I think I may weep openly at the beauty I’ve just witnessed.
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Actually that comic sold okay…I just couldn’t resist the joke.
Turned up a few more promo things during our post Augean stable-cleaning in the backroom:
From 1998, a “Batman: Cataclysm” event flyer:
…Probably could have reused that slogan to plug that one scene in the new Catwoman #1! Hey-oh!
From 1994 comes one of those signs that you’d slip behind a comic when it was on the rack:
It was never time for this.
(Okay, okay, actually for a non-founder Image title, it did better than expected. Save the hate mail.)
And from 1993, a little announcement card for Marc Hempel’s Gregory…the front:
…and inside:
This is both amusing and depressing, which sums up the Gregory comics quite well, actually.
Technically, we are still in a post-Onslaught world.
Promotional flyer for retailers to copy and distribute, circa late 1996/early 1997:
Had Thunderbolts originated within the last five years, it probably would have been the original Avengers, since, you know, apparently we need as many Avengers titles as possible.
The “original X-Men” idea is pretty much “X-Factor, Part II,” which I’m sure was the intended gag. And having the big reveal be “it’s a dude from the New Warriors, plus a bunch of new guys!” would have been a tad disappointing, I think. But Team America…now we’re talking! Not enough motorcycle-riding superhero teams in comics nowadays, for my tastes. (I was going to say something about using a fairly insular gag about an obscure comic in a flyer intended to attract new readers, but…well, “insular” is pretty much implied whenever you talk about most modern superhero funnybooks, isn’t it?)
By the way:
I bet it does.
I sometimes get emails just like this.
From the letter column for Star Spangled War Stories #126 (April-May 1966):
“RK” being “Robert Kanigher,” natch. (Fake letter run to help dissuade similar letters from pouring in, or real reader comment pulled out and used as a lesson in what editors don’t want to see? No idea.)
From the same issue, an in-house ad that, I can only assume, resulted in the highest sales ever for any issue of Metal Men:
I vote “hotcha.” I mean, who doesn’t like hotcha?
And now, a special message from Disturbingly Off-Model Superman, Robin, and Batman.
from ad in Stanley and His Monster #112 (Oct-Nov 1968)
They’re all dead now.
CLICK TO GALAPAGOS TORTOISE-SIZE
…Or maybe some of them are still patiently waiting, no longer baby turtles, in some out-of-the-way warehouse somewhere in New York, where a few times a week a guy in his 80s pops in, refreshes the water and the Turtle Chow in the tank, and checks the mailbox looking for any newly mailed-in coupons, hoping that someday — someday soon — his burden will be lifted.
ad from the back cover of Love Problems #22 (July 1953)
Surely you can see the connections among all these events.
Detail of “truth about UFOs”-type ad from Super Star Heroes #1 (December 1978):
“A UFO is sighted over Centreville, VA in December 2002…exactly one year later, Mike Sterling starts his comics blog. Coincidence?”
BONUS: to fight the coming (or, rather, ongoing) UFO invasion, we’re gonna need a well-armed populace. So scrape together your eleven 1978-dollars and send in for this:
I suspect what kids were expecting (“HA! Take that, car!” [shoots gun, car explodes]) was quite a bit different from what they ended up with (“Oh, look, I can shine a red dot on the wall for the cat to chase”).
