Oh, come on!!!!

[Peter Bosch]

Comic books covers are meant to attract a buyer's attention.  And sometimes publishers will go to extreme lengths to get you interested.  BUT...

 

...there are times when you see a comic cover and you go, "OH, COME ON!!!"

 Bat-baby!!!  (And it's "The Story of the Year!?")

 

A totem pole! 

 

Yeah, Zebras are really frightening!!!!!

 

Regarding the below Tomahawk...look, I can accept an alien...but an alien with two Indian feathers on his head? 

 

 An invasion of  leaping sphinxes?

 A villain made of newspaper?

The Frankenstein monster vs. Tomahawk? 

OH, COME ON!!!!!!!

Any covers you feel that way about?

[Jimmm Kelly]

Maybe my universal translator isn't working, but I don't get an Oh come on!!! feeling from any of the covers thusfar shown. 

Maybe a Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now! feeling--but not an Oh come on!!! feeling.

That's not to say someone couldn't have that feeling. If you were a kid when these came out and you looked at them and you thought Oh come on!!! then fair dues.

When I was a kid, I didn't see any of these covers, so they're from the past--and there isn't much from the past that makes me go Oh come on!!! It's stuff that's happening or had happened in my present experience that gets or got that reaction from me.

Back in 1962, I wasn't even in school then and didn't know how to read and just looked at pictures in comics, but I liked Harvey comics and Little Archie and that kind of thing. So I would have loved the Batboy cover.

The kind of thng that got an Oh come on!!! reaction from my siblings was when they got it wrong. If you bought a Dell comic or later a Gold Key comic and they got the character wrong from the TV show or the movie, then that would have been something they would have just gone Tsk tsk, that's not right!

I didn't get into superhero comics until 1966, thanks to the BATMAN TV show--and if that TV show didn't make my seven year old brain go Oh come on!!! (which it didn't) then I don't think any of DC's covers could have provoked that response.

What might have gotten that reaction from me were the comics that were just too nasty and violent and disgusting. Also I hated overly sexy comics. None of this stuff was for me, so why was it being foist upon me in a comic that was supposed to be for kids?

Sort of like that famous P'Gell splash page, where she says This is not a story for little boys!! While I really love that splash page, from an objective stand-point it's non-sensical. The Spirit section was carried in numerous newpapers and was precisely meant to be read by little boys. So it's a contradictory message--here's a comic for you kids, but you shouldn't read it.

So I was put off by a lot of the early '70s covers that showed scenes that were just too mature or just too weird. Come on Marvel and DC, meet me halfway here--give me a comic that isn't going to cause me horrible embarassment at the cash register--if you're really serious about getting me to buy this comic.

I remember being particularly bugged by Marvel's Morbius. Really, why put such a freaky character on the cover--you have to know I can't buy this thing--I'm only thirteen years old for gosh sakes. And also all those comics that somehow fit h-e-l-l into the name of a person, place or thing--they weren't fooling anybody. Hellgrammite, really? We don't use that word in my house--do you really want to get me in trouble with my parents? Smarten up.

[Kirk G]

I agree, Morbius bothered me...plus, the whole turn toward horror/scary/monster mags in the early 70s made me walk away from comics. I simply didn't care about Damian Hellspawn, Son of Satan or Werewolf by Night....

 

As for Dr. Who being available in the US in the late 60s, yes, it WAS available, but as I recall, it was typically marketed to small, low power TV stations that couldn't aford any better, more appealing programming.  An example was Ch. 62 in Detroit, where the station was on a limited number of hours during the day, and as a result, I heard the whosh and theme song through static only 90 miles NW of Detroit...but never "watched" it.  It was just  too far and on a minority controlled station.

In the 1970s, it became a filler on PBS TV stations...  THAT reached a lot more people.

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...I think the British WHO series was not shown on any U.S. TV station til'...'71 ?...when some Third Doctor episodes were edited into commercial-TV form and syndicated to a certain extent .

  ( However , that leaves out the two Dalek features and spillover to the Northern states of Canadian TV stations showing the show . )

  I recall at one Wondercon seeing what I guess was Scott Shaw!'s wacky covers show showing how many post-Code Schiff-era Batman covers showed Robin's head in the foreground saying " Oh , no ! Batman's become a ______ ! " while the Caped Dingbat demonstrated just that in the background !

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

..." Minority "-controlled as in " non-Caucasian " ?

  And , what were Ch. 62's call letters ?

Kirk G said:

I agree, Morbius bothered me...plus, the whole turn toward horror/scary/monster mags in the early 70s made me walk away from comics. I simply didn't care about Damian Hellspawn, Son of Satan or Werewolf by Night....

 

As for Dr. Who being available in the US in the late 60s, yes, it WAS available, but as I recall, it was typically marketed to small, low power TV stations that couldn't aford any better, more appealing programming.  An example was Ch. 62 in Detroit, where the station was on a limited number of hours during the day, and as a result, I heard the whosh and theme song through static only 90 miles NW of Detroit...but never "watched" it.  It was just  too far and on a minority controlled station.

In the 1970s, it became a filler on PBS TV stations...  THAT reached a lot more people.

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

I recall reading that some Patrick Troughton episodes of Doctor Who aired in a few places in the States in the late 60s, so I'm sure Kirk is correct. I am quite certain that I saw Cybermen somewhere well before I started watching Doctor Who regularly in the early 80s, and they appeared only very briefly in one Pertwee episode and in one Baker story.

[The Baron]

Eventually, every thread on this board will mention Grant Morrison and/or  Doctor Who.

[Captain Comics]

You just mentioned both. I'll have to cut and paste that onto all the others.

[Captain Comics]

Incidentally, there are plenty of scenarios that have had me throw a comic book across the room and yell "OH, COME ON!" I find it hard to believe that my fellow comics fans haven't had similar feelings.

Come on, guys! I know you've got some!

[Randy Jackson]

Sure, Nightwing allowing Tarantula to have sex with him after she murdered Blockbuster in front of him. I literally threw the book across the room and dropped the title then and there.

Absurdities I can deal with. Out and out mis-characterization? Nope.

Oh, and any comic where the Punisher works with a superhero.

I'm sure there are plenty of others, but those are the ones that come to mind currently.

Captain Comics said:

Incidentally, there are plenty of scenarios that have had me throw a comic book across the room and yell "OH, COME ON!" I find it hard to believe that my fellow comics fans haven't had similar feelings.

 

Come on, guys! I know you've got some!

[Jimmm Kelly]

I've been tempted to throw a few comic books, but I don't think I've ever done that on purpose because I wouldn't want to wreck a comic book--even one I didn't like.

If a cover makes me go Oh come on!!! then I don't normally buy the comic.

The last time I felt like throwing my comic book across the room was when I read ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN No. 1. I was mad at myself as much as anyone for having wasted my money on such garbage and was half-tempted to go to the LCS and demand my money back. But I should have known what I was going to get, given the creative team, so it was my own stupidity to blame.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Randy Jackson said:

Sure, Nightwing allowing Tarantula to have sex with him after she murdered Blockbuster in front of him. I literally threw the book across the room and dropped the title then and there.

Absurdities I can deal with. Out and out mis-characterization? Nope.

 

"Allowing"? The scene plays like he's dazed and not in full control of his faculties -- i.e., she took advantage of someone not in his right mind.

Still wrong and still bad writing, however.

[David Warren]

Which came first; Jack Knight Starman/Mist or Nightwing/Tarantula?