Charlton put out a lot of comics I liked. They weren't always good comics, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. My guess, however, is that in 1963 there wasn't a single sane person who ever uttered this phrase: "Oh boy! It's the new issue of Doctor Tom Brent -- Young Intern!" Not a single one.
How many things can you count wrong with this cover? Let's start with the obvious -- the title.
Doctor Tom Brent -- Young Intern sounds about as exciting as watching Lawrence Welk on PBS with your grandmother as she starts to nod off. There is really nothing about the title that says, "Read me." If your parents hated you, this is the comic they bought you. "I know you wanted Detective Comics, but you've been a little bastard. Read this instead." Even Ned Flanders finds this boring.
A cover's job is to sell readers on the comic. The artists, of course, would have no control over the title or the story inside (in this case, the yawn-fest "A Doctor Heals in Many Ways"), so they had to make the artwork engaging on some level. They have, obviously, failed here. Instead of drawing a cover that pulls you, they decided to come up with something even more boring than the title. One doctor at a microscope, another one telling him that they had 12 hours to come up with some way of keeping a boy from going home to die. Our hero, Young Intern Brent, has no clue how to do this. Way to sell a book. The only thing that could have made it worse was a cover blurb stating, "Now with ten MORE pages of TEXT inside!!!" What were they thinking? Who was the audience for this? Who bought it? Tom Brent probably doesn't know.
I have none of these issues in my collection, and I doubt I ever will unless someone sends me the wrong item when I win something on eBay. This series could be the most exciting young intern series ever written for all I know. You can't tell by the cover, however. What you can tell is that there were probably quite a few kids who spent their twelve cents elsewhere.
Showing posts with label Charlton Comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charlton Comics. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Charlton Comics
As a kid I had a fascination with Charlton Comics. I mainly devoured the horror titles and The Six Million Dollar Man. Crappy printing and often crappy art (to sometimes match equally crappy stories) could not keep me away ... and still hasn't to this day.
Charlton books always felt kind of forbidden. I don't know if that was due to the printing process (which I recall had a real problem with colors), or if it were due to the weird '70s ads it ran. Reading one of the publisher's comics was almost like sneaking a peek at your father's Swedish porn. Undecipherable. Secret. Dirty. Of course, the comics weren't porn, but that didn't stop them from feeling that way. Scary Tales. Ghostly Haunts. The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves. E-Man. What's not to love?
The war titles didn't do too much for me. I had a few titles, but they were always afterthoughts. The stuff I bought after everything else I wanted was gone from the rack. The small store where I purchased them usually had a smattering of the war comics left over. They were always badly bent. Attack! was a great name for a series, though it hardly lived up to its name.
The mid 1980s saw the end of Charlton. Gone were the badly printed comics and the reprints that were keeping the company breathing. To be honest, I barely noticed. The publisher's circulation had dropped to where I barely noticed the titles anymore. These days I buy them when I come across them on eBay. They still feel kind of dirty ... and I think that's why I still like them.
Charlton books always felt kind of forbidden. I don't know if that was due to the printing process (which I recall had a real problem with colors), or if it were due to the weird '70s ads it ran. Reading one of the publisher's comics was almost like sneaking a peek at your father's Swedish porn. Undecipherable. Secret. Dirty. Of course, the comics weren't porn, but that didn't stop them from feeling that way. Scary Tales. Ghostly Haunts. The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves. E-Man. What's not to love?
The war titles didn't do too much for me. I had a few titles, but they were always afterthoughts. The stuff I bought after everything else I wanted was gone from the rack. The small store where I purchased them usually had a smattering of the war comics left over. They were always badly bent. Attack! was a great name for a series, though it hardly lived up to its name.
The mid 1980s saw the end of Charlton. Gone were the badly printed comics and the reprints that were keeping the company breathing. To be honest, I barely noticed. The publisher's circulation had dropped to where I barely noticed the titles anymore. These days I buy them when I come across them on eBay. They still feel kind of dirty ... and I think that's why I still like them.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Scary Tales#18 -- A Cover Review

Forgive me, Lord, but I have a soft spot for Charlton Comics, and while Scary Tales was not one of my favorite series, it was sometimes enjoyable.
This cover, however, is not.
Comic book covers have to catch your eye. They have to grab you and not let go. To stand out from the other comics on the rack/shelf, they have to be something special. The cover pictured here is so fucking far from special that I had to wonder what someone was thinking.
Not a single thing about this cover says, "Buy me!" Especially not to some kid. You got some chap telling these weird looking people that this moment wasn't in the script. I don't have this issue of the comic, so I can't even tell you if this is in the comic script, but I would hope not.
At what point does this cover say it may be scary? Because the four misfits are advancing in a semi-threatening manner? Because they look funny? Because there is a weird, out-of-time pop art feel to part of it? Beats the holy hell out of me. If I was a kid enountering this issue I would have stayed the hell away.
Charlton was never known for quality, but this is substandard even by that company's ... well, standards. Honestly, it feels like the publisher didn't want anyone buying this issue. "Let's make the cover as bland as humanly possible. It's the choice between this one and the black cover. Black says too 'arty.' Let's go with this one."
Come to think of it, the first issue's cover wasn't much better, either.
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