I wanna say I 'discovered' PLOP! when I was in the 4th or 5th grade...around the same time I saw my first issue of Swamp Thing.
I was over my friend's house and we were snooping through his older brother's stuff, when we came upon his stash of Playboys and comics. While my friend was all excited about the Playboys, it was the collection of comics that excited me. You see, I had already discovered my Dad's collection of Playboys months ago, and looked through them like a deranged maniac-so, I wasn't as excited as my friend. My attention was focused on the giant stack of Horror/Sci-Fi comics in front of me. I was a 'Monster-Kid' and not into super heroes like my friends were, so I never really bought comics. But that all changed when I saw issue no.1 of Plop! It was the right amount of creepy weirdness and at the same time, very familiar. At that time I wasn't really aware of adits' names when it came to artwork etc. BUT, being an avid reader of MAD magazine, I DID recognize the styles of artwork that appeared within its pages.
Sergio Aragones, Basil Wolverton, Wally Wood and Bernie Wrightson would soon become heroes to me, and as I grew older, I would start to collect the comics they created.
It would take awhile, since we didn't have a comic book store in my hometown. My mania wouldn't begin until I went to college in 1984 to the City of Brotherly Love: Philadelphia, and discovered Fat Jack's Comicrypt! It would be here, that I would buy 'back issues' of all the comics I missed out on when I was a kid. I bought up old issues of Plop!, Swampthing, House of Mystery, House of Secrets. I was able to collect 22 issues of the original 24 issues of Plop! (Someday I'll get the 2 issues that I am missing, so I can have a complete set). I reread these silly comics every few years and still get a kick out of them...I still feel like a 11-13 year old idiot.
Here's Issue #1 PLOP!-enjoy
