Hey kids! Duke says you can subscribe to Marvel comics at last year's prices! Sweet, now I can renew my Rom sub! Comic house ads are always interesting to check out, particularly when you can see that titles available back when. I'm trying to pin down the artist on this ad. Frank Springer was the penciler at the time, and
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I’ve been re-reading some of the comics from my younger days lately thanks to the miracle of comic scans. The fact that anything I want to read is at my fingertips is quite amazing. More amazing are the discoveries of advertisements within the pages. Some I can recall vividly, and others seem new to me. This GI Joe ad was
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I remember this ad for the GI Joe video game running in Marvel comics, with a Joe version on a facing page featuring Hawk. The game doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the epic battle between the two factions, though it is unique in allowing you to play against one another. Cobra Commander looks a bit more fierce
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Woolco, Venture, TG&Y and Dolgins were department stores that I remember from my youth, and we’ll never see the likes of them again. But the ads of days gone by linger on. Check out this selection of early Real American Hero era Joes from a Woolco circular. I’ll take them all, and throw in the Bigfoot trucks, too! By the
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Ya gotta love the days of comic book ads. Heck, ya gotta love the days of comic books–well, when they were made for kids. But enough of me being a grumpy old man, check out this ginchy Joe ad from 1966. The season was set for a blitz of Christmas season ads, and again the GI Joe club was front
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I’m having a great time with these American Defense bios. They’re just as insane as the figure designs. Ice Ranger continues many of the themes we saw with Yeti. Very—cool.
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The Adventure Team morphed into the The realm of super heros when folks like Eagle Eye Joe and Bullet Man joined up. The caveman-like Intruders made up Joe’s first real nemesis in his history. The 1976 JC Penney Christmas catalog featured not only GI Joe, but his also-ran adventuring competitor Big Jim, who has also embraced a more comic book
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Sadly, the Super Joe packaging did not feature a full color card back. As a result, the packaging looks comparatively cheap compared to Kenner’s Star Wars and Hasbro’s later GI Joe offerings. Even so, it’s great to see many of the team together in one image fighting their foe, Gor. Other cross-sells pictured Luminos, another of the light fighting member
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In my experience as a kid comic book reader, the advertisements that peppered the four-color pages of my youth fell into three important categories, each with its own unique merits. First, there are the house ads, which served the purpose of touting upcoming new comics or important events. These are interesting from a historic and marketing perspective. Second, we have
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