The first comics I remember getting were the old Big Boy comics at the Bob's Big Boy Restaurant in Lanham, MD, in the mid-70s.  A few years later, in 1977 at the age of 8, I received one of those 3-packs of Marvel Comics, which included Avengers 164 (JB art!) and Amazing Spider-Man 174 (the Punisher and the Hitman).  Both were part 1 of mult-part storylines that I didn't get to finish for at least 10 years!

As I got older, I bought comics wherever I could, but mostly at the People's Drug Store in Clinton, MD.  Later, when I could drive, I got my comics at Beetle Comics in Camp Springs, MD, until they moved to Waldorf and I got married and moved too far away to still stop there regularly.  Now I get my books through Westfield.

Can't remember the first comic I ever got.  But, by the age of 7 or 8, I was following a couple of books fairly regularly, thanks mostly to a couple of 7-Elevens...one on our route home from my grandmother's (before hitting the highway for three hours, we'd stop and get some snacks/drinks and a comic for me) and one next to the bowling alley where my elementary school league bowled.

But, I do remember the comic that made me really sit up and take notice and actively seek out the series from then on, as well as pay attention to the credits and start branching out into other titles and seeking them out regularly.

That was The New Teen Titans v1 #1 purchased at the Bookie Parlor in Dayton, Ohio in the summer of 1980.  A friend and I had seen the DC Comics Presents preview at a King Kwik convenience store, and, when we went to the comic store the next day, saw #1 there on the shelf.  (Having just glanced through the preview, we didn't realize it was its own story and not excerpts from #1...took me eight years to finally get that DCCP issue.)

Murray's Candystore on Jamaica Ave, in Woodhaven, Queens, NY. It was around 1987, so I was about 10. The first comic was some issue of Daredevil, that I can't remember a thing about.

 It wasn't until about 1989, that I discovered Batman comics. The first Batman comics I actually read were reprints of the 1940's(I think.) stuff that was reprinted as a special in the Daily News. You can imagine my suprise when I bought my first Batman comic the next day off the spinner rack, and discovered how different they were. I was actually confused! I wasn't aware that the Daily News special was a reprint, until later on. I bought all my comics at that candy store up until some friends turned me on to one of the comic shops in our area.

First comic I remember buying, from a spinner rack at Walgreens in Northtown Shopping Center in Blaine, MN circa 1977:

I had been reading comics from a few years earlier, the habit starting 'round about 1975 with Batman, Superman, JLA and some Spider-Man books.  But the comic above made me a life-long Spider-Man fan.  The cover alone has all the elements of what makes him so great.

I never had to buy comics as a kid, because my older brother would buy them and then hand them off  to me.  However, occasionally, he'd lose interest in a title, and I'd have to pony up the dough. 

This was the first comic I ever paid for with my own money...bought at Fischer's Bookstore in Riverdale, GA circa 1984.

[Matt Reed posted the cover to AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #178]

Shortly after the debut of the Hobgoblin in 1983, I started collecting as many of the back issues that included the Green Goblin as I could.  I bought #176-180 all in one fell swoop through a mail order catalog (Mile High perhaps).  Those were, and still are some of my favorite Spider-Man stories ever.