Advertising in comic books
Ever wondered how many kids sent money to Charles Atlas after seeing one of his "Atlas Man" adverts in a comic book?
Or how many bought a pet monkey or an inflatable doll? It was all mostly lies but who didn't want to believe that you could really grow a family of Sea Monkeys (whatever they were) for $1.25 plus postage?
As a kid, I thought those ads were as cool as the stories I was reading. Unfortunately, I was living in South Africa at the time and I couldn't place an order for anything that I saw. I was really keen to get X-Ray glasses. They were the ultimate superpower that you could buy for a dollar. Imagine reading about Superman and at the same time seeing an ad for these X-Ray specs. It was the epitome of perfect media buying and product placement.
I now have close to 10,000 comics lying in boxes and standing on dusty shelves throughout my house and I can honestly say that the adverts in modern comics are just terrible. And worst of all, there are so many of them. The relevance is lost to me on why I’m reading how Batman’s trashing the Joker for the 100th time and then seeing an ad for a Honda Civic. Is that where Honda believes their market to be or am I only interested in pretty pictures?
