|
|
Post by jason on Mar 23, 2023 14:16:27 GMT -5
What are some jokes/gags in comics you never got until later in life? For example, in Mad's parody of the Exorcist, after the Regan character does her "you're gonna die up there" line, we see the reactions of the party guests, including a black woman who says "If she says, The Devil Made Me Do It, I'll sue!". Didnt understand that one until I discovered many years later (I first read the issue with that parody in the mid-80s) that the "woman" was Flip Wilson's Geraldine character (A show I still havent seen in full). For an example in a non-humor comic, there's an Avengers issue where all of them, including reserve Avengers and the West Coast branch are present. Hawkeye comments "Looks like everyone's here but Steed and Ms. Peel". Again, no knowledge of the Avengers tv show so the line rang hollow. And of course, there was plenty of Political jokes that I never understood as a kid, but we cant talk about that here.
|
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 23, 2023 15:22:46 GMT -5
In Howard the Duck #1, I had no idea why the wizard Pro Rata (who lived in a tower made of credit cards) had such an odd name, or why he was referred to as a "financial wizard". I also didn't get the joke when his tower collapsed so easily.
|
|
|
|
Post by MWGallaher on Mar 23, 2023 16:05:10 GMT -5
A footnote in DEFENDERS #4 referred the reader to some issue of "The Incredible Jade-Jaws". I scoured the Bullpen Bulletins to make sure there was no such title; I was fairly certain that was just a funny way of referencing "The Incredible Hulk" but I couldn't be quite positive about that.
As a young man in a community with zero exposure to Jewish people or Yiddish, I remember being very confused at some comic where a SHIELD agent (drawn by Herb Trimpe, so it might have been HULK or GODZILLA) called another character "boychik". My teen brain could only interpret that as "male female".
I'm not so dense though: I'm the only person I know of who picked up on the clever gag on the cover of KAMANDI #2...and I refuse to believe that Jack Kirby didn't intend it!
|
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Mar 23, 2023 21:41:14 GMT -5
Not so much comic books as Looney Tunes cartoons. There was a lot of stuff that went over my head, until I was older, though some of it was cultural stuff and catch phrases from radio.
There might have been literary allusions I missed, at the time, though 70s comics were pretty obvious with their references and a certain segment kind of wrote down to readers, so you tended to be more clever than the editor gave you credit. I might miss a title that was a play on something from a book or film.
I was guilty of occasionally mis-reading something and carrying that forward, for a while. Until recent years, I thought it was Ralph and Sue Dinby, not Dibny. Also, I mis-read and misinterpreted a couple of names, in Superboy & The Legion of Superheroes and thought the name was Chamelon Boy and thought it was a reference to King Arthur and Camelot. Even worse, I thought that character was Colossal Boy, since his outfit looked more like a knight's than Chameleon Boy. It took another couple of Legion comics to straighten me out; but, in my defense, I was kind of thrown head first into the book, in the middle of a two-part story. It really wasn't until I got the All-New Collector's Edition, with Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad's wedding that I finally had a key to who the heck everyone was, in the Legion.
I picked up on Yiddish pretty quickly, for some reason; probably seeing a lot of Jewish comedians on tv. I use a hell of a lot of Yiddish phrases, for a Gentile from a small farm town, in central Illinois. You don't get much more WASP than my family.
|
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Mar 23, 2023 22:26:36 GMT -5
In Howard the Duck #1, I had no idea why the wizard Pro Rata (who lived in a tower made of credit cards) was called that, or referred to as a "financial wizard". I also didn't get the joke when his tower collapsed so easily.
This is one of the first that comes to mind for me too. I remember trying to look up Pro Rata in a dictionary without any luck.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2023 6:43:19 GMT -5
I read a lot of the Asterix the Gaul books starting when I was in grade school, and a number of the character name word plays flew over my head early on (Dogmatix, Getafix, Vitalstatistix, Cacofonix, etc.).
|
|
|
|
Post by mikelmidnight on Mar 24, 2023 11:24:50 GMT -5
I was guilty of occasionally mis-reading something and carrying that forward, for a while. Until recent years, I thought it was Ralph and Sue Dinby, not Dibny. Also, I mis-read and misinterpreted a couple of names, in Superboy & The Legion of Superheroes and thought the name was Chamelon Boy and thought it was a reference to King Arthur and Camelot. Even worse, I thought that character was Colossal Boy, since his outfit looked more like a knight's than Chameleon Boy. It took another couple of Legion comics to straighten me out; but, in my defense, I was kind of thrown head first into the book, in the middle of a two-part story. It really wasn't until I got the All-New Collector's Edition, with Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad's wedding that I finally had a key to who the heck everyone was, in the Legion. For years I pronounced Sivana as 'Suh-VI-na' even though that's not how it's spelled. I still pronounce it that way in my head. And of course, Madame Rouge who doesn't even dress in red, I assumed was Madame Rogue. When I first read DKR, I misinterpreted some punctuation and thought the leader of the Mutants gang was Dick Grayson. |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Mar 24, 2023 11:45:11 GMT -5
I was guilty of occasionally mis-reading something and carrying that forward, for a while. Until recent years, I thought it was Ralph and Sue Dinby, not Dibny. Also, I mis-read and misinterpreted a couple of names, in Superboy & The Legion of Superheroes and thought the name was Chamelon Boy and thought it was a reference to King Arthur and Camelot. Even worse, I thought that character was Colossal Boy, since his outfit looked more like a knight's than Chameleon Boy. It took another couple of Legion comics to straighten me out; but, in my defense, I was kind of thrown head first into the book, in the middle of a two-part story. It really wasn't until I got the All-New Collector's Edition, with Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad's wedding that I finally had a key to who the heck everyone was, in the Legion. For years I pronounced Sivana as 'Suh-VI-na' even though that's not how it's spelled. I still pronounce it that way in my head. And of course, Madame Rouge who doesn't even dress in red, I assumed was Madame Rogue. When I first read DKR, I misinterpreted some punctuation and thought the leader of the Mutants gang was Dick Grayson. Along those lines, when the first Super Friends cartoon show was broadcast, in the GEEC episode, I thought Plastic Man was Superman in disguise, for some reason, despite them appearing together, in one shot (I think I missed seeing that part). I think it was because their basic face structure looked similar, apart from Plas' goggles. And the spit-curl...  I wasn't the only one confused. In the episode where the Flash appears, Alex Toth originally drew Jay Garrick, for a display in a museum, rather than Barry Allen. It had to be fixed down the line. |
|
|
|
Post by Cei-U! on Mar 24, 2023 14:15:48 GMT -5
When I first encountered Iron Man in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, I thought he was a robot who acted as bodyguard for a Richie Rich-type little boy named Tony Stark. Don't ask me how I jumped at this conclusion. Needless to say, it was quite a jolt when I read my first Iron Man story.
Cei-U!
I summon the errant interpretation!
|
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 24, 2023 14:20:00 GMT -5
One of the very first strip collections I bought with my own money was a paperback of Pogo strips. I honestly can't remember which one it was at this point, but it had a number of the Simple J. Malarkey strips. I had zero idea what was going on in about 1/3 of that book. I still loved it though.
|
|
|
|
Post by Cei-U! on Mar 24, 2023 15:40:44 GMT -5
One of the very first strip collections I bought with my own money was a paperback of Pogo strips. I honestly can't remember which one it was at this point, but it had a number of the Simple J. Malarkey strips. I had zero idea what was going on in about 1/3 of that book. I still loved it though. It had to have been I Go Pogo. I had the same problem at first until my dad explained Joe McCarthy to me.
Cei-U! I summon the Boy Bird Watchers' Society!
|
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 24, 2023 15:51:56 GMT -5
One of the very first strip collections I bought with my own money was a paperback of Pogo strips. I honestly can't remember which one it was at this point, but it had a number of the Simple J. Malarkey strips. I had zero idea what was going on in about 1/3 of that book. I still loved it though. It had to have been I Go Pogo. I had the same problem at first until my dad explained Joe McCarthy to me.
Cei-U! I summon the Boy Bird Watchers' Society!
Yeah that must have been it. |
|
|
|
Post by badwolf on Mar 24, 2023 16:18:46 GMT -5
Speaking of Pogo, I had a Mad paperback as a kid that contained a parody of Pogo that had a lot of political satire and at the end many of the animals were unmasked as public figures of the day. Had no idea who they were at the time, but the weirdness of it amused me anyway.
|
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 24, 2023 21:33:02 GMT -5
Like Cody, the main source of this for me was Looney Tunes.. especially when they parodied current at the time actors, and of course I had no idea that things like the Ride of the Valkyries and the Barber of Seville were things outside Bugs Bunny.
The other thing that springs to mind is that I remember when I first discovered Conan I wondered why Thundarr didn't have a comic, because he had a CARTOON.
|
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 25, 2023 8:16:40 GMT -5
Like Cody, the main source of this for me was Looney Tunes.. especially when they parodied current at the time actors, and of course I had no idea that things like the Ride of the Valkyries and the Barber of Seville were things outside Bugs Bunny. The other thing that springs to mind is that I remember when I first discovered Conan I wondered why Thundarr didn't have a comic, because he had a CARTOON. A cartoon designed by Jack Kirby, no less! |
|
