if there are any new issues of these books. When
I get there, I immediately gravitate to a strange new comic
in the front row. What's this? The Fantastic Four? The
caption reads, "Featuring: The Thing! Mr. Fantastic!
Human Torch! Invisible Girl! Together for the first time in
one mighty magazine!" My mind wonders if I had missed
some other comic books where they had appeared
separately. And that big green monster looks like
something out of Strange Tales, so I hand Betty Longo a
dime and race back up the hill to read it. And from that
moment forward, writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby
altered my inner consciousness forever!

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TODD TAMANEND CLARK
Poet / Composer / Multi-Instrumentalist / Cultural Historian
The Monongahela River, Turtle Island
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