I recently saw this one again...



My brother and I sent away for this one in 1970 or 1971. We were disappointed that it was cardboard.

We were actually expecting something seaworthy.

The "torpedo tubes" were comparable to paper-towel rolls, and fired with slingshot-like rubber bands.

Another memorable ad of the late 1960's/early 1970's period.


"Sea Monkeys", for those not in the know, are in fact, shrimp!

Here's an article that collects a bunch of the ads I recall from that era.

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/sea-monkeys-and-x-ray-spex/


I think probably the best-known comic book ad is "Hey Skinny", the Charles Atlas bodybuilding ad. And a variation of it, "The Incident that Made A Man out of Mac". Where some musclebound guy on the beach kicks sand in a skinny guy's face, and then he takes the mail-order musclebuilding course, comes back to the beach and kicks the musclebound guy's ass. And his girlfriend comes back to him saying "Ohh Mac! You're real man after all!"

Another of my all-time favorites: Count Dante, deadliest man alive!




I only recall this one ad, from comics published in 1975.


From a blog website:

http://thesearchforcountdante.com/blog/



Now that is not your average life story!



Hairdresser?

I loved the DC house ads from 1973-1976.




Those wonderful 100-page issues!

Another DC house ad, from mid 1975...






I was already buying all the mystery books displayed and most of the superhero books. And I ended up buying all the new titles they promoted. the last one to come out was Grell's WARLORD series (that finally premiered in FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL 8 (Nov 1975), and the first 2 issues of the series later in 1976.

I thought it was an effective ad because it promoted the entire DC line, with special emphasis on the emerging new line of titles.

And three years later, the explosion that went horribly wrong.




After a ton of build-up and energetic house ads, the Explosion turned into an Implosion the same month it was to have begun.

Cool ad, though.

I don't think any event in comics history was as anticipated as Kirby's 1970 move from Marvel to DC.

This ad built up the tension quite well. This appeared in JIMMY OLSEN 134:

Here's a really poster-worthy 1993 house ad by Arthur Adams.




Never bought SHOWCASE 93, but love the ad!

Probably the most famous comic book ad of all, Charles Atlas' "The insult that made a man out of Mac."

From the Warren magazines, starting around 1979-1982:




"Authentic soil from Vlad's castle in Transylvania"

My favorite was the one where the Joker stole a Hostess pie.

Then he raped Barbra Gorden with it.

IN THE ASS.

I don't remember Count Dante (I remember all the others, especially Charles Atlas which obviously has notirety because of Flex Mentallo) . But that's an awesomely kitsch ad. I think I'll make a t-sshirt out of it.

What an asshole! Stole a Hostes pie.

No, a Hostess pie.

Lothar just wants to show you his Twinkie.

in a gay manner

No doubt with a chimp.

Seanbaby.com has - or at least had - all the old Hostess ads archived. Some of them were weird. The most amsuing one was the recent Marvel Zombies piss-take.

I love the one-page parody ad that Byrne did with Rog 2000, in First Comics' E-MAN # 1.


I still like the idea I expressed a few years ago, of collecting all the Hostess Twinkies ads together in one book or limited series, and doing a story that ties them all together into one cosmic story.

Rather than try to incorporate the original ads, they could just use the art and re-script the pages with a more intelligent story, maybe retaining a few of the original ads intact. The same way the more childish Miracleman stories from the 50's and early 60's were incorporated into Alan Moore's 80's run.
Someone like Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman or Roy Thomas, or some other inspired writer, would have a field day with a project like this. Guys who have refined often silly past continuity, and re-structured it into something really impressive. Or at least a heck of a lot of fun.

http://www.seanbaby.com/hostess.htm

Nice.
I had no idea there were so many!

That's hilarious!


I especially love Captain America with the sawed-off head and brains spilling out.
Truly inspired.

Speaking of old comic book ads, Joe Weider has died.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oDVKqSPyIYI/US...ommander_ad.jpg

A decidedly un-manly undergarment, advertised in ADVENTURES INTO TERROR 11, Aug 1952.

Man! The guy's had comics ads since at least the early 60's.

He must have been bucking 100 when he finally died!





And that's the governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger in this ad.
He's been in comics ads since the late 1960's as well.

These days, ads are offering to add inches in other places than your arms and chest!

Here's a blog article on the "DC Implosion" that shows many of the DC house ads from 1976-1978, and a few from before and after that period.

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/252/

For any who haven't seen them, there's also a number of pages from the two-volume CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE, where the material from the 17 cancelled/unpublished DC issues (30% of DC's total comics line at that time!) were printed in Xerox form.
(Although many of the stories later were reprinted in the 1980's in regular comic a few years later. The Black Lightning stories by Nasser for example were later printed in WORLDS FINEST, the OMAC backups by Starlin were printed in WARLORD 37-39.)

From FANTASTIC FOUR 29, August 1964 (and other Marvel titles with the same cover-date):




Stimulating stuff for 1964.
This girl is gorgeous. B-movie actress Quinn O'Hara.


I dug up a fan site for her, with some photos of the B-movies and TV shows she appeared in. I like the one of her for The Saint the best. Alongside a pre-007 very young Roger Moore.

The only one I recall seeing her in was In The Year 2889, a re-make of Roger Corman's Day The World Ended.

In 1977 DC titles, this house ad for the newly released MISTER MIRACLE series by Englehart and Rogers.







I like the promotional-poster-within-a-promotional-poster effect. I thought of taking a comic and blowing this up to 11" X 17" size.
Englehart and Rogers did MISTER MIRACLE 19-22. This came out simultaneous with issue 19.

A 1975 house ad for the O'Neil/Kirby AVENGER series (issues 2-4).

I love how even now, you can go back through these 70's/80's issues and see tons of house ads for new series. Even 20-plus years later, many of these house ads of the 1970's 1980's and 1990's have turned me on to series I missed the first time.

House ads seem virtually non-existent in the newer titles, and I think that's a mistake by comics publishers.

Here's an infamous comic book ad, from DETECTIVE COMICS 449, and other DC titles with the same cover date...

https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Detective-Comics-1937/Issue-449?id=5691#17

...the "Are your children ASHAMED you never graduated high school?" ad.
Shaming housewives into getting their GED high school diploma from the Wayne School.

Possibly the creepiest and most tasteless ad ever run in a comic book.
That unsurprisingly, ran only one month in all DC titles, in July 1975, and July/August bimonthly titles.

That's a direct take from "Marvel Zombies".

I re-read PLOP 2, published in 1973, including a story by Sergio Aragones, "Hey Skinny!", that parodies the above ads. Initially following the ad storyline, a skinny guy is bullied, is rejected by his girl for not being manly enough, then meets a scientist who offers him to experiment with a formula that is supposed to, Captain America-like, almost instantly grow his physique and give animal-like virility.
He daydreams before taking the formula that he'll turn into a werewolf and rip the big muscular guy who bullied him to shreds. In the next panel the girl who spurned him, who left him for the bully, now cuddles him adoringly saying "Ohh Mac! You're a werewolf now!"

Great stuff.

In the 1970's and 1980's, O.J. Simpson was featured in a lot of comic book ads.
Back then, he was a hero to the kids.

These days... not so much.

They take on a creepy dimension in the modern era, post-murder-trial and incarceration.

I miss comics ads that made me want to buy an issue.
And better yet, that lived up to expectations when I did read them!

...yep....

An ad from KAMANDI 2, Jan 1973, and other titles out the same month. That ran 8 months before THE SHADOW 1 came out.

I've never seen an explanation of this, but apparently at one point Berni Wrightson was going to draw THE SHADOW, before they settled on Kaluta as a better choice. (Although Wrightson did ink Kaluta's story in issue 3.)

Another of my favorite ads, from 1972 DC titles, in the last of the 52-page issues. I'm hard pressed to name another ad that made me want to purchase a book more.
When I finally got a copy in 1995, I was inevitably disappointed. But that wraparound cover is one of the nicest pages Kirby ever produced. The disappointment is in that it primarily contains Golden Age/1950's Kirby material, very little 1960's/1970's material the cover would be representative of.

The later 1978 Kirby MASTERWORKS book in the same 11" X 14" black and white format has a far superior selection of Kirby pages. I believe they were both published by Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman.

Note the 1965 copyright date. This was "new look" Batman, but slightly into the Adam West era, with the "watch the show" promo.

Models of heroes and TV shows were all the rage back in the mid/late 1960's. Some of the coolest I saw were the Spaceship from THE INVADERS tv series, and I owned the ship from LAND OF THE GIANTS. Very cool, I have no idea what happened to it. Models of Dracula, Frankenstein and other monsters were out there too.

The INVADERS model ad. I'd forgotten the DICK TRACY model inset in the same ad.

The LAND OF THE GIANTS model.


Here's a blog that collects a whole bunch of the Aurora model kit ads.

And HERE.

And more here.

One of my favorite MAD covers, a great parody of these scale figure models.

MAD 89, Sept 1964.

The Juxtaposition of these two figures cracks me up.

I remember this apple shrunken head thing from 1975. I only ever saw the ad, never the actual kit, but it looked pretty cool. Illustrated by Mort Drucker, no less.

Many years after this ad first appeared, I realized in retrospect it was done by Neal Adams.

From this collection of 1975-1982 or so Saturday morning ads, Adams did ads for at least 1975, 1976, 1978, and possibly 1980 season line-ups(the NBC 1980 ad looks a lot like Adams' 1967-1968 BOB HOPE and JERRY LEWIS issues for DC).

I especially enjoyed seeing Adams' rendition of the Warner Brothers characters.

A little more Neal Adams for your viewing pleasure, this public service ad from 1976.

I just came across this house ad for X-MEN that ran during the Byrne years. If I recall, this was around issues 111-113, pretty well into the Byrne run. And it struck me as odd that they were using a page by the preceding artist Cockrum to promote the Byrne/Austin run.

From the summer of 1982, this house ad for the X-MEN/TITANS crossover book by Claremont, and Simonson/Austin.

Which published in the same month with Moench/Sienkiewicz MOON KNIGHT, Moench/Gene Day MASTER OF KUNG FU, Mantlo/Hannigan SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, Stern/Romits Jr AMAZING SPIDERMAN, Michelinie/Romita Jr/Layton IRON MAN, Levitz/Giffen LEGION, Stern/Rogers and Stern/Golden DOCTOR STRANGE, Starlin's DREADSTAR series and graphic novels, MARVEL FANFARE, EPIC ILLUSTRATED, CEREBUS and so much other good stuff coming out at that time, was part of one of the most incredible periods of great new material ever published.

A great Marvel house ad that ran in the X-MEN/TITANS one-shot, and also in many other books.
A well-illustrated and fun page by Simonson.

I remember this ad from back in the day. The first time I saw it I thought “how cool would an actual Neal Adams ‘Shazam’ book be?”

The closet thing we got was that one wild Mike Nassar issue.

Byrne once remarked in an interview that Marvel always seemed to treat him like Cockrum’s “fill in” artist

This was a house ad for Marvel in 1982-1983 (unfortunately altered with Michael Golden's photo added and the copy text removed).





It ran in:

MARVEL COMICS SUPER SPECIAL 22 (BLADERUNNER movie adaptation), Sept 1982
and

MARVEL NO-PRIZE BOOK 1, Jan 1983

And possibly other books. If those were the only 2 books it ever appeared in, it was a waste of a really beautiful page.

I actually remember that. He said that during most of his 35-issue run, Marvel ran the little
Cockrum heads in the upper left of the X-MEN covers. And when he was finally able to replace
them with Byrne heads, he felt he'd finally fully claimed the book.

He also expressed annoyance at how Marvel after Byrne's run ended, promoted Cockrum coming back
(issues 145-164) as if Cockrum was the real and definitive artist of the series, and as if (like you
said) Byrne was just a fill-in artist for 4 years, instead of the artist who first raised X-MEN
to Marvel's (and the industry's) best-selling title.

Yeah, Nasser definitely had the Adams moves down.
And I bought many of his books for precisely that reason.

He came from Continuity Associates. Which was an Adams-clone factory, that also gave us
Rich Buckler and several others in the late 1970's. Even Rudy Nebres (for Continuity Comics,
circa 1984-1990) despite his normally very personal and distinctive style, began drawing just
like Adams.

More Golden goodness!

A house ad for MICRONAUTS # 1, cover-dated Jan 1979.
It ran 12 issues by Golden, his longest running series.

Only Golden's THE NAM had as long a run.

The ad that ran for MICRONAUTS 7.
The only Golden cover inked by Neal Adams!
I like how Adams made a signature "A" for himself, to match Golden's signature "G".

Another MICRONAUTS house ad by Golden, promoting the series' then-upcoming first issue.
I like Baron Karza. The Micronauts' Darth Vader.

Another advance partial-page house ad preceding Mantlo/Golden's coming release of MICRONAUTS # 1.
With some nice art not used in the series.

This was the unused Golden cover for MICRONAUTS 1.
That as I recall was also used as a promo ad, in different form.

I got a kick out of this promotion for Barr and Golden appearing in a comic book signing appearance.
It looks more like a concert poster for a rock band.

On the subject of Nasser, I wondered if this Clark Bark promo ad that was a double-page centerfold in DC titles for Sept-Oct 1978
was his work.


http://mixedupmonsterclub.blogspot.com/2014/10/1979-advertisement-for-famous-clark-bar.html

I wracked my brain many times looking at it, trying to figure out which artist or combination
of artists, did the art on this one.



There was a similar ad in Marvel titles:




Both ads have very familiar art, but I can't quite place which artist did them.
Maybe John Buscema/Frank Giacoia?

Fred Hembeck chimes in:

Eaelier in the topc, I showed the advance ad for THE SHADOW from Jan 1973 that promoted it to be
drawn by Berni Wrightson.

Here's a promotional ad in the months before the first issue that showed Kaluta as the series artist.

And here's a 1988 ad for the first collected hardcover. Kaluta did issues 1-4 and 6, with about 20 pages of new story.
The colors are changed (and odd), garishly colored by Lovern Kindzierski, and some of the dialogue is changed by
O'Neil, and also does not include the covers, 8 of the 12 by Kaluta, and virtually all suitable for framing. I'd like to
see a new DC Archive hardcover that collects the complete series, including covers, with original coloring, and no
dialogue changed.

And here's a Dark Horse house ad for the 2-issue Kaluta adaptation of The Shadow movie starring Alec Baldwin, that I actually
enjoyed as much as the movie.
THE SHADOW movie adaptation 1-2 (1994) Kaluta covers and interior art.
There were at least two THE SHADOW miniseries after from Dark Horse that had Kaluta covers and Gary Gianni art:

SHADOW: IN THE COILS OF LEVIATHAN 1-4 (1994)

SHADOW: HELL'S HEAT WAVE (1995)

And

THE SHADOW AND THE MYSTERIOUS THREE (1995)


Here also is THE SHADOW AND DOC SAVAGE 1-2, the first issue having a cover by Dave Stevens.

Another of my favorite Marvel ads.

This one ran in many issues of EPIC ILLUSTRATED around 1984-1985, among other titles.

Here's an un-photoshopped version of the 1982 Michael Golden house ad for Marvel I posted above.




Not as big, but in its original form.

Continuing the 1978 Milk Duds Sweepstakes, this double-page centerfold of Dr Doom.

I want to guess Buscema/Sinnott art. But the linework looks more decorative than Sinnott.
Maybe, Giordano, Layton or Continuity Associates?

The Golden house ad for Marvel again, large size in black and white.
I don't know where it was published, but it look gorgeous.
AMAZING HEROES or COMICS JOURNAL, or CBG maybe. Or one of the Marvel b & w magazines.

Sourced from this site...

https://comicbookhistorians.com/the-infl...of-comic-books/



... a DOC SAVAGE pulp ad, that describes Doc Savage as a "superman" who works to fight crime from his "fortress of solitude".

Also interesting is use in DETECTIVE COMICS 27 of Commissioner Gordon, from a character of the same name in a pulp magazine.
And photos of about 20 of the major comics artists of the Golden Age, most of who continued and became even bigger names
in the Pre-Code and Silver Age.

Others like Julius Schwartz, Otto Binder, Ray Bradbury, Daniel Keyes, Jack Schiff and Mort Weisinger started ouct active in
fandom for pulps, some of whom later worked professionally in the pulps, before switching over to comics.

Wouldn't it be cool if Eisenhower and his staff worked out the strategy for D-Day playing Risk?

A 1975 DC ad.

Because every cool vampire (and kid), chews Slim Jims!

"A homicidal maniac and Milk Duds..."



The last of the centerfold candy promotion ad campaign from 1978.

Four (that I know of) in total. One with all the Marvel heroes, one with all the DC heroes, one with the best-known Marvel villain, one with the
best known DC villain.

If I were to guess the artist on this one, I'd say Novick/Giordano, or possibly Garcia-Lopez/Giordano. But I think Novick.

Does anyone else see a logic gap in choosing a freaky-looking mass murderer who poisons people as a spokesperson... to sell candy?

https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Detective-Comics-1937/Issue-406?id=5648#32

The Neal Adams ad from the December 1970 Dc titles, showing DC's winners for the first ACBA
(Academy of Comic Book Arts) annual industry winners. All the better for being illustrated
by Neal Adams.

A house ad for DC 100-PAGE SUPER SPECTACULAR 6 (1971), with a wraparound cover by Neal Adams.

With an amazing set of reprint issues, including:

* JLA 21 and 22 from 1963, the first JLA /JSA Earth 1
and Earth 2 team up, that became an annual crossover event.
* A Bernard Baily Spectre story, from MORE FUN COMICS 55, May 1940.
* A Joe Kubert silver age Hawkman story, from BRAVE AND THE BOLD 36, July 1961, the third of Kubert's
six stories before Hawkman later got his own title.
* And golden age stories of Johnny Quick, Vigilante, and Wildcat.

I don't think in 1971 we realized often what treasures these stories were. The randomness with which these
stories were reprinted somehow made them more exciting.

A double-page DC subscription ad from mid/late 1972, that I find exciting because it lists all the DC titles at the time, from the era I consider, at both Marvel and DC,
to have the highest ratio of great material coming out. Kirby's Fourth World titles (JIMMY OLSEN, FOREVER PEOPLE, NEW GODS, MISTER MIRACLE), THE DEMON,
KAMANDI, Kubert's Edgar Rice Burrough material in TARZAN, KORAK and WEIRD WORLDS, not to mention his other war material in OUR ARMY AT WAR and Enemy
Ace in STAR SPANGLED WAR concluding, JLA beginning by Wein and Dillin, The various Superman titles with Swan/Anderson art bridging them all, O'Neil/Adams and
O'Neil/Novick or Robbins/Novick/Giordaano in BATMAN and DETECTIVE, Hany and Aparo BRAVE AND THE BOLD, Wein/Wrightson SWAMP THING, the great Orlando-
edited HOUSE OF MYSTERY, HOUSE OF SECRETS, WEIRD MYSTERY, WEIRD WAR and WEIRD WESTERN, among other great DC mystery titles, Aparo PHANTOM
STRANGER, soon to have Kaluta "Spawn of Frankenstein" backup stories, O'Neil/Adams GREEN LANTERN... there was just more good stuff coming out than I knew
what to do with!

For THE SPECTRE 3, April 1968, by Neal Adams.
Adams did issues 2-5, this one scripted by Mike Friedrich.

Of DC's hyperbolic house ads, the Adams books I felt were among the ones
that fully lived up to the hype of ads like this one.

The Dark Past of Sea Monkeys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0xXKCOSZuQ


A mind-blowing look at the invention of "Sea Monkeys" and the very successful marketing of them to kids
over several decades up through the 1970's. Apparently a unique but very successful advertising vehicle
at the time.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-Monkeys



I also never knew that Joe Orlando was the artist of the ads used.

The "dark" part comes in about 12 minutes into the video. The ironies abound.

A 1978 (just before the implosion) DC house ad for their Direct Currents newsletter.

From BATMAN FAMILY 17, and other books that month.

AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS ran a sporadic 17 issues, and had 2 to 3 months of previews per issue.
(August 1974-April 1978)
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=463981

Oddly, I can't find any image or info on the DIRECT CURRENTS newsletter in the ad above,
but it is said to have been published for about a year.

DC COMING ATTRACTIONS, an 8 X 11" 4-page monthly newsletter, replaced it from July 1978-1984
https://kupps.malibulist.com/2015/12/01/obscurities-dc-coming-attractions/

The DC RELEASES newsletter of monthly titles, also 8 X 11", ran from 1984-1988
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=13379021

DC DIRECT CURRENTS, a 7 X 10" full color comic size previews flier, ran from 1988-1996.
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=512681
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=13168231

DC COMING COMICS, a 1992 aborted 4-issue promotion attempt
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=19643285


I remember in the days of the DC message boards (2000-2003), they previewed monthly comics
online on DC's site, and I used to read through them. I don't know at what point they
discontinued the printed version.
I think it's a mistake not to have a page in each issue listing all your monthly releases, whether
DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, or whoever. Where better to promote your line, than in the
comics themselves? As is obvious, I love a lot of these ads from the 1960's/1970's era, where
they had the good sense to do so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Currents

I wrote a letter during the period O'Neil began editing the Batman line, discussing how I missed the O'Neil/Adams/Novick
Batman who was more reserved and calculated, always watching from the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike.
That I missed that more controlled Batman, the relentless detective that I knew and loved.

About 4 months later, this ad came out in the DC books:





A byproduct of my letter, that the DC editorial leadership took to heart?

You make the call.

.

A collection of DC house ads from the 1971-1972 period, posted by DC letterer and sometimes artist Todd Klein.
Collecting ads from that era by letterer Gaspar Saladino.

• https://kleinletters.com/Blog/gaspar-saladinos-comics-ads-1971-1972/

Especially memorable for me is this one, announcing the first ACBA awards in 1971, for books published in the previous year 1970 :



With,obviously, illustrations of DC artists by Neal Adams. This was published in DC issues dated Nov and Dec 1971.


Adams also illustated a full-page house ad announcing the Alley Award winners (hosted by Phil Seuling, at the New York comic art convention, the last year the Alleys were awarded), published in issues dated Dec 1970, awarded to material published in the previous 1969 year.

https://viewcomiconline.com/batman-v1-227/ (on page 33 )


Here's a link to all the Alley awards and Shazam awards given, and to other U.S. comics awards :

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_comics_awards#American_awards

The Alley awards were selected and given by fans at the annual New York comic art convention, hosted by Phil Seuling, from 1961-1969.

The Shazam awards were selected by comics professionals annually at a banquet dinner, from 1970-1974.
And after that organization broke up, there were no U.S. awards for an entire decade, until the short-lived Kirby awards in 1985 to 1987. Which were than replaced by the Eisner and Harvey awards, among others.
I kind of didn't notice ACBA's disappearance at first, because some British fans created the Eagle awards beginning in 1977, that were listed annually in Marvel Bullpen pages and letters pages, in the years after the ACBA awards ended. But these were fan awards also, not like the ACBA. But in those pre-internet days, before even the COMICS JOURNAL and AMAZING HEROES, and COMIC BUYERS' GUIDE, there wasn't a lot of knowledge about how these awards were created or annually awarded. And it was mostly a case of either Marvel or DC gloating in a house ad when they had a particularly good year at the awards, and not mentioning awards at all when they didn't, without a lot of consistency (from 1961-1984) about how or where they were awarded.

Updated with a new link.

.




https://dangerousuniverse.com/wp-co...ler-The-Dark-Knight-Poster-1300x1632.jpg
https://dangerousuniverse.com/wp-co...iller-The-Dark-Knight-Poster-768x964.jpg

The advance house ads for Miller's THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, in 1986.
If we only knew just how phenomenally popular that series would be, that ended up selling out even second and third printings.

Just two years before, Frank Miller's RONIN was highly anticipated and turned out to be a poor seller, for all its quality.
DARK KNIGHT RETURNS was the polar opposite reaction, under-ordered and low expectations, whose unexpected success even generated interest in the previous RONIN series, that it never had up till that point, and generated sudden demand in all other prior work by Miller.

.








A second ad for BATMAN: YEAR ONE ( the Miller/ Mazxuchelli series that ran in BATMAN 404-407, Feb 1987-May 1987.)
I don't recall this ad at the time, maybe it ran in the fan press, such as AMAZING HEROES, COMIC BUYERS' GUIDE, or others.

.







Ad for KAMANDI 2, Jan 1973.
One that definitely lives up to the hype, one of the best issues, in one of the most fun and consistently action-packed 40 issues I've had the pleasure to read.

https://viewcomiconline.com/kamandi-the-last-boy-on-earth-issue-2/

.





Some definitely odd and goofy stuff going on in the SUPERBOY stories behind these Adams covers.
https://viewcomiconline.com/superboy-v1-153/


A favorite of mine: "The day it rained Superboys!"
https://viewcomiconline.com/superboy-v1-159/

.





My first glimpse of the Wein/Wrightson SWAMP THING series, in the months before the first issue came out in late 1972.

This ad didn't use a panel from the first issue, this is an original page for the promo ad, probably done before the first issue was even drawn.

More Kirby house ads for his DC titles :

https://bullyscomics.blogspot.com/2013/08/365-days-of-dc-house-ads-day-239-jack_27.html

And Werewolf !
These ran in most DC titles in issues from Dec 1977-Jan 1979. The art on both ads is by Jack Davis. Before Jack Davis became famous for his humor work in MAD, he drew horror stories for EC.
Fun and atmospheric ads, posted here just in time for Halloween.

Slim Jim ran other ads in DC books, for about a year before, and for about a year after. But these are the ones worth seeing.

.




A 1980 ad for a series that might have been, but ended up never happening. Immediately after, Roger McKenzie left as writer on DAREDEVIL, and Miller was fully occupied as both writer and artist on the series. So Marshall Rogers took over DOCTOR STRANGE with issue 48, the issue Miller's run would have begun.
Roger Stern says that Miller initially bowed out to do a James Bond story, that also never materialized.
The ad ran in issues cover-dated Jan 1981. https://viewcomiconline.com/marvel-spotlight-1979-issue-10/
Here is a black and white magazine ad for DAREDEVIL 168, Jan 1981, the first Miller issue where he was both writer and artist:
https://viewcomiconline.com/howard-the-duck-1979-issue-8/ (page 57) . The ad ran 2 months prior to DD 168.

To see what Miller could have brought to a DOCTOR STRANGE run, just look at AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL 14 (1980) and 15 (1981)
https://viewcomiconline.com/amazing-spider-man-v1-annual-014/

.
Here's another Frank Miller advance ad from early 1983, for his then-upcoming RONIN series for DC:



RONIN 1 was cover-dated July 1983. I was absolutely blown away by this first issue, and re-read it many times. Powerful stuff. I was amazed how something so good and truly innovative could have been such a slow seller. There was a revival of interest in RONIN after Miller's far more successful DARK KNIGHT RETURNS series, after which RONIN was re-released in several collected trade editions.

Ad for STRANGE ADVENTURES 213, Aug 1968. The cover for that issue, it was nominated for an Alley Award for best cover, coming in second to Steranko's cover for NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD 6.

.




The DC house ad for KAMANDI 1 in late 1972.
It looked fantastic from the ad. And when I purchased it, the issue far exceeded even those expectations.

.



Another double-page ad from the "Clark Bar Superhero Sweepstakes" contest.
From HOUSE OF MYSTERY 260, Sept 1978.
And DETECTIVE COMICS 479, Sept-Oct 1978.
And BATMAN 303, Sept 1978.
And SECRETS OF HAUNTED HOUSE 13, Sept 1978. And probably all DC titles that month.

I saw the original art for this ad sold recently, and is attributed in the listing to "Neal Adams studios", whether that includes Neal Adams himself, or just those working for him at Continuity Asssociates. It looks to me like it most likely includes Dick Giordano, and possibly Mike Nasser. Bill Sienkiewicz, Bob Wiacek, Bob Mcleod and others were also working there at the time. I love these ads.

I already posted a bunch of them on the previous page, double page ads, featuring both Marvel and DC characters.

It was hilarious in one blog post I read about them, one guy said for all the promotion, there was no one who was ever visibly awarded the winner.
So they might have promoted it, without actually ever giving away any prizes. If you look at the prizes they were offering, it certainly wouldn't have bankrupted them to give away the prizes offered.

http://www.proudrobot.com/hembeck/clarkkent.html

Running at the time the Clark Bar contest ads were appearing in DC titles.
And with links in the left margin for all Hembeck's other strips that ran in DC's monthly editorial pages, in the 1979-1981 period.

If you want to track this one down, a few weeks ago I went through my collection, and saw it in these issues :

MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL
21 (CONAN movie adaptation, Aug 1982)
22 (BLADERUNNER adaptation, Sept 1982)
23 (ANNIE movie adaptation, Sept 1982)
24 (THE DARK CRYSTAL, Mar 1983)

And
MARVEL NO-PRIZE BOOK 1 (Feb 1983)

Others too, I'm sure. But those are the ones I can vouch for.

And this enlarged image...
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/91/22/c1/9122c1705ee0004c5522cb920655138c.jpg

...that from the more recent Marvel logo, was published at least 20 years after the original subscription ad.
It looks like it could have been a signed print, or been printed as a giveaway at a comics convention.

.

One of my favorites, an ad that ran in all the Nov 1982 Marvel comics, an SQ productions ad that offered a very inexpensive (but also very nice) Michael Golden poster.


And here's the actual poster, in its full 11" X 17" size...
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-...1600/golden+-+marvel+universe+-+1982.jpg

This below blog post link shows you the complete poster, with SQ Productions promo-pages attached. Basically, it's a foldout poster of four 8 X 11 pages, the center two being the poster, inside the larger 8-page foldout catalog. SQ productions actually went out of business (briefly) in the 2 or 3 months after this promo was offered. I spoke to several who ordered it and never received it. I ordered one, and looking again at the comic ad, liked it so much I later submitted a second payment for a second poster. Then a long silence, thinking I'd never receive it.
And one wonderful day, I found both of them in my mailbox, mailed in two separate decorative envelopes (shown in linked photos).
http://marvel1980s.blogspot.com/2011/05/1982-michael-goldens-marvel-universe.html?spref=pi

In particular I recall the ad ran a month after DOCTOR STRANGE 55, because that issue had a gorgeously illustrated Golden story, at a time (1981-1982) I consider the absolute peak period of Golden's work.
https://viewcomiconline.com/doctor-strange-v2-master-of-the-mystic-arts-55/
(DOCTOR STRANGE was bi-monthly, so the ad appeared in the month between issues, in other Marvel titles: )
https://viewcomiconline.com/power-man-and-iron-fist-1978-issue-87/

A Michael Golden DOCTOR STRANGE PORTFOLIO, another collection of exceptional Golden pages, was released about the same time.
https://capnscomics.blogspot.com/2013/01/doc-strange-by-mike-golden.html

Another example of Michael Golden's peak work is AVENGERS ANNUAL 10, out in Oct 1981 :
https://viewcomiconline.com/avengers-v1-annual-010/


DOCTOR STRANGE 55 came out just a few months after some of Golden's other outstanding work, in MARVEL FANFARE 1 and 2.
https://viewcomiconline.com/marvel-fanfare-1982-issue-1/
https://viewcomiconline.com/marvel-fanfare-1982-issue-2/

There were two more short inventory stories by Golden in MARVEL FANFARE 4, that look like they sat in an inventory file from the time Golden first entered comics in 1977.
FANFARE dug up quite a few of these inventory stories by various artists.
https://viewcomiconline.com/marvel-fanfare-1982-issue-4/
Another Golden inventory story, "Huntsman", saw print in BIZARRE ADVENTURES 28 in 1982, clearly a fill-in story intended for the short-lived LOGAN'S RUN series, also from 1977, and most of those issues were by George Perez / Klaus Janson (issues 1-5), then Sutton/Austin (issue 6), and Sutton/Janson (issue 7). .
https://viewcomiconline.com/bizarre-adventures-issue-28/
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Logan-s-Run/Issue-1?id=130474
https://viewcomiconline.com/logans-run-1977-002/

And one last 32-page Golden masterwork, that he clearly labored over off and on for 8 years before submitting, in MARVEL FANFARE 47, well worth the wait.
https://viewcomiconline.com/marvel-fanfare-1982-issue-47/

.



Another from that peak period, a Golden pin-up page poster of the early Avengers.

Published in Fantaco's CHRONICLES series, issue 4 (the AVENGERS issue), dated June 1982.
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=304161

.




A hilariously strange ad that ran in DC comics dated July/August 1975. I've given a link to it previously, here's an image you can see here.

An uncomfortable-looking housewife in her kitchen is asked: "Are your children ASHAMED you never finished high school?"
Guilting and shaming people to buy their product !
The ad was so incredibly tasteless, it only ran the one month, and was abruptly pulled.
Although Wayne School ran ads for their correspondence courses for many years before and after.

Some issues it appeared in include :
JUSTICE INC. 2, a bi-monthly cover-dated July-Aug 1975.
GHOST CASTLE 2, July-August 1975
HOUSE OF MYSTERY 233, July 1975.
DETECTIVE COMICS 449, July 1975.
BATMAN 265, July 1975.
And other monthlies (July) or bimonthlies (July-August) cover-dated the same month.

.


The first ad for O'Neil/Kaluta's THE SHADOW, in early 1973.











The final ad for THE SHADOW issue 1 right before it came out, displaying the cover by Kaluta.

The full issue online for PLOP issue 2, with the aforementioned "Hey, Skinny" parody story by Aragones, :
https://viewcomiconline.com/plop-issue-2/

.


Also linked above is the back cover of SHOWCASE 93 issue 1, the same art without the ad text on it.

Here is the ad as it originally ran, in CONGORILLA issue 3 (on page 34, toward the end).
https://viewcomiconline.com/congorilla-issue-3/

And what the hell, here's the entire 12-issue SHOWCASE 93 series :
https://viewcomiconline.com/showcase-93-issue-1/
The first issue has Arthur Adams front and back covers, with interior story and art by Moench and Hannigan. And different artists almost every issue: Hannigan (issues 1-4), Kireon Dwyer (5-6), Klaus Janson (7-8), Cary Nord (9), Bill Willingham (10), Bob McLeod (11-12). Plus more random backup stories by other artists each issue, the most interesting for me being Travis Charest.

.


A fan press 1981 house ad for Marvel 's 20th anniversary by Frank Miller.
From a time when Miller was doing a ton of covers for Marvel titles, and many of them quite nice, on unexpected titles like ROM, MACHINE MAN, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, MARVEL SPOTLIGHT, INCREDIBLE HULK, POWER MAN IRON FIST, SPIDER-WOMAN, X-MEN and what-not.

.





A really fun house-ad for Marvel by Marie Severin, that ran in the Overstreet Price Guide for 1983.

In the tradition of Marie Severin's work in Marvel's parody title NOT BRAND ECCH 1-13 (1967-1969)
https://viewcomiconline.com/not-brand-echh-issue-01/

.




A loveably wacky Fred Hembeck house ad for Marvel, that ran in Marvel's August 1979 issues.
Some telltale signs of the era it was published, the giant kicking leg, from the short-lived SHOGUN WARRIORS,

And also kicking a leg is Tarzan from the tail-end of Marvel's TARZAN run (love the little monkey next to him, struggling to kick a leg with his taller compatriots!)
And the sub-atomic MICRONAUTS, made visible with a convenient magnifying glass!

.




A house ad for CONAN THE BARBARIAN from 1970, for issue 2.
In the very early Barry Smith days, before he was even Barry Windsor-Smith.





Another of my favorite ads, this one a subscription ad for SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN magazine,that ran in the 1986-1989 period while Larry Hama was editor of the book:
"NEVER HAS SO MUCH SAVAGERY COST SO LITTLE !"

https://viewcomiconline.com/savage-sword-of-conan-v1-126/ July 1986
https://viewcomiconline.com/savage-sword-of-conan-v1-145/ Feb 1988
https://viewcomiconline.com/savage-sword-of-conan-v1-164/ Sept 1989

.





Greetings culture lovers !

A great Marvel subscription ad by Marie Severin, that ran in Marvel's Oct 1980 issues.
https://viewcomiconline.com/marvel-two-in-one-issue-68/

Hosted by an unusually (for that period) articulate Hulk, with an appreciation for the finer things in life, such as reading Marvel comics and never missing an issue.

.



When Kirby made his departure from Marvel to DC in 1970, this was the first ad that heralded his arrival at DC.
It ran in PHANTOM STRANGER 8, July-August 1970, and other DC titles that month.
https://viewcomiconline.com/supermans-pal-jimmy-olsen-v1-130/
https://viewcomiconline.com/adventure-comics-1938-issue-395/

I was amused at how Kirby's arrival at DC was announced, almost as if it were the second coming of Christ. And they don't even say Kirby's name, I thought maybe because the DC contract papers were just signed, and Kirby hadn't announced his departure yet to Marvel.
Kirby's first issue for DC was 3 months later in JIMMY OLSEN 133, cover-dated Oct 1970.
https://viewcomiconline.com/supermans-pal-jimmy-olsen-v1-133/

Followed by JIMMY OLSEN 134, Dec 1970.
And then FOREVER PEOPLE 1 and NEW GODS 1, both Jan 1971.

.


Soon after followed by this....



Kirby's first issue on his move to DC, in JIMMY OLSEN 133, Oct 1970.
https://viewcomiconline.com/supermans-pal-jimmy-olsen-v1-133/



I was amused by the similarity of the first "The Great One is Coming" ad to these overtly bible-referencing house ads, for Spire Comics (Archie comics' brief Christian line) in 1974.
https://2warpstoneptune.com/2015/08...-al-hartley-spire-christian-comics-1974/

"Great Snatch" could definitely have a different meaning in the current era.

.


"The Great One" likewise has a multitude of others taking claim on that title.

.

Do People Believe the "Big One" is coming?


I'm sure a lot of guys would like to give her the big one.

.



Who fantasizes about creating shrunken heads? Kathy Griffin, perhaps.
Kids had the option to create shrunken head-type equivalents with this kit, using apples, in this 1975 DC comics ad.
Illustrated by Mort Drucker, another MAD magazine alumni, like Jack Davis above.

From the back cover of KAMANDI 36, Dec 1975, and other DC issues from the same month.
https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-mystery-1951-issue-238/
https://viewcomiconline.com/1st-issue-special-issue-10/

.




From 1988, the ad where DC promoted a Jim Starlin/Jim Aparo 4-part story in BATMAN 426-429, where readers could call in and vote whether Robin (at that time Jason Todd) would live or die at the end of the story.
And as we all know, readers overwhelmingly voted to kill the kid.

I thought it was a wild story by Starlin, particularly the odd pairing of the Joker with the Ayatollah of Iran.
After the 4 issues were published, Starlin was a bit ticked off, having believed he was writing a milestone in comics history, and then DC management immediately announced another Robin, to replace the one just killed. When Starlin appealed to DC management to not immediately launch a new Robin, an executive said "Hey, we have to, his picture is on a million lunch boxes!"

The Mignola covers on BATMAN 426-429 were also nice, and gave the series a standout look.
I was only disappointed with Aparo's art, which for some reason had visibly declined by that point.

All 4 issues can be read online at :
https://viewcomiconline.com/batman-v1-426/

.

Here's an interesting progression of house ads for Kirby's JIMMY OLSEN run, these ads ran in other titles :

Ad for JIMMY OLSEN 133 (that ran in BATMAN 226, Nov 1970)
https://viewcomiconline.com/batman-v1-226/

Ad for JIMMY OLSEN 134 (ad ran in UNEXPECTED 122, Jan 1971)
https://viewcomiconline.com/the-unexpected-v1-122/

Ad for JIMMY OLSEN 138 (ad ran in UNEXPECTED 125, July 1971)
https://viewcomiconline.com/the-unexpected-v1-125/

Ad for JIMMY OLSEN 140 (ad ran in FOREVER PEOPLE 4, Aug-Sept 1971)
https://viewcomiconline.com/forever-people-1971-issue-4/

Ad for JIMMY OLSEN 142 (ad ran in DETECTIVE COMICS 416, Oct 1971)
https://viewcomiconline.com/detective-comics-1937-issue-416/

Ad for JIMMY OLSEN 143 (ad ran in ADVENTURE COMICS 411, Oct 1971)
https://viewcomiconline.com/adventure-comics-1938-issue-411/

Ad for JIMMY OLSEN 144 (ad ran in HOUSE OF MYSTERY 197, Dec 1971)
https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-mystery-1951-issue-197/

Ad for JIMMY OLSEN 145 (ad ran in STRANGE ADVENTURES 234, Feb 1972)
https://viewcomiconline.com/strange-adventures-1950-issue-234/

Ad for "Jack Kirby's FOURTH WORLD Blockbusters" (ad ran in JIMMY OLSEN 148, April 1972, and FOREVER PEOPLE 8, Apr-May 1972)
https://viewcomiconline.com/forever-people-1971-issue-8/


Plus a lot of other similar ads that ran over that period for FOREVER PEOPLE, NEW GODS, MISTER MIRACLE, SPIRIT WORLD, IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB, the KIRBY UNLEASHED portfolio, and some ads for THE DEMON and KAMANDI that I already posted above. Some of which ran in the same issues with these.

.




What is arguably the best ad of the bunch, because it promotes all 4 Kirby series at once. And shows the logos of all 4 titles, tying them together as each being parts you need to have the complete Fourth World series.

52 Pages, don't take less !

.




Definitely on the odd side, but darkly funny. This ad with edgy punk rats, one peer-pressuring the other to experiment with rat poison.

"What's the worst that could happen?"

.

It vaguely reminded me of this back cover ad, "The Hit That Ended The Ball Game", from June 1973 DC comics;

https://viewcomiconline.com/the-demon-1972-issue-9/

https://viewcomiconline.com/batman-v1-249/

https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-mystery-1951-issue-214/

.



An ad for MICRONAUTS by Butch Guice, from 1983.

.

Because I posted Michael Golden house ads for MICRONAUTS, and also "Butch" Jackson Guice ads for MICRONAUTS, I wanted to post a MICRONAUTS ad by the third memorable artist on the MICRONAUTS series, Pat Broderick. But oddly, I couldn't find one.

Here are two Broderick MICRONAUTS images, although not ads.

This first one a cover from Brodeick's 1980-1981 run on the series, from MICRONAUTS 29 (Broderick pencils and inks) :





And a Broderick cover from a later IDW revival of MICRONAUTS in a new series:



Michael Golden drew MICRONAUTS issues 1-12 (Jan- Dec 1979), plus gorgeous Golden covers on 1-24, 38, 39, and 59.
Pat Broderick drew issues 19-34 ((July 1980-Oct 1981), plus covers on 25-30, and 32.
And Jackson Guice drew issues 48-58 (Dec 1982-May 1984), plus 48-58 covers.

Plus Keith Giffen on issues 36-37.
and Gil Kane on issues 40-45.

So Bill Mantlo was very fortunate with the artists available on MICRONAUTS during its run.
It's hard to believe that Jim Shooter disliked Broderick's art, and by Broderick's own account Shooter, along with Mantlo and Milgrom, basically drove Broderick to abruptly quit Marvel, from where he went to DC and did long runs on FIRESTORM and CAPTAIN ATOM.

But my favorite of Broderick's work, among many series he worked on, was always his MICRONAUTS run, where he was mostly paired with inker Armando Gil, that I think beautifully added to Broderick's art on the series. (in issues 19-22, and 24-26). And Dan Bulanadi inking the latter issues pencilled by Broderick, up through 34.

https://viewcomiconline.com/micronauts-1979-issue-19/

.




An early 1940's ad for the DC line of titles, billed as "the Big Eight".

.





A 1939 advance house ad for the very first appearance of Batman in DETECTIVE COMICS !

.



An Arthur Adams house ad for CLASSIC X-MEN.

Adams did covers and/or pin-ups for the first dozen or two issues. Despite these reprints including new material, I recommend buying X-MEN reprints of the Cockrum and Byrne issues in some other reprint edition. This particular series, the editor added and deleted pages, basically slicing and dicing the original material, so you neither get the feel or the full material of the original issues reprinted. But in this era, you couldn't be choosy, there weren't any MARVEL MASTERWORKS hardcovers or trades yet.

There were also a few dozen John Bolton new backups, about 10 pages per issue, as a regular series. Also reprinted in a collected edition a few years ago.

.





An ad for DC's revived SHOWCASE series in 1978, that builds on the past successes in SHOWCASE in the 1960's era, promising the reader great new material following in that Silver Age tradition.

.




https://read-comic.com/wonder-woman-v1-184/


House ad for WONDER WOMAN issue 184, cover-dated Oct 1969, targeting female readers who "dig romance."

And we know you do !

.




https://bullyscomics.blogspot.com/2007_10_14_archive.html


The original 1965 house ad showing an entire month of Marvel covers...

..and then in 1980, the exact same ad, but with a month of Sept and Oct 1980 Marvel covers.
The one I immediately recognize is the X-MEN 137 cover. One of a series of very clever and fun Marvel House ads in that period, this one deliberately re-capturing the "merry Marvel" 1960's house feel. I saw the ad in MICRONAUTS 22, among others.

.




A beautiful Infantino BATMAN cover (issue 194, cover-dated Aug 1967), that also makes for a great ad.

.




House ad for WORLD'S FINEST 183 (cover dated March 1969).
The actual interior story is not exactly a masterpiece of the era, but like so many DC issues in that era, with a gorgeous Neal Adams cover,
It's well hyped in a way that makes you want to buy and read it.
I saw the ad in a back issue (in BEWARE THE CREEPER 6), many years before I was able to finally purchase and read the WORLDS FINEST issue in the ad.

https://viewcomiconline.com/worlds-finest-183/

.




A 1968 DC house ad, in advance of SHOWCASE 73, and then BEWARE THE CREEPER 1-6 by Ditko.

https://viewcomiconline.com/showcase-issue-73/
https://viewcomiconline.com/beware-the-creeper-issue-1/

A DC era starting with editor and artist Dick Giordano moving to DC, bringing along Steve Ditko, Jim Aparo, and Dennis O'Neil. All hired by Carmine Infantino, recently just moved from penciller up to editor in chief, and appointing Joe Orlando and Joe Kubert as editors, beginning a renovation of DC that for my money made them such a creative publisher in the 1967-1975 era (up until Infantino was fired in early 1976),.
Not only the stories and art themselves, but also the DC house look in the books' design and promotional house ads, made the entire DC line for me more interesting and fun than at any time since.

Infantino in an interview said that when DC fired him, they had to hire and promote 5 more people to replace him and do the workload he had been doing, and that even 5 people wasn't enough to do all the work that Infantino himself had done for DC every month. And remaining DC insiders told Infantino that a year after Infantino was fired, DC had its worst sales of any year in DC history. That DC quickly realized what a mistake it was to fire him.

.





A 1973- ad for the then-just-released new PLOP magazine, in 1973, with panels in the ad by Sergio Aragones.
I've always loved PLOP, that ran 24 issues, and the remaining inventory material after its cncellation published in an all-Aragones DC SUPER STARS 13 issue, in 1976.

Long overdue for a collected edition.

https://viewcomiconline.com/plop-01/

https://viewcomiconline.com/dc-super-stars-13/

.



The DC house ad for BATMAN 200, cover-dated March 1968.
It's also Neal Adams' first cover on the BATMAN series.

Full issue at:
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Batman-1940/Issue-200?id=17814

Story credits (uncredited in the issue) are Mike Friedrich story, with Chic Stone pencils/Joe Geilla inks.

.





Another of my favorite Infantino covers on the series, in this ad for BATMAN 184, Sept 1966.
Infantino cover only, interior story by Gardner Fox, and "Bob Kane" (ghost art done by Sheldon Moldoff).

The full story at :
https://viewcomiconline.com/batman-v1-184/

That also includes several more DC house ads with covers for DETECTIVE COMICS, WORLD'S FINEST and other titles.

.



House ad for BATMAN 198, Jan 1968, an 80-page giant collection of 50's and 60's camp-era reprints.
The negative inset page is pretty eye-catching.

Larger cover and full issue at:
https://viewcomiconline.com/batman-v1-198/

.
I'm kind of fascinated by the DC Implosion.
I guess it's the irony, that instead of a massive expansion, at exactly the time it was to begin, the "DC Explosion" instead went brutally the other way, with DC's parent company instead cancelling one third of the DC line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Implosion

Here's a larger version of the DC house ad I posted earlier...





And here's another promoting the expansion of titles :



And...



It happened in issues cover-dated Oct 1978.
And by November the explosion had imploded, with no explanation, unless you were reading the fan publications, particularly THE COMICS JOURNAL. But beyond the stuff that ran in CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE, there was still a year's worth of inventory material to burn up in the now thinned down DC titles, so freelancers were forced to migrate over to Marvel for work. Guys like Michael Golden, Bob Wiacek, Al Milgrom, Bob McLeod, Jerry Bingham, Dave Michelinie, Bob Layton and many others. Which was really good fortune for Marvel, because these talents began a renaissance on the tiles they took over at Marvel, particularly CAPTAIN MARVEL, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, IRON MAN, and MICRONAUTS.

At DC, there were a few issues where the Implosion hit so fast, that they ran house ads for titles that were never actually published.
One in JLA issue 159, Oct 1978, where a full page ad appears with covers shown for SHOWCASE 105 (DEADMAN), DEMAND CLASSICS (a planned reprint title), WESTERN CLASSICS (another planned reprint title), and VIXEN issue 1. None of which were actually published, but later collected in xerox form in CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE vol. 2.

Then in JLA 160 (Nov 1978), no mention whatsoever of the "DC Explosion' or its unforseen implosion.
With BATMAN FAMILY cancelled, the inventory material instead appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS 481 and 482, with some really nice material by O'Neil, Rogers, Golden, Giordano, Starlin and Russell. Subsequent DETECTIVE issues with inventory material were far less impressive.

The last RETURN OF THE NEW GODS unpublished issue by Conway and Newton was split in 2 parts, and ran in ADVENTURE COMICS 459 and 460, with truly awful inking.

"Black Lightning" by Mike Nasser appeared in CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE in xerox form, and then about a year later appeared in color as a backup in WORLD'S FINEST.

An OMAC backup began in KAMANDI 59 in Oct 1978, but the series was cancelled in the Implosion. CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE ran KAMANDI 60 and 61 story in xerox form, that also included an unpublished Kirby story that would in 1976 have been SANDMAN 7 ("The Seal Men's War on Santa Claus") , but was again prevented from being published in color by the Implosion. It appeared in CCC in xerox form, and then finally in color in BEST OF DC digest 22, in 1982.

The three-part Starlin OMAC backup finally fully ran in WARLORD 37-39 in late 1980 (WARLORD 37 repeats the one published in KAMANDI 59, inked by Joe Rubinstein. WARLORD 38 and 39 present the other 2 chapters by Starlin, but very disappointingly inked by Romeo Tanghal. )

Beyond that, not much impressed me in this mass of cancelled material. It's still interesting to see, but there wasn't much that really stood out.

Post-implosion, I liked the new title TIME WARP 1-5 (a thick dollar comic of SF anthology stories, and dynamite pulp-ish Kaluta covers).
And then when that was cancelled, it was replaced by a thinned-down regular 36-page formatted MYSTERY IN SPACE anthology that ran from 111-117, that despite some nice art and interesting stories, didn't survive in a standard comic size either.

It was only in 1980-1982, witth Starlin in DC COMICS PRESENTS 26-29 and 36-37, Wolfman and Perez on NEW TEEN TITANS, Conway and Perez on JLA, Levitz and Giffen on LEGION OF SUPERHEROES, Pasko and Giffen "Dr Fate" backups in FLASH 306-313, Thomas/Colon/Dezuniga on ARAK, plus ARION by Duursema, and other new material at that time, that DC really fully recovered from the Implosion.

.

Paull Kupperberg: "My 13 favorite DC house ads"
https://13thdimension.com/paul-kupperberg-my-13-favorite-1970s-dc-comics-house-ads/


Quite a few of his picks were among mine as well, that I've already posted earlier in the topic.

.
The Joe Weider comic ad posted earlier expired.
Here's a replacement image, with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the ad as well.





and another Schwarzenegger ad, with a good-looking lady-friend...

.
And a DIET 7-UP ad with Schwarzenegger, alongside Loni Anderson :



I makes my eyes bleed to read the fine print, but it looks like it says the two coupons expire in May/June/July 1982, and March 1982.

.



A 1985 ad for CBS's new Saturday morning line-up, prominently featuring wrestler Hulk Hogan.

.

And from TALES TO ASTONISH 37, Nov 1962, another vintage bodybuilding ad :

New links.
Man, look at all these endorsement ads he was a spokesperson for.
He sure couldn't get them now.

.

Hulk Hogan again.
I don't know where this is from, but a great likeness by the artist.

.


And a similar portrait of Schwarzenegger, a perfect likeness.
There are many others I saw of Schwarzenegger I didn't post, because they look nothing like him.

.



If you grew up after the 1970's, you can't possibly know how big Six Million Dollar Man was in that era.
Second only to Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, and later in the decade, Star Wars.

.


A great DC house ad from 1974, for those wonderful 100-page issues.
Decades later, it's great to see this ad, already have the issues in my collection, and just be able to pull them out and enjoy them again.

Or, God bless the internet, provide you with links to enjoy them, even if you don't.

https://viewcomiconline.com/detective-comics-1937-issue-444/
https://viewcomiconline.com/our-army-at-war-1952-issue-275/
https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-mystery-1951-issue-228/
https://viewcomiconline.com/superman-family-168/
https://viewcomiconline.com/tarzan-234/
https://viewcomiconline.com/the-brave-and-the-bold-v1-116/
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Young-Love-1963/Issue-112?id=206845

.

Pirates of the Caribbean model kits, in July 1973 DC ads, across both regular comics and the 100 page issues.





Very cool on their own, but even better once you'd seen the then-new Pirates attraction at Walt Disney World, as I got to do a few months later.
Much as I loved the ride and this ad, I never got the kits, or saw anyone else who bought them.
Here are some issues with the ad :
https://viewcomiconline.com/weird-war-tales-1971-issue-15/
https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-mystery-1951-issue-215/
https://viewcomiconline.com/batman-v1-250/
https://viewcomiconline.com/g-i-combat-1952-issue-167/

Here also are the Haunted Mansion model kits, in another 1974 2-page centerfold ad..
https://viewcomiconline.com/weird-war-tales-1971-issue-25/
https://viewcomiconline.com/g-i-combat-1952-issue-171/

And similar "Vampire" and Mummy "Time Machine" kits in another centerfold ad.
https://viewcomiconline.com/weird-war-tales-1971-issue-33/
https://viewcomiconline.com/g-i-combat-1952-issue-175/

.



Possibly based on this ad 50 years ago, these were the first two LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITION issues I bought new off the stands. The earlier ones I mail ordered directly from DC, or bought as back issues.

These oversize issues had striking house ads, and were, as far as I could see, very popular.

And retailers liked them because they had a higher price and rate of profit for dealers than regular comics. And also opened up new retail displays in places that didn't normally carry comics, such as bookstores. I recall seeing those displays in stores, they were pretty cool looking, very well packaged.

So these collectors' editions were just a great retailing idea all the way around.

https://www.comics.org/series/2100/covers/ (LIMITED COLLECTORS' EDITION)

https://www.comics.org/series/7765/covers/ (FAMOUS FIRST EDITION)

https://www.comics.org/series/7764/covers/ (ALL-NEW COLLECTORS' EDITION)

The last one, C-61, a FAMOUS FIRST EDITION reprint of SUPERMAN 1 from 1939, is shown in house ads the same month as the DC Implosion. (in books dated Nov 1978)
https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-mystery-1951-issue-262/

One more, C-62, not comics stories, is a book of photos and articles about the Superman movie (ads in books dated Feb 1979).
https://viewcomiconline.com/house-of-mystery-1951-issue-265/

.




Here's a house ad for Marvel's magazines at the time, which included HOWARD THE DUCK, SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, HULK, and DRACULA.
It ran in MARVEL SPOTLIGHT 6, cover-dated May 1980. And in other Marvel titles out the same month.
https://viewcomiconline.com/marvel-spotlight-1979-issue-6/

With art by Gene Colan / Dave Simons.
Dave Simons, who is now deceased, and as I recall died rather young, did beautiful art on many Marvel stories in the 1979-1992 period, particularly on Marvel magazines, both inking others like John Buscema and Gene Colan, and at other times doing both pencils and inks himself.

Here it is in a much larger size:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FiVWRFWUcAUYIoH.jpg:large

.



An Arthur Adams house ad, for an X-MEN collected trade.
Not sure if this is the same material as the collection I own, but I'd guess it collects the X-MEN / ALPHA FLIGHT two-issue miniseries by Claremont and Paul Smith,
And the story from NEW MUTANTS SPECIAL 1, concluded in X-MEN ANNUAL 9, both by Claremont and Arthur Adams, with 2 or 3 subsequent X-MEN ANNUAL issues also by Claremont and Arthur Adams, I think 10 and 12. Material from 1985-1988 or so, in a collected 1988 edition.
I think I have a later edition than the one promoted, that includes more material. I

If it's the one I have, it has a white background on an Arthur Adams cover, and a weak binding that started falling apart the 2nd or 3rd time I read it.
For a long time in the 1980's and 1990's, that was a recurrent problem on a number of Marvel collected editions, but in the 2000's Marvel finally got it together with better bound collections, at least on the collected trades I've gotten since then.

_________________________________________

EDIT :
I looked it up. The one advertised above is:

X-MEN : THE ASGARDIAN WARS (1988, 220 pages)
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=312791

I dug out the one I have, it's this one :

MARVEL LEGENDS: ARTHUR ADAMS, X-MEN (2003, 288 pages )
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=489181

Some of the same material, but as detailed in the 2 links, definitely not the same contents.