If Crazy was a footnote on history’s page about Mad Magazine, Eh! must be a footnote of a footnote. Charlton Comics came out with Eh #1 (October 1953) which was basically another copy of EC’s Mad. Satire-based stories that included fake ads – a staple that became so important with Mad Magazine.
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In October 1952, most of DC comics had a cross-promotion for a new TV show: The Adventures of Superman! Starring George Reeves as the titular character, this show would be a pretty big hit and was the first television show based on a comic book character. I remember watching some of these in rerun syndication […]
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Remember that episode of Mad Men where Peggy tries out that electric weight loss belt and it turns out to be a vibrator? Well that was based on real products, one of which ran ads in Marvel and ACG comic books throughout 1950-1951, usually showing a woman “pleasuring” herself seductively. I guess “weight loss”, “can’t […]
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March 1949 ends another Timely (Marvel) superhero solo book with Captain America #73 (March 1949). With its next issue, it becomes “Captain America’s Weird Tales”, a horror comic, which maybe was fore-shadowed by the truly macabre ads for toys in this issue. Pictured above is Rita, a babygirl doll with long vivacious red hair that […]
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I found this ad in All-Winners Comics #18 (April 1946) and other Timely (Marvel) comics and had to chuckle. “The magic of making valuable things with plastic” sounds a bit like how I think of 3D printers these days. I couldn’t find anything on the internet about “Plastikit” or what it actually allowed you to […]
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By the mid-1940s, Miss America from Timely (Marvel) had transitioned from a comic book into a “magazine” with lots of ads targeting young women and articles/stories seeking to shape young girls minds into proper “American ideals”. I love how every article consists of the the first page and then a “continued on some later page” […]
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I had to laugh at this super-clunky advertisement that I came across in Captain America #43 (October 1944). I guess it’s pretty clear what kind of audience that Timely Publications believed they had: 98-pound weaklings, greasy teens, and wannabe radio technicians. That actually sounds about right…
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Lois Lane catches Superman changing into Clark Kent for the first time in Action Comics #32 (November 1940). Fortunately for Superman, Lois is under the influence of a fluid that makes her forget everything. Clark learns she will spend her days in a sanitarium so he tries super-hypnotism for the first time, which of course […]
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National Allied Publications started advertising their newest upcoming comic book title, “Detective Comics” in late 1936. Above is a full-page ad inside New Comics #11, November 1936, though the magazine wouldn’t come out for three more months. “Detective Comics” of course became the official name for the comic book company in the 1970s and years […]
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