Comic Book Ads

Now I shall start to reminisce about childhood memories in an attempt to show that I am one of those parents.

I have started to go through my old comic books. I have a good sized collection. I’ve been collecting most of my life. I started in the mid-80s and had to cut down a few years ago, picking up a few here and there since then. I been enjoying the Mile High Comics dollar bin to pick up some old issues to fill in the gaps. Reading them has been a highly reminiscent experience. Odd thing is I mainly remember the ads.

Now this is where I will start to sound like an old man.

Comic ads today just are not as interesting and unique as what they were when I was growing up. It is hard to explain the personality of comic book ads to those unfamiliar with them. The most famous of those ads is most likely the old Hostess snack ads where known heroes from both Marvel and DC would use tasty Hostess snacks to distract the villains and save the day. They really were classic ads that stand out.

You also had ads in the comics every year promoting the Saturday morning cartoon line ups. Yes, there was a time when it was big deal to watch cartoons on Saturday morning. The ads from the 80s show cartoon shows I remember well, most of which I watched. Looking through my comics I ran across one that I am unsure as to how it got into my collection, Captain Savage and His Battlefield Raiders. It is from 1969. It has a Saturday Morning Cartoon ad in it for cartoons that I had never heard of before. I actually did not know they had done a Smoky Bear cartoon show. There was also something titled The Cattanooga Cats, which looks extremely 60s.

If you look through comics from decade to decade you do see an interesting evolution of comic book personality that so reflects the time in which they came out. It is in essence a form of time travel and there is something lost when they get converted into graphic novels or e-comics and the ads get discarded.

Okay, that is my geeky quota for now.