My first encounter with this (movie, book, etc.) nearly turned me off because...

Cafe Society
1

I thought this thread about your introductions to your favorite series, authors, and artists needed a companion discussion about those bad first encounters that could have caused you to miss out entirely.

I’ll start us out with two true examples…

The Beatles:
I was dead set against them for about a year in middle school thanks to a terrible music teacher who decided to devote almost a whole term to them. This meant learning too many facts about them, watching all kinds of documentaries, and singing the songs to the teacher’s crappy piano without hearing any actual Beatles recordings. My teacher probably took it for granted that we all had been exposed to the Beatles before. Oops.

The Sandman comics:
These I looked at in a bookstore a few years ago, but I was repelled by the garish coloring and the comic-style art that I opened it up to. And maybe I wasn’t very adept at following words and illustrations at the same time; I thought the series just wouldn’t be enjoyable or even readable. I guess I shouldn’t regret missing out on it then; it had the net effect of postponing my real discovery of the series for a while so I could spend a good summer devouring it later.

So which authors and series did you almost miss out on?

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First Kids in the Halls sketch I ever saw was the one where Bruce is playing that stoner teen who has an electric guitar duel with Satan. Just seemed like something you’d see on some shitty MTV comedy show.

Fortunately, this was not the last KITH skit I would ever watch.

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I avoided The Sopranos for quite awhile. My husband would be watching in the living room and I’d hear it while I was on the computer or reading in the next room.

I figured it couldn’t be any good because of all the foul language and violence. Profanity’s a bad writer’s crutch, shock value, etc. etc.

Good thing that silly notion was gone by the time Deadwood came around.