Looking back at my childhood, and the many pluses of adolescence, the comic book had to be right up there as a top priority and friend. I remember being banished to my room for doing something my parents thought of as being bad, and there before me was a huge stack of comic books that my brother and I collected, traded and read constantly. The punishment of being banned to my room turned out as an enjoyable retreat as I thumbed through and read and ogled the pictures of my favorite heroes — western or super — along with cartoon characters and maybe scary tales of the crypt or even Archie. What a prison term! The comic book in its golden years, which for me was probably between 1948 and 1955, was a refuge from the everyday grind of school and chores and family trips. On those trips, a new stack of comics seemed always to accompany us during those journeys in our car.