Favorite comic book ads

[Hepcat]

Well, I know this era of society is different from the Babyboomers.  There were "things galore" then, too - just look at these comic ads.  But Aurora and Revelle etc models didn't require an adult's budget.  Nor did comics at 10-12 cents a piece, where $2-3 worth could fill the neighborhood kids' afternoons for a week. 

There aren't cereal-box baseball cards.  Now, they're expensive and - like comics - are only to be treasured, not traded, not passed around from one hip-pocket to another, not tacked into bicycle spokes.

The TV shows - a constant railing exercise for me - are so anti-child-centric, or else kids' networks (like Disney) have 17-20 minutes of product advertising in a 30-min period.  NO.

Truth. Kids' shows these days seem to be designed specifically to sell a toy line based on the show based on the toy line.

[The Batman]

'Found a 1971 Thor comic book in my work desk and took it home today.
- Arnold S. promoted arm power wrist bands
- Polaris Nuclear Sub over 7 feel long, $6.98, big enough for 2 kids, rockets that fire, real periscope, firing torpedoes, electronically lit instrument panel, with hours and hours of adventures
-High pay job in drafting (since PC's don't exist yet)
- powerful ram jet engine, use over and over again
- hypnotic whirling coin
- Hercules wrist bands
- $100 is yours, selling Christmas greeting cards
- boys! earn $1 to $6 per week selling Grit in your spare time, no, really Grit is a good sounding name easy to sell, rush coupon today !

[ChristineBCW]

Every line above cracks me up.  Spit-laffs... Polaris subs, 2 kids inside, hours of adventures.  Lordy, I'd have loved something like that.  "Father, could I mount the missiles as a propulsion system, and maybe make it to the moon?"  Hours later, I'd return to earth.  Father's greenhouse with that busted-out glass roof.  "It's the only one with that, Father - I'm sure I'd see it."

[The Batman]

[Wicked Lester]

Selling GRIT?! Long forgotten memory. I tried that when I was maybe 11-12. I got 16 cents an issue commission. Spent entire Saturday afternoons ringing doorbells. That was as big a waste of time(when I COULD have been watching monster movies) as selling packets of seeds.
Kids,sell only 4000 packets of and win a bike. Yeah,ok. Does anyone on here even know somebody that did that?

[ChristineBCW]

TheBatman's pix - is that the control-cockpit of the Polaris "fun for hours" Submarine?  A nuke, no less!! 

(Wow - well, actually, what else would I have expected?  Only Tommy Lee Jones would go find an old pigboat when facing contemporary Steven Seagal.)

I'd never had a chair turned over with a sheet or blanket thrown over it for 'camp outs', but this is one of those li'l things Hubby did for our kids, and all the neighbors joined in.  Any parent who wanted a night out has built-in babysitters AS LONG AS those houses offer to lay over a few chairs, toss a sheet or two over them and put blankets and pillows out there for 'camp outs'.  Who'da thunkit?

I mentioned the loss of baseball cards, comics, model-building but I also forgot that "paperboy" was often a first-job for even 12-13 year olds, like Hubby had.  WICKED's comment about spending his Saturdays selling "Grit" (?? what's this magazine about ?? is this a Boy's Life or Classics Illustrated type ??) made me remember this was my Hubby's other regret - that he couldn't send his own son to follow a long family tradition of being a paperboy.  ah well...

[Hepcat]

I had a paper route as a twelve year old in 1964.  I delivered thirty copies of the London Free Press every morning six days a week, eighteen of which I dropped on a hospital desk, ten within the halls of an apartment building next to the hospital and two to individual houses across the street. It was a dream paper route and left me flush with the princely sum of $2.76 per week of earnings!

The helicopter parents of this day and age would of course be horrified at the thought of twelve year olds off by themselves doing anything let alone delivering newspapers.  We were all still free range kids back in the sixties though.

[Hepcat]

Here are many of the ads that could have been found perusing the DC comics on the newsstand fifty years ago:



Wow! What kid wouldn't want to fill his basket with all that cool stuff? Financing the purchases would be a problem though.



Wow! Tom Daniels! So cool!



Anybody who ordered any of the penny flats was disappointed. The actual product didn't come close to what was portrayed in the ads.



We should have stocked up at your local variety store! Matchbox cars are still hotly collected these days.









Yeah marbles! My marbles are one of the few items I still have from my formative years. That's because my father put them all in a tin cookie jar and saved them in his work room. I now have them proudly on display on top of my my pop/milk bottle pantry in one of those hexagonal goldfish bowls.







Ahah! The solution to financing all the cool stuff advertised in the other pages!

[Mord]

 $1.99 for a 204 figure Revolutionary War set? Man, those were the days!

[Hepcat]

Here though is a look at what you would have actually got for your $1.99:



Revolutionary War Set - Doug's Soldiers

[Mord]

Oh, cheap but CHEAP. Still, for under a penny per figure, quite a bargain.

[Hepcat]

$1.99 for a 204 figure Revolutionary War set? Man, those were the days!

Well then let's go back in time a couple of months! These are some of the ads that might have been encountered flipping through the DC comics on the newsstand in December 1968:







The Tom Daniel kits were wild cool! And the Pie Wagon was among the very coolest.



I always used to admire the Matchbox cars in the window of Steve's Variety/Gift Shop on Wortley Road in the early sixties. At $0.29 each (or was it $0.39?), admiring them was about as far as I got though. Matchbox car collecting I understand is particularly popular in the U.K. these days.









Interesting that Justice League of America 69 carried the above ad since it was aimed specifically at girls!



Many of the ads were of course for items young boys might appreciate as Xmas presents.

[Hepcat]

Ads for items that would have made for dandy Xmas presents for boys absolutely dominated the ad space in the DC comics that could have been on any neighbourhood newsstand in November 1968:





















Man, I still want some of those model kits and other toys today!

[Hepcat]

But let's go back over sixty years! Here are the ads that would have been found in most DC comics hitting newsstands in February 1959:



I sent away for that Jiu-Jitsu book a few years later because I too wanted to be tough. I never received it though. I guess that explains why I wasn't all that tough as a kid.

And Ron F. in my grade six class in 1962 had one of those skull rings. It was super cool! I wonder how much one would fetch today?







Oh man! I still love that Tootsie Roll bear!



Now why would a company opt to advertise British Empire stamps in a publication bought primarily by American kids? 



Hmmmmm. Methinks seeds or even greeting cards would be easier to sell door-to-door than sappy mottoes. Well maybe a young fellow could hit up his mother's church group or something....



Wow! That's what I needed at the age of eight, a physique like Superman's! These days of course a runt like Superman couldn't even qualify for the Mr. Olympia contest.

[Hepcat]

Here's a selection of the ads that ran in the DC comics hitting newsstands fifty years ago in June of 1969:







Yes indeed! This was the ad heralding the launch of Aurora's infamous glow kits!



















The introduction of Hot Wheels in 1968 had revolutionized the toy diecast auto industry. Hot Wheels cars were equipped with wide, hard-plastic tires that created much less friction and tracked more smoothly than the narrow metal or plastic wheels used by competitors such as Matchbox at the time.

Since 1968 over six billion Hot Wheels vehicles have been sold. Ten are sold per second these days! One of the key factors behind the ongoing sales success of Hot Wheels has been the complete lack of price inflation. The retail price per vehicle in 1968 was $0.98; the price today is still $0.98.