Ads from comic books
Here's a gallery of great old ads from comic books. The companies that advertised their shoddy, misrepresented products to gullible children should be commended for teaching the youth of America that there were people out there ready to lie to them in order to get their hard earned, paper route dollars.
The new "Testimonials" section containing "stories of sadness sung by the stung" looks promising. Here's one:
A neighbor and I sent away for the "Monster Ghost".SUPERMARKETING: ADS FROM THE COMIC BOOKS"Make him obey your commands even when you are secretly hiding as far as 100 feet away"
"A real terror, giant sized---" which, when it arrived, turned out to be...
A white balloon
A white garbage bag
Two glow in the dark circles
A string.
Previously on Boing Boing:
• Man's account of ordering a live monkey from comic book ad
• Funny/Creepy old comic book ad
• Small gallery of old comic book ads
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I purchased this same item in the early 70s. What *I* got was a big, green balloon with some cheesy Frankenstein face on it, some cardboard feet to stick on the ballon tie, and a squeaky toy squeaker. Was never clear how you "controlled" the balloon, or what the squeaker was for. It was definitely not as advertised and quite a waste of $1.
I think the magic is in the lo-finess of the ads. The leave room for the imagination, and help it admittedly.
I saw this on flickr. This story brought it back to mind:
http://flickr.com/photos/function13/2840592805/sizes/l/
It took me till my mid-30s, but I FINALLY got me a Hercules Wrist Band. Wanted one since comics were 50¢ @ the newsstand (because who ever heard of a comics store back then.)
My favorite part is how the bottom item is free but if not "thrilled" you get your money back...
#2: Ah. So they're a cool medium.
This post, and the one about the biting monkey are killing me, I love them so much. I sent away for the 'Giant Submarine' and it was literally a cardboard box with printing on one side.
I remember these so clearly!
One of the companies who advertised in the back of comics was Johnson & Smith, who are still around today, selling itching powder, whoopee cushions and other related junk.
Hey!I had the 'peeping skeleton' and it was absolutely the best thing I EVER stuck in my shirt pocket! (And that includes pocket protectors!)
The companies that advertised their shoddy, misrepresented products to gullible children should be commended for teaching the youth of America that there were people out there ready to lie to them in order to get their hard earned, paper route dollars.
What did it for me was an incident that happened while I was in junior high. My folks joined something called "Guaranteed Foods" - you may have seen their ads in the comics section of Sunday papers some years back, selling things like sides of beef and freezers to put them in.
It was going to save them all kinds of money on groceries, which was quite useful for a family with five kids. So they scraped up the not-insubstantial membership fee and joined up.
To make a long story short, a few months later the place went "out of business" - only they didn't exactly go "out of business" completely. Just enough so all their existing paid up members had to rejoin and pay that not-insubstantial fee again if they wanted to be able to keep buying from GF.
I remember thinking at the time, "Isn't the government going to do anything about this company cheating all these people?" Nope - they didn't do shit. Needless to say, my parents weren't about to rejoin and risk getting screwed again, so we went back to shopping at the supermarket.
And that was my introduction to American "business" and their enablers in government. I've never trusted either of the bastards since. If you're smart, you won't either.
Down here in Australia, we used to see these ads and think that American boys must have had the most amazing fun ever. I don't remember how old I was when I finally realised that these ads were for the same garbage that gathered dust in the back of the local toy shop.
Want a 6-foot Glow-in-the-dark Frankenstein? I sure did, c. 1971. A lying neighbor kid assured me, "Oh, I have one of those- it's at my Grandma's house. It was shipped in a big box."
No, it was mailed in a flat envelope.
The ad was in Boy's Life magazine (I think), or any # of comic books of the era. The company's name: Honor House~ implies honesty, right?
A sheet of white plastic w/ a printed image + a tiny sheet of Glow-in-the-dark adhesive paper for adding cutout specks of highlights. That's it!
(Postscript: the kid who lied- many years later- died in a propane explosion after a lifetime of deserving behavior.)
Hear!! Hear!! Kawentzmann - the ads for me provided an immense amount of atmosphere for me while reading the comics.
Yes, it was schlock. But it was *exotic schlock* that was usually about as interesting as the story itself.
Substitute "Australia" with "South Africa" in #11's comment and you have my experience. I used to be quite irritated that the kids in America could get all these things (or, rather, that we couldn't). It all seemed so exciting and we felt quite left out...not that much has changed with continued American dominance of many things (I don't mean that in a snarky way).