When were you introduced to

[trappedslider]

So, what year were you introduced to the big following things:

D&D
Star Wars
Earth sea
H.Potter
Magic The Gathering
Marvel/ D.C

Other big-name geek stuff that I may have left out.

For me my introduction to D&D would have had to be in 2003 or 2002 during high school, Star wars would be in the mid-90s when the special editions came out. I had no clue what earth sea was until Sci-fi did a horrible job, Potter I got into it due to a cousin gifting me the first book. Magic would have to be also during High school so 2003. Marvel/D.C the 90s when the cartoons were happening. Stargate happened when the movie came out.

 

[payn]

D&D:
I was aware of it long before I actually got o play it. I saw a lot of fantasy movies in the 80s and always wanted to play. Though, I did play a good deal of HeroQuest at the time. It wouldnt be until into the aughts and beyond that I would actually play D&D with any regularity.

Star Wars:
Saw these as a kid in the 80's like most kids at the time I suppose. Was inescapable at the time. I had a large R2D2 toy box that was awesome! Was excited for the prequels as a recent high school grad, until I saw them. The J.J. reboots are not as bad, but also not memorable, IMO.

Earth Sea, H.Potter, Magic the Gathering:
I know these things exist but I'm not familiar with any of them. I collected a lot of sports cards as a kid, but as a young man I felt like I was maybe just a little too old to get int0 the card games like Magic, Pokemon, etc..

Marvel/D.C.:
I collected comics a bit as a kid. I liked the real obscure stuff like ROM and purple snit. Though, I did go through an Xmen, Ghostrider, and Punisher phase. The movies are ok, but im not terribly excited about them.

 

[Ryujin]

So, what year were you introduced to the big following things:

D&D
Star Wars
Earth sea
H.Potter
Magic The Gathering
Marvel/ D.C

Other big-name geek stuff that I may have left out.

For me my introduction to D&D would have had to be in 2003 or 2002 during high school, Star wars would be in the mid-90s when the special editions came out. I had no clue what earth sea was until Sci-fi did a horrible job, Potter I got into it due to a cousin gifting me the first book. Magic would have to be also during High school so 2003. Marvel/D.C the 90s when the cartoons were happening. Stargate happened when the movie came out.

D&D - 1977
Star Wars - 1977
Earth sea - 1972
H.Potter - 2001
Magic The Gathering - 1996
Marvel/ D.C - 1966

Eff it, I'm old.

Edited to add...

Star Trek - 1966
Battlestar Galactica - Definitely 1978, though I have memories of it being released as a movie in theatres before the TV series was released.

Then we can get into all of the Irwin Allen stuff like "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", "Land of the Giants", "The Time Tunnel", "Lost in Space"... That I all saw either when they were released, or just a few years later in early rerun.

 

[Scribe]

D&D would have been 80's.
40K, 90s.
Magic, 94-ish?
Harry Potter, was mostly my sisters thing. I was aware of it, but not interested till my kid wanted to watch them.
Star Wars, 80s we used to watch them every Easter holiday.
Marvel/DC, I had a comic phase in the 80s, my brother kept up with it.

Clearly my nostalgia kicks into the dark age of comics, and various other media at that time period between mid 80s to mid 90s.

 

[Jer]

D&D - It would have been 1981 I think. Maybe '82. A snowy recess when we were stuck indoors and one kid pulled out a basic rulebook and offered to run a game for us. I think we stole the dice out of the Risk boardgame that was in the classroom and he basically made a bunch of stuff up but I was hooked after that.

Star Wars - 1980 is when I have my first recollection of the franchise. The kids next door had divorced parents and so owned far more of the toys than anyone I've ever known. (My parents tell me that we saw Star Wars in a drive-in. But given that I would have been about 4 at the time I don't really have a memory of it )

Earthsea - Read the books in middle school, so it was probably 86 or 87? They made a bit of an impact but I didn't really appreciate them until I reread them for a college "Fantasy Literature" course much later. (The Lathe of Heaven, on the other hand, made a huge impact on my impressionable Middle Schooler mind...)

Potter - Sometime around 1999 people were asking if I'd heard of this Harry Potter franchise so I read the books. I think there were 2 of them at that point. I thought they were fine, and my wife liked it more than I did, so we kept up with the series as it came out.

Magic the Gathering - It was 1993. The comic book / game store owner at the college I attended was very excited about this new "Magic the Gathering" game that Wizards of the Coast was publishing. My entire dorm was insane about the game by the end of that semester. Folks were dropping hundreds of dollars on boxes of boosters. Too rich for my blood - I bought a few decks and some boosters and was mostly competitive except against the guys who had dropped the big bucks on the game.

Marvel/DC - I literally can't remember a time when I wasn't aware of these characters. Superfriends was on perpetual rotation on Saturday morning, Spider-man and his Amazing Friends was there too, and Adam West's Batman was always on in the afternoons. I can't even remember when I started reading comics - it feels like they were always there. My mom loved comics like Little Lulu and various Romance comics when she was a kid, and my uncle loved superheroes, so she actively encouraged us to read them. She would just pick up stacks of comics at garage sales cheap for us to read.

 

[Ryujin]

In 1966 this is what passed for comic book TV. This, Thor, The Hulk, Iron Man... They all had the same (barely) animated style. I think they ran on the ABC network.

 

[Umbran]

D&D

Late 1982. But it wasn't my first RPG.

Star Wars

Standing in line for Episode IV when it first came out in 1977.

Earth sea

Not sure - sometime in the early 80s, I think. While an excellent work, I don't consider it "big" in the way Star Wars or Trek are.

H.Potter

Several books were out before I read any of them, but I don't recall exactly when.

Magic The Gathering

1993. My first cards were Beta.

Marvel/ D.C

I got into comic books back in the early 80s. I probably watched some of the animated series stuff in the 70s. Saturday morning cartoons, and all that.

Other big-name geek stuff that I may have left out.

Star Trek - watching reruns in the late 70s, I think.
Doctor Who - watching reruns on PBS in the late 70s to early 80s.

 

[Irlo]

D&D 1980
Star Wars 1977
Earth sea 1992ish
H.Potter 2003ish
Magic The Gathering late 90s briefly, again in 2012
Marvel/ D.C 1973

 

[Riley]

So, what year were you introduced to the big following things:

D&D
Star Wars
Earth sea
H.Potter
Magic The Gathering
Marvel/ D.C

Other big-name geek stuff that I may have left out.

For me my introduction to D&D would have had to be in 2003 or 2002 during high school, Star wars would be in the mid-90s when the special editions came out. I had no clue what earth sea was until Sci-fi did a horrible job, Potter I got into it due to a cousin gifting me the first book. Magic would have to be also during High school so 2003. Marvel/D.C the 90s when the cartoons were happening. Stargate happened when the movie came out.

D.C- <1974 (Superman costume and lunchbox in 1974. Adored 1973-4 S1 Super Friends. )
Marvel- <1976 (Spider-Man replaced Superman as my hero of choice. 1967 tv series & on 'The Electric Company' 1974-77)
Star Wars- June 1977
D&D- June 1981 (Boy Scout camp)
Earthsea- 1982-ish (1977 trilogy box set)
Magic The Gathering- spring 1994 (revised editon)
H. Potter- July 2000 (release hype for book 4)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that answering it would date myself.

And I was always told that dating myself would lead to blindness.

 

[Mad_Jack]

As I was born in 1972, my parents practiced the sort of free-range parenting that was popular back then, and, being what you might charitably call "precocious", I was exposed to a lot of things at a somewhat younger age than those things might have been meant for, heh...


D&D and Star Wars, about when I was 8, or so... 1980 (?)

D&D - one of my little brother's friends came over to our house to hang out, and the friend's older brother had his driver's license so got stuck having to drive him over and stay the whole time. Older brother brought his blue box Basic set with him and ran a game for us. I got my own copy of the magenta box when I was 10.
Star Wars - I know I saw the original film before seeing Empire, but apparently the first one wasn't released until '84 on vhs and Empire came out in '80.
Since I also know that I saw both of them at the local drive in, either A) My parents went to see it when I was 5, which seems unlikely, B) the local was showing A New Hope at some point long after it's original release, or C) I saw them as a double-feature when Empire was released. I remember having some of the original Star Wars toys, but I'm not sure when I first picked them up.

It was also around the same age, 8 or 9, that I began reading comic books - I used to have whole shoe boxes full of X-Men comics from as far back as the late '70's, and a handful of older stuff (mostly war comics) going back to the '60's.

Star Trek - I was aware of the original series but had only seen a couple of episodes of that and the animated series and probably read a comic book or two when I finally got around to seeing the first film on HBO or VHS sometime in the very early '80's.

Battlestar Galactica - I had a bunch of the comic books and toys, and saw a number of the original series episodes in reruns in the early '80's.

Dr. Who - I was vaguely aware of its existence in the '80's - I saw maybe three or four episodes in reruns, but never got into it.

CAR WARS - I was introduced to the game by a guy I met in college in '90.

M:tG - I started with the Revised set not long after it came out - the previously-mentioned college friend and I had been introduced to it during our short-lived participation in the local SCA.

I got involved in Rocky Horror back in '97, although I'd first seen it in '91.

D&D video games - my first PC D&D game was Baldur's Gate in 1998.

Elder Scrolls - the first game I played was Morrowind in 2002...

Never read Earth Sea, but I did read the first two Potter books on plane flights, coming and going from a Rocky Horror Picture Show convention in 2003.

 

[cranberry]

AD&D: 1979
Star Wars: 1977
Earth sea: n/a for me
H.Potter: 2002, but never read any of the books, or took an interest in it.
Magic The Gathering: n/a for me. But I was introduced to Yu-Gi_Oh in the early 2000's by my son.
Marvel/ D.C: Early 70's.

 

[overgeeked]

D&D. Somewhere between 1977-1979. Though I didn’t play until 1984.

Star Wars. 1977.

Earth Sea. Never read it.

Harry Potter. 1998 or 1999.

Magic: The Gathering. 1993-1994. I was already playing when Arabian Nights launched.

Marvel/DC. 1976.

Doctor Who. Sometime between 1984-1986. I watched episodes on the local public broadcasting station. I didn’t really get into it until the 2005 relaunch.

 

[the Jester]

So, what year were you introduced to the big following things:

D&D
Star Wars
Earth sea
H.Potter
Magic The Gathering
Marvel/ D.C

D&D: 1980.
Star Wars: 1978.
Earthsea: Sometime in the 80s.
Harry Potter: Must have been about 2002.
MtG: 1994.
Marvel/DC: Approx. 1975-6.

I am old.

 

[JAMUMU]

A to the D to the A to the D: 1983? 1984?
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, so 1981 by the time I saw it
Earthsea: 1990 or thereabouts
Harry Potter: 1997 working in a bookshop and I hated it the minute I saw it
MtG: Eh....early 90s? Was on holiday in the USA and brought back a big box of them a guy in a comic shop gave me for free cos I liked Cerebus the Aardvark.
Marvel/DC: 1979? 80? Thenaboots.

 

[deganawida]

D&D: Awareness was probably 1983, as I think the cartoon was out, there were action figures, and some of the older kids at Seminary Village in Louisville, KY played it. I mostly was interested in the cartoon and figures, though my parents forbade me both. First time playing was an ad hoc BECMI game on a long trip back from Centrifuge camp. Still wasn’t allowed to play, so did TMNT instead publicly, and snuck in AD&D 2nd edition on the side when I could.

Star Wars: Probably around the time trailers were being shown of The Empire Strikes Back. I recall ESB being my first theater movie; I yelled out, “What in the world was that?” when the giant worm appeared.

Earthsea: I was aware of it in junior high (88-91), but never read it. I did read the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander in ‘87, though.

Harry Potter: Late 90s, was dating my wife at the time.

MtG: Played one game in the mid-99s, hated it, and never touched again except to ogle the artwork.

Marvel: Old Spider-Man cartoons, Electric Company, and MEGO dolls. Didn’t read the comics until junior high, and stopped at Onslaught.

DC: Also young. Saw Adam West a lot. Friend got a Man-Bat comic and record for like his 6th birthday. I had some cheap B&W mega comics starring Batman and Robin that I think I was supposed to color, but never did. First actual comic book was a Batman or Detective Comics issue pre-CoiE where Bruce lets some thug think he killed Batman, and Alfred and his niece Julia mourn a tree (1985?). Got bigger into DC after Marvel, before dropping superhero comics for more indie stuff

Both superhero universes were dear to me as a kid, as I had lots of Underroos made like superheroes. My favorites were Batman, Robin, and Captain Marvel.

 

[MarkB]

So, what year were you introduced to the big following things:

D&D

Originally, in secondary school, which would have been early 80s. But I only stuck with it for a few years. Later, I played the Baldur's Gate games, became an avid member of discussion groups and forums, and when Bioware started developing Neverwinter Nights and had a forum dedicated to discussing how the 3e rules would be implemented, I was eager to join in. So eager that I purchased the 3e core rulebooks purely for that purpose. It was only several months later that it occurred to me "hey, I've got the books, I might as well try getting into playing the actual game." That would've been around 2001-ish, and I joined a local RPG club and just kept on playing.

Star Wars

Right at the start. I have very hazy memories of queuing to see it at our local cinema, and firmer memories of the VHS recording we made of it when it played on ITV at Christmas. My brother and I re-watched it so many times that we could recite the dialogue by heart, and that version is so seared into my subconscious that even now I find myself expecting it to cut to ads at specific moments.

Earth sea

No idea, I know I read the novel at some point and I watched the Ghibli movie when I was going through my Ghibli phase, but it's never stuck with me as a story or setting.

H.Potter

About the time it started to blow up in public perception. Goblet of Fire was the first novel I bought new on release.

Magic The Gathering

Never clicked with me. I've played a round or two with friends, but it didn't spark any real interest.

Marvel/ D.C

Comics-wise, I was aware of it from school age and would read occasional graphic novels. Went through a phase of getting into Batman around the time the BBC Radio version of Knightfall was on the air - 1994, according to Wikipedia. I read Spider-man for a long time, got really into it, then the Clone saga and the massive reset-button mashing that capped it killed my interest.

Watched Batman the Animated series and all its spin-offs, particularly enjoyed Batman Beyond. Watched and enjoyed the first two seasons of Young Justice.

Was into the Warner DC TV series, but never stuck with one beyond about the third season when the angst would inevitably rise to drown out any measure of joy.

Movie-wise, saw the 1989 Batman movie at the cinema, still pretty much my favourite version of Batman. Saw the first three X-Men movies at the cinema, my interest waned after that and I caught most of the rest on TV or streaming as they cropped up.

Saw pretty much all of the MCU at the cinema, up until Endgame.


The big one you didn't mention is Star Trek. That, I got into watching re-runs of TOS in the 70s and early 80s. Definitely saw all the movies and most of the series as they became available - TNG was a fixture on BBC2. I have strong memories of the triple-bill of Star Trek I, II and III that our cinema put on when the third movie came out. I think the projectionist fell asleep during the first movie, as there were about ten minutes during the V'Ger surface flyby where the image had got out of sync and was showing the top half of the image below the bottom half.

DS9 is still my favourite series, and the only ones I haven't seen all the way through are Voyager and Enterprise. I dropped Voyager after season 2, but have revisited later seasons a few years ago and caught the majority of the show. With Enterprise, I lost interest during the Xindi arc, and have only seen a smattering of the last two seasons.

 

[Ryujin]

DS9 is still my favourite series, and the only ones I haven't seen all the way through are Voyager and Enterprise. I dropped Voyager after season 2, but have revisited later seasons a few years ago and caught the majority of the show. With Enterprise, I lost interest during the Xindi arc, and have only seen a smattering of the last two seasons.

"Enterprise" was the Star Trek show that finally convinced me that I really don't have to watch all of something, if I'm not enjoying it, regardless of what the wrapper says. After I had forced myself to make it all the way through it, that is. Towards the end they finally started doing what they should have from the beginning, but only when they already knew that they were cancelled.

"Voyager", on the other hand, became better on later watches. At least the later seasons did. I finally got past my "Borgwatch" preconceptions and realized they were showing interesting viewpoints when doing Seven of Nine stories.

 

[MarkB]

"Voyager", on the other hand, became better on later watches. At least the later seasons did. I finally got past my "Borgwatch" preconceptions and realized they were showing interesting viewpoints when doing Seven of Nine stories.

It did improve, but still had the issue that there were only two characters I liked or cared about - Seven and the Doctor. Janeway got better, but nobody else really crossed that threshold.

I am really enjoying Kate Mulgrew's reprise of Janeway in Prodigy, though.

 

[bloodtide]

D&D- Way back in the 80's a read lot of Chose Your Own Adventure Books. But I ran out of Official books fast, but luckily there was plenty of Third Party Chose Books. And one such company was TSR, making D&D Chose Your Own Adventure Books. I read those books too.....and way on the back page was an add: "If you liked this book, you should try this game AD&D". So I did, buying that Red Basic box at Waldenbooks.....

Star Wars- I was a younling for seeing in the theater Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, though I was "there" with my parents. So my first movie was Return of the Jedi. And I got all the Toys, even lots of the Sears Exclusive ones.

Earth sea- We have not been introduced

H.Potter- My daughter came over one day obssesed with a new book: Harry and the Stone. And quickly we were brewing potions and playing quiditch and on and on.

Magic The Gathering- One day I was told this weird "card company" bought TSR....and have not cared about 'magic' ever, but guess it's like playing War with cards.

Marvel- I was a G.I. Joe kid. The grocery store Pick and Pay sold G.I. Joe comics with an action figure pack, so I bought them. The store gave me ten cents for each store receipt I turned in, er, for the citys schools or something, I don't remember. So when my mom went grocery shopping I'd get $5 from her to buy five things from our cart..and get five receipts....six plus the one my mom got for the cart full. Plus I'd get a seventh receipt for buying my mom her cigarettes.....as back in the '80's a kid could just say "I'm buying these cigarettes for my mom"...and they would let you buy them. Not long after g.I. Joe, I got into Transformers and their comic: Buying the first four issues in a special pack at Zaryes(it was like K-Mart, but worse). I took a Mythology class in school, to go with Astronomy. Then one day, I saw an issue of The Avengers, where they were fighting the Olympian gods. I picked it up, and was hooked.

D.C- At some point in the 80's I saw these and ignored them, Make Mine Marvel.

Doctor Who - Searching for sci fi content to watch in the 80's wasteland....I heard a rumor about a "doctor who" show that was only shown on Public Television. For me it was channel 45/49 that was on the edge of the area....so I had to Macguyver an antenna out of wire hangers and tin foil to get it to come in clear. Though it was also shown late at night, 10pm, so I had to pop in a Beta Max tape and hit 'record' before I went to sleep. So starting with the Third Doctor I watched them all.

Star Trek- I saw the original series a bunch of times on UHF channel 67, often on Sunday nights they would play three or four in a row. And, somehow, my station got the ones unedited for syndication so they always over ran the hour time slot by several minutes. As a kid, it was an ok show. But I really got on board when Star Trek the Next Generation came out.