Which Comics and Magazines Did You Read As A Child?
By karen1969
@karen1969 (1779)
June 13, 2010 1:16pm CST
I was born in 1969 and live in England in the UK. The first comics I read were in the 1970s. One I especially remember was called Twinkle which was aimed at young girls. It had picture stories in it, including one I remember about a nurse and you followed the stories each week.
As I got a bit older, Bunty was another favourite. This had a cut-out doll on the back of each issue, with some outfits you could cut out and put on the doll. I used to get other comics like Jinty, Penny, Mandy, etc. Misty was an unusual one, as it was about mystical things like witches and ghosts, so that was a bit different to the others. It had a regular picture story about a gymnast, which I loved.
The first glossy girls' magazine I read was Girl and I got the very first issue. This also had a regular gymnastics column in it written by British gymnast Suzanne Dando. It had colour posters on the back of pop stars and groups.
Once I got older and into my teens, I read magazines like Jackie and Blue Jeans which had photo stories, problem pages, articles about make up, fashion and boyfriends. They also had a lot about pop stars. I remember having posters of Debbie Harry which I put up on my wall.
So which magazines and comics did you read as a child and a teenager?
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23 responses
@Torunn (8607)
• Norway
13 Jun 10
I started reading the Phantom when I was about 5 I think, because my mother was reading it. It's maybe more men than women who reads it, but my father never read it. When I got a bit older I read a lot of comics about girls and horses, and Calvin and Hobbes. Around 12 I also started reading more grown-up comics, for example Corto Maltese. Both me and my brother read Lucky Luke, Asterix, Sprint and RinTinTin. My mother bought them and all of us read them. I still read quite a lot of comics now too, I several shelves and boxes in the storage room in the basement just waiting for me to want to read them again :-)
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@karen1969 (1779)
•
13 Jun 10
It sounds like you still have an impressive collection there! 
1 person likes this
@ram_cv (16513)
• India
13 Jun 10
I was a voracious reader as a youngster. My father introduced me to the wonderful world of books. I started with kid books of Tinkle and Chandamama which I love to read even today. Then I started reading Indrajaal comics which in India was the owner of the Phantom and Mandrake comic strips. Then as I moved on to my teens I moved over to Enid Blyton and Hardy boys. Finally then during my college days I moved over Isaac Asimov and Science Fiction. These days I split my time between Sci fi and Fantasy Fiction.
Cheers!
Ram
@cheatedaphrodite (810)
• Philippines
13 Jun 10
I also love reading the Hardy Boys books including Nancy Drew. Both are really nice. :)
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@karen1969 (1779)
•
13 Jun 10
I loved Enid Blyton books as a child. I collected them and had about 80 of her books. I used to ask for them for Christmas and birthdays.
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@ellie333 (21016)
•
13 Jun 10
Hi Karen, Oh I remember Jackie and Blue Jeans well, these were the two I used to buy, along with a family pack of Minstrels and had enough pocket money left over to go to the local community centre disco and pool the rest for a bottle of cider and some ciggies - bad bad girl me LOL, mind you back then the bottle was shared amongst about 10 of us same with the ciggies one each and never drank like vodka that you see some kidsdrinking these days. I remember the cut out dolls too from when I was younger but can't remember the name of the magazines they were in. Oh happy day eh! Huggles. Ellie :D
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@ellie333 (21016)
•
16 Jun 10
Thanks for BR Karen, appreciated. No being a gymnast and smoking definitely do not go together but as kids I think we all experiemnt at some stage eh! I used to love my friday night discos. I would eat the whole bag of minstels too whilst reading through my mags, bliss. Huggles. Ellie :D
@karen1969 (1779)
•
13 Jun 10
Oh yes, I remember drinking a bottle of cider when I was 16 or 17 with a friend, but I didn't do it too often. I did smoke a bit with some friends for a while, but I was a competitive gymnast and I soon discovered smoking didn't really help with my training! 
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@JenInTN (27514)
• United States
14 Jun 10
I used to read the Readers Digest because my granparents always had them laying around the house..lol..as I got older I enjoyed reading read a magazine that the school would hand out to the children every month. There were games in it and little stories. I can't remember the name of it to save my life though.
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@Janey1966 (24170)
• Carlisle, England
14 Jun 10
Oh my God, I'm not butch am I? Didn't really like girlie comics, I preferred Dandy and Beano lol. The annuals were good too, remember them? They had so much information in them, took ages to read.
I, too, read loads of Enid Blyton books. Pure escapism and miles better than the Harry Potter books, sorry but it's true!
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@Janey1966 (24170)
• Carlisle, England
14 Jun 10
I've just remembered another one from school...Smash Hits! Had lots of lyrics in there. I don't think it exists anymore, which is a shame. As I got older (and into rock music) I upgraded to the Kerrang! mag and that's still going strong, I'm pleased to say!
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@karen1969 (1779)
•
14 Jun 10
I didn't like Dandy or Beano, but I loved annuals in general and had quite a collection. Of course I remember Smash Hits too and used to buy that in the 1980s.
@rosie230 (1703)
•
13 Jun 10
Hmmm now you got me thinking lol... I think as far as I can remember magazines only started to appeal to me when I was a teenager, and for those magazines it was something like Just Seveteen, and More. The magazines that I read were normally full of stuff to do with pop stars, and teenage problems etc... and I remember I used to stick posters of Bon Jovi all round my room!
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@karen1969 (1779)
•
13 Jun 10
I used to read Just 17 and Mizz (if you remember that one?) when I was in my mid-late teens in the 1980s. I had pictures and posters on my wall including Madonna, Morten Harket of A-Ha and Boris Becker!!
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
13 Jun 10
hi karen I was not much of a magzine reader as child but I was into
nancy drew and Louisa may Alcotts books, and most any fiction
'book I could get my hands on including the rather stupid Bobbsey Twins books the Sherlock Holmes oh my how I loved A Conan Doyle books so
much and Agatha Christie, I never worried about grade level as a kid, if I could read it I did.,Also movie magazines were all the rage and like most teens of the war years I read all of those.
were all the rage and like most teens of the war years I read all of those.1 person likes this
@karen1969 (1779)
•
14 Jun 10
Oh, I would love to see those old film magazines you had as a child/teen. I love the old movies and stars like Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, Judy Garland, Doris Day, Natalie Wood and many others!
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
14 Jun 10
I loved Donald Duck comics when I was a child. My father bought them for me, and when I had read them he always wanted to borrow them When I became a bit older I started reading a magazine called "Barbie". There were Barbie comics and barbie stories, penfriends etc. I loved that magazine and I had to read it every single time. I found my first penfriends in that magazine, and I think I was 10 or 11 at that time. When I was about 14 I started reading a magazine called "Girls" and it was full of love stories. Around the same time I got interested in singers and actors and I started buying a music magazine
When I became a bit older I started reading a magazine called "Barbie". There were Barbie comics and barbie stories, penfriends etc. I loved that magazine and I had to read it every single time. I found my first penfriends in that magazine, and I think I was 10 or 11 at that time. When I was about 14 I started reading a magazine called "Girls" and it was full of love stories. Around the same time I got interested in singers and actors and I started buying a music magazine1 person likes this
@karen1969 (1779)
•
14 Jun 10
I got my first penfriends from a British pop music magazine called Chart Songwords when I was 9 or 10 years old.
@o0jopak0o (6394)
• Philippines
14 Jun 10
well i usually read superman, archie comics and richie rich and the local funny comics like pupung and pugad baboy. well when i was a child it is the playstation age so my attention really was into video games than comics.
i was never really a fan of hero comics because i think cartoons and anime is better.
@marguicha (223129)
• Chile
14 Jun 10
I liked Little Lulu but at home we did not have many comics or magazines. I had to borrow them from friends. My parents wanted us to read books with no pictures. So I read the unabridged Little Women and other books that size when I was about 8 years old.
When I went to live for a year in the US, I became an addict of nurse stories (Cherry Ames) and read several times the "Little House" books. They helped a lot to gain more English vocabulary as it´s not my native language.
When I was a teenager I started to read books for grownups. John Srtainbeck (which I read at that time) is still a favorite. And I read all Jane Austen and the Bronte´s mixed with L.M Montgomery (and other stories for young people I still liked). There were lots of other books and authors I read. I was a bookworm all my life.
@karen1969 (1779)
•
14 Jun 10
I have also read and enjoyed Little Women, Anne of Avonlea, all Jane Austen's novels and some Steinbeck, I especially loved Of Mice and Men.
@sblossom (2168)
•
16 Jun 10
If I just list one magazine it would be reader. that was very popular magazine in China in 1980s-90s. I was encouraged a lot by the stories in the magazine. It was a window for me to know outside world.
In fact I collected many items of their old issues. If I have time I would like to read them again and find some new from them.
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@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
15 Jun 10
I don't actually recall reading any comics when I was a child unless you are to include the comics that were in the Sunday newspaper, those just weren't really my kind of thing. However, I really do remember reading magazines. I was a regular purchaser of Tiger Beat and some of the other teen magazines like that, I really liked the glossies that were in there of the handsome male celebrities. I would also read any other magazine that my mother had in the house as I was an insatible reader when I was a young girl.
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@oldchem1 (8132)
•
13 Jun 10
Very much like you I have to admit!!
Bunty, the Brownie magazine ( I was a Brownie as you may have guessed!!), Girl, Jackie and wasn't there a Fab followed by numbers??
Can't quite remember!! It was a long time ago
I started cutting pictures out starting with Paul McCartney until my walls were covered!!
I started cutting pictures out starting with Paul McCartney until my walls were covered!!1 person likes this
@karen1969 (1779)
•
13 Jun 10
I was a Brownie too and used to get the Brownie Annual, but I can't remember the comic.
I covered my bedroom wall with pictures of Madonna in the 1980s!! 
@saihai (128)
• India
14 Jun 10
Comics and Magazines !!! wow!!! I still feel excited when a new comics or magazines arrives.... I was born in early 80's ... I started reading story books and comics when was 5 may be 6... cant remember actually ...!! ....I was never into study books ...so when my mom bought the 1st comics book she was in doubt whether whether I would read or not ...But actually i started liking it ...And slowly I become very much fond of comics ...I started with a local comics character named " HADA BHODA" then "NONTE FONTE " , "BANTUL THE GREAT" .... and then all the famous Comics character PHANTOM ,ARCHIES, TINTIN ,ASTERIX, OBELIX Bla bls bla .....But my favorite was MANDREAK ... I still read Comics and Magazines ....:)
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@suehan1 (4344)
• Australia
14 Jun 10
Well that was os long ago I have to jog the old memory.I was into donald duck and mickey mouse comics, the phantom. As for magazine I would read Cleo and assorted entertainment magazines, which for the life of me I can not remember the names of them. I will get back to you when I remember, that could be a while.lol.
@tjades (3591)
• Jamaica
14 Jun 10
I remember as a child we especially used to trade, lend and borrow the Archy and Jughead comic books from the library. I used to follow certain series in the news paper. These included Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom, Daffy and Donald Duck, Peanuts, Micky Mouse, Hagar Hagar and so many more.
I cant remember and of the magazines in particular. I would just read whatever I got my hands on.
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
13 Jun 10
I was never much into comics.. but as a young teen I did get into some of the teenie bopper magazines. Actually the 2 I read the most were called Bop and Teen Bop or something like that.. they were both distributed by the same company, and I got a subscription to them. They were mostly all about the child and teen stars. They had a lot of posters and pin ups which I'd rip out and tape all over my walls. I think I had the majority of my bedroom wall covered with these posters and pin ups. I loved those teen actors!
1 person likes this
@paula27661 (15811)
• Australia
14 Jun 10
I lived in Italy for the first ten years of my life and I used to love these great Mickey Mouse comics that used to come out weekly and they were like paper back full of comics, they were great! The first magazine I bought was when I lived in Australia; it was Dolly magazine and I ended subscribing to it because I loved it so much!
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@sender621 (14894)
• United States
14 Jun 10
I enjoyed combic books as a child. My favorite was spiderman. When I got older, i graduated to the teen magazines. Tiger beat was my favorite then. I was always finding a cool poster for my walls. Now that i am aan adult,People magazine is whaat I like to read the most. Isn't it funny how time changes our reading habits?
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@santosmarichris (1849)
• Philippines
14 Jun 10
Archie Comic Books. LOL. Do they still exist? I love those comic books, it brings back all those good childhood memories.
