OK, this one produced a wave of nostalgia for me.

I used to get my allowance on Friday night - one buck a week. That was enough to get me into the movie theatre on Friday (50 cents), popcorn (15 cents) and a Coke (10 cents). All setting the stage for my Saturday morning trip to Central Bakery in beautiful downtown (!) Gimli, Manitoba.

I'd open the doors of the bake shop, which was also a convenience store, and be met by the warmth and the rich, mixed aroma of a working bakery/small town grocery store. To this day, when I stumble into a small-town grocery and get a whiff that reminds me of that mixture, I am transported back to those Saturday mornings.

Comic books were a dime for a while, but I well remember the quantum leap to a scandalous 12 cents, which meant that in order to get two comic books from the rack, I would have to forego my customary ju jubes, or search the ditches on the way to the store for the two empty pop bottles (2 cents deposit) that would make up the difference.

I would always buy one funny comic - Archie and Friends, perhaps, or on occasion Richie Rich. But my second purchase was always a DC superhero - Superman or Superboy (or even - shhh - Supergirl); Batman, of course; Green Lantern; Aquaman ... really, any member of the Justice League of America except Wonder Woman, who I could admire for her beauty but couldn't relate to as a hero.

For a while, I got pulled in by "Turok, Son of Stone", a comic about two Indians who had somehow gotten transported back to the Stone Age. And evey now and again, I would buy one of the Classic Comics series - "The Prisoner of Zenda" or "The Man in the Iron Mask" were two I remember.

I eschewed the Marvel superheroes, considering them newcomers who were less noble than my beloved DC idols. I now see that the Marvel superheroes were all designed with mortal flaws, making their characters innately more interesting - but back then, they were new and different and threatening in some way I could never articulate, much the way the Rolling Stones insinuated on my Beatles-worshipping world.

But I do remember - as clearly as if it were yesterday - the day I spun the rack around and came face to face with a brand new hero ... Daredevil. Since I had spent a part of my youth having repeated eye surgeries, each of which left me temporarily blinded, I was intrigued. I picked it up and Daredevil became my favourite hero, just like that.

Yes, it was Volume One, Issue One, and this story might be much better if I said I have it in pristine condiction, wrapped in plastic and framed. I don't. It's in a landfill somewhere, or by now I suppose it's dust in the wind. But I had it in my hands on the way home that day.

Thanks for tweaking my memory about it.

Sounds like Nils and I had similar comicbook experiences. I had a Turok!

Lately, I've been buying my nephew the Marvel Ages Spideyman series ~ 'Ages' apparently geared to kiddies.

I have my 1975 comics in plastic bags and at that time I bought a few old ones so I do have Daredevil #10. I also have most of the "Howard the Duck" comics that came out in the period. I sold off a couple of good early X-men in the earuly 80s to pay for the record collection. As you can tell I was a Marvel lad, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were the best. Favorite all time series was Fantastic Four.

I remember haunting drug stores, convenience stores, even book stores and newsagents -- waiting for the latest issues of my favourite heroes. Those days are long gone now; you'd better live in a city with a comics specialty shop if you want to buy comics today.

Comics sold millions of copies to lonely servicemen during World War II. As recently as the '90s they sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Now Marvel -- once the industry leader -- claims success if its books sell 50,000 copies apiece. They used to cancel books that sold that low. And for the independent (read: non-superhero, for the most part) comics, it's even worse; a good-selling comic is 3,000 copies.

Check out my exploration of this at http://www.screed.ca/nemo/000005.html -- some truly shocking data there.