In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics).

Today, we look at how the Marvel Universe must have the most elaborate marketing campaigns known to man, since the people there seem to think that EVERYthing is a publicity stunt of some sort!

When Paste Pot Pete made his debut in Strange Tales #104 (by Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers), people automatically assumed that he was selling something!!!

In Tales of Suspense #79 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Frank Giacoia), the public, for some reason, thinks that Captain America is pulling some sort of publicity stunt on them when he says that he sees a bunch of bad guys that no one else can see (the whole thing was an overly elaborate plan to make Cap think that he was going crazy - in the end, Cap defeats them through the use of some circuitry in his mask that blocked their attempt to mess with his head more).

What, precisely, would Cap be promoting there, people?!

In X-Men #11 (by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Chic Stone), despite roughly a dozen famous superheroes who can pull off precisely what the Stranger does here in his first appearance, people in the streets freak out when they see him do it and presume that it must be a publicity stunt...

Strange Tales #120 (by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko) is a tricky one, because the public is GENERALLY correct that the reporter who plans on going into a haunted house over night for a live television special likely IS doing it as part of a publicity stunt, but they all think that Doctor Strange is in on it...

And even when the house (which turns out to be a sentient being from another dimension) is sent to another dimension by Doctor Strange at the end of the story, no one believes it!!!

Finally, my personal favorite is Amazing Spider-Man #1 (by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko), where J. Jonah Jameson has successfully turned the people of New York City against Spider-Man through Jameson's editorials in the Daily Bugle, but despite Spider-Man being a celebrity and having made a number of television appearances, some people are just too clever for their own good...

Yeah, buddy, you got him. You nailed it!

There are MANY more examples of this thing, so feel free to write into the comments section with more examples and I'll add in your suggestions later!

If you have an idea for a future edition of Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!