I must have told this story a bunch of times, but my first experience was either '95 or '96 on trick-or-treat night. One nice man was passing out comics instead of candy. He gave me a Jughead issue and the first Archie Comics story I've ever read was called "Pinch Hit Date" where Jughead takes Betty on a date when Archie can't go. I believe the cover depicted Jughead on a swinging ship ride or something.

I never started collecting Archie though until a few years later (where we lived, it was hard to find comics, and I never knew of the Beechcroft Newsstand, a local newsstand in that area, until around 2000). The first one I remember buying was a Pals 'n Gals Double Digest from a Meijer store in Hilliard. This had to have been about late 1998 or so. I bought it mainly because I recognized Jughead. Jughead and Betty are still my favorite characters to this day. From then on I collected the digests and double digests for about 3 years, until we moved to an area where I couldn't get them (with us being poor at the time, I couldn't afford subscriptions either). In the process of moving, I lost at least 95% of the books.

I put the thought of collecting them out of my mind during that time, and started HEAVILY collecting all sorts of anime and manga. I even foolishly passed up buying my friend's old digests at his comic book store for 50 cents a pop (when asked about it recently, he told me he still has those digests but he can't find them because there's a ton of comics in his house).  Fast forward about 7 or 8 years. 2 years ago, I found out that the same Meijer store was still selling the double digests. That led to me collecting them again. Now I'm at about 100 digests out of like 2,200.  It would be about 200 if not for losing most of my old ones.