Thursday, December 15, 2011

1973 Comic Book Ads



A trip to the past, at least for me.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“Long Past?” inquired Scrooge.
“No. Your past.”

This Holiday season, I am pulling out some some of my past and sharing it  -- grabbing old boxes of comics that I have moved many* times. There are a lot of memories. Today, I am sharing some of the seminal comic book ads from the first comic book I subscribed to, SHAZAM! Here are some of the ads from the first five issues:

First up: a 4-page gatefold Pirates of the Caribbean ad. This is for a series of MPC model kits. (Factoid from the Internet: Johnny Depp was 10 years old at this time. Heck, maybe he was buying and building these!)











A Daisy B-B Gun ad. I don't think there are ads for guns in comics any more.



A DC house ad for Kaluta's THE SHADOW. I still have my copies I bought at the Dillons Food Market in Lawrence, Kansas.


Do kids put models together nowadays?



Ubiquitous comic book ads: a Sea Monkeys advert -- along with one of those novelty shop ads.




Love these house ads.



By 1974, a lot of DC titles would switch to the 100 Page Super Spectacular format. It was 20 pages of new material, and the rest was reprints. I loved the reprints.Hey, it was "new to me."



I think I had one of the Passaic Comic Catalogs.



Cool 70s art.



I like the juxtaposition of the ad for drafting school and the Monster Size Monsters ad.





A serious message about drugs from Huskies Sport Shoes.

This is some bad fun art, huh?



A model kit series precursing the Transformers:


I like the cool art here, but it's a no-no to show kids without bike helmets today.





* These comics moved a lot since 1973. Here's the list of moves:
  • Memphis
  • Shaker Hts., OH
  • Akron
  • Cleveland
  • The West Side of Cleveland
  • Akron (again)
  • Flatbush, Brooklyn
  • Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
  • New Hampshire

No comments: