A question for comic experts

[grx1]

I must confess that I'm sure unlike most of you, I got into comics after collecting SHS. I knew the main characters and liked the figures and as the series progressed and the characters became more obscure (to me), I thought I had better get to know these ones a little better.
My plan was to start back in the 60s with the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and work my way up through the silver age and beyond.
To my questions:
1) How do I know which order to read these books keeping in mind story continuity? I was just going to read comics from each month but which to read first? For example, Sep-1978 has around 25 comics. Is there a way of knowing which order to read them in. Obviously some will be stand alone stories and it won't matter. But others will be part of a tie-in or crossover (especially in more recent years).
2) On the same sort of line as number 1, annuals are sometimes numbered with only the year so I don't know which month they were released and therefore don't know where they fit in to the chronology. Is there any way to work this out? Again some are stand alone but others do contain parts of bigger stories.
Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated.

[darthtom]

Don't start back in the 1960's. You'll die before you catch up.

I'd tell you just too look at Wikipedia. Search up a particular series, and there should be sections of the article devoted to significant story arcs. You can pick out the ones you are interested in, then buy those issues.

[the7thcynic]

Well, pre80s - u may not really have into a continuity problem. Not to many HUGE crossovers then. But once you run into what seems to be a crossover story arc, Id suggest search online for it and youll prolly find the correct order to read it in. Or the comic youre on may hint @ the next part by sayin "continued in...". Trust me, even for those of us who were collectin @ the time, it was sometimes complicated.

Good luck!

[shsmarvelfan]

what i do when i read my comics i first read the comics (with the same title) in chronologic order than i read other comics when i see something like a crossover i just look back at that comic it doesnt realy mind if u dont read every comic in chronologic order. for example i read the infinity crusade serie than i read peter parker the amazing spiderman and read about the infinity crusade i just look back so i know what is going on. but most MARVEL fans just read all the comics from marvel and know what is happening.

[JP]

I didn't get that...a little more punctuation would have helped.

[floridaboy68]

JP: He's from Holland.

grx1: I was going to suggest wikipedia too. I recently started reading comics again after about 15 years, and found the link very helpful...and cheap!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Marvel_Comics_storylines

[floridaboy68]

Hmmm...the direct link isn't working here for some reason.

But if you copy and paste it to the search bar, it works fine.

[grx1]

Thank you for the suggestions. Yes I agree that reading all Marvel from the 60s onwards will probably kill me before I catch up but I'd love to give it a go. Thanks for the Wiki site floridaboy68. That will be a big help.

[phoenixquinn1]

The Essentials and Masterworks are a good place to start! They re print all of the original comics!