“Order proud!”

§ May 16th, 2010 § Filed under death of superman § 7 Comments

This is a 1993 promotional card sent out to retailers plugging Wizard‘s tie-in to the whole “Death of Superman” brouhaha. The front is a shiny silver with embossed lettering, which is the sort of thing that never really comes through that well when I scan it, but you get the idea:


The back has all the important details you need to know:


In fairness, 1) it did have huge sales, but I’m not sure it was entirely due to whatever they were calling “foil covers” that week…frankly, it could have been a plain brown wrapper with stick figures drawn by the publisher’s 3-year-old nephew and it would have sold like gangbusters during the “Death of Superman” feeding frenzy; and 2) we did indeed sell every issue we ordered. Actually, as I recall this particular special was pretty good…lots of interviews and interesting features and, I have to admit, the cover was pretty snazzy.

Not sure what the whole “order proud!” thing was about, unless I’m not recalling our chests swelling with pride as we jotted down our numbers in the Previews order form. Ah, well.

Also, they used “its” when they meant “it’s.” C’MON, PEOPLE.

• • •

In totally unrelated news, I’d better note this article before my email box is filled with messages telling me about it:

“Justin Bieber to Star in Remake of Swamp Thing”

“‘We feel we had a lot to develop from Wes Craven’s original Swamp Thing,” said director Kenny Ortega, ‘Like more back-story on Dr. Alec Holland, or a more sinister Dr. Arcane, and, of course, more of Swamp Thing singing.'”

7 Responses to ““Order proud!””

  • De says:

    I bought Wizard pretty religiously back then and this is the only issue I kept. The rest saw their way to the recycling heap long ago.

  • Trinity Moses says:

    “Proud” is an adjective. “Order,” being a verb, requires an adverb to modify it. “Order proud” simply makes no sense.

    …unless “Proud” was the title of a Superman spin-off that we have forgotten, and this card was urging you to order that.

  • Trinity Moses says:

    Now that I have thought on it for a second longer, “order proud” has reminded me of the Syfy Channel’s slogan, “Imagine greater.” Which, in turn, has reminded me of Jon Scalzi’s observation that, if the person who came up with that slogan had just had a little longer to work, he probably would have turned it into “Imaginate greatlier.”

  • bigmountain says:

    I hope “Swamp Thing singing” is a euphemism for something. If not, I’m totally taking it and making it my own.

  • Tim O'Neil says:

    Yeah, this was a really good special – lots of fun, well-researched stuff, just a little bit less juvenile and more misty-eyed than the average Wizard publication. Their first few specials were really nice.

  • The Endive says:

    Thanks for the link-back. Hopefully Swamp Thing can dance as well as he sings.

    -The Endive.

  • philip says:

    Bieber and Ortega? Yeah, that’s gonna be Swamp Thing High School Newsies. Which is cool, if that’s your thing.