Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
A Cheerfully Cock-Eyed Backwards Glance At the Ads In the Comic Books of The Silver Age (Pt. 2)
It was all so darned simple, really; right in the very beginning, there, I mean.
THE ATOM. BATMAN. CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN. DETECTIVE COMICS. DOOM PATROL. GREEN LANTERN. HAWKMAN. And JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA.
That's all a young and beardless Unca intended to buy, each and every month, back when he first started out a-readin' and a-collectin'.
Eight measly, lousy, stinkin' comic books. Twenty-four cents per week, on average.
A quarter, f'chrissakes. One-fourth of a freakin' dollar. Scarcely any impact on the ol' allowance-fueled cash flow at all, really.
... and, then: somebody, somewhere, passed along word to those filthy, conniving so-and-so's over at DC Comics, Inc. to the effect that -- hey! -- John and Julie and Gardner had gone and hooked themselves another wide-eyed and whey-faced s-u-c-k-e-r; so go right on ahead and reel that poor, hapless bad boy on into the boat, fellahs!
Within six months: I'd added FLASH to my monthly list of "must-
haves."
And ADVENTURE COMICS. And THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD. And HOUSE OF MYSTERY. And METAL MEN. And SUGAR AND SPIKE. And WORLD'S FINEST.
Before the year was out: ACTION COMICS. AQUAMAN. BLACKHAWK. HOUSE OF SECRETS. JIMMY OLSEN. LOIS LANE. (God, how I despised myself for that!) MYSTERY IN SPACE. OUR ARMY AT WAR. SEA DEVILS. SHOWCASE. STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES. STRANGE ADVENTURES. SUPERBOY. SUPERMAN. TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED. WONDER WOMAN.
... and, hell: I didn't
even like @#$%ing SEA DEVILS all that much, really. 
This was (if aged, sieve-like memory serves) the house ad which finally suckered a formerly resolute Unca into shelling out the wampum for an issue of AQUAMAN.
Utilizing the peculiar clarity of vision afforded one by 20/20 hindsight: I think it was the prospect of actually maybe kinda sorta getting to watch Aquaman kick the aquarium (if you will) which grabbed Unca's legendarily hummingbird-like attentions, with this'un. (I was already stone familiar with the whole "sixty-minutes-outta-water" shmear, you see, from previous issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA.)
You can always get away
with that sort of thing, you see -- the whole "We're Actually Gonna Do
It This Time, Kids! We're Gonna Grease Us A Real, Gen-You-Whine
HEEEEEEroh, This Issue! Twelve Cents To A Customer! Yowzah-Yowzah-Yowzah!"
ramadamadoolah -- with your younger, more trusting readers.
... and then, of course: there were those rare, eye-popping and jaw-
dropping instances in which the DC Comics of the Silver Age actually did bump off the odd, occasional good guy; just to keep you decently off-
balance, or whatnot.
As The Good Lord is Unca's solemn
witness, gang: there wasn't one, single comics-readin' kid in his
old Nashville neighborhood (casual or confirmed) who didn't scarf
this one up, the very nano-second it got slapped into the local spinner
racks.
"FROM BEYOND THE THRESHOLD OF LIFE ITSELF!"
"THE MOST DARING CONCEPT IN THE HISTORY OF COMICS!"
I'm serious, now.
The guy at the cash register practically had to hose us down.
DC was also fond of the more lighter, more studiedly whimsical approach, every now and again:
All right... all right,
dammit. Even so openly and unabashedly a Silver Age enthusiastic as your
preternaturally cantankerous Unca must admit that an ad as giddily "cornball"
as that last one most likely wouldn't "fly," nowadays.
When it came to house ads that made you bolt upright in your seat and exclaim "WHOOOAAAAA!", however: the person (or persons) responsible for those, re: the Silver Age JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA series were the unquestioned, all-time, "Top of the world, Ma!" mack daddy champions.
Case closed.
Just as a f'rinstance,
mind.
JUSTICE LEAGUE house ads never, ever failed to seize the opportunity to remind you that you'd be buying your super-heroes by the bloody pound, with this series. Names were invoked like unto magickal sales talismans, regardless of pretext. ("GREEN ARROW Wanted In! The ATOM Jumped At the Chance! HAWKMAN Flipped! ULTRA, THE MULTI-ALIEN Swallowed a Live Baby!") Just in case one was ever likely to forget -- even for the briefest, most fleeting of moments -- that this series featured the continuing, four-color adventures of an actual, honest-
to-Allah L-E-A-G-U-E, I mean.
The JLA ad below is probably my all-time favorite of them all, however:
I mean: just imagine that you're ten frickin' years old, once more... and study the aforementioned little miracle of naked comics hucksterism, all right...?
You've got the four-alarm word STOLEN! leading things off, in bright, fire truck red lettering.
You've got the shrilled litany of much-beloved super-heroic paraphernalia, numbered amongst the mysteriously missing. ("BATMAN'S Utility Belt! GREEN ARROW'S Trick Arrows! WONDER WOMAN'S Magic Lasso!")
You've got a hefty, eight member ROLL CALL, letting you know precisely which one(s) of your favorite characters will be making significant appearances, therein. ("AQUAMAN... ATOM... BATMAN... FLASH... GREEN ARROW... HAWKMAN... SUPERMAN... WONDER WOMAN!")
You've got the additional promise of a special GUEST-STAR, no less. ("HAWKGIRL!")
You've got that immediately eye-catching cover, taunting you with sweet whispers of meta-fictive ecstasy yet to come...
... annnnnnnnnnnd: those friendly, slap-happy joes over at DC Comics are even thoughtful and considerate
enough to include the projected sale date for you, to boot! (Those
guys! Buncha sweet, lovable lunkheads, I tell ya -- !)
Every now and then, however -- and chalk it up to less enlightened times, overall, if you like; or even (simply) to the fact that the medium, itself, was a more loose-limbed and amiably innocent one, back in the golden day --
... every now and then, mind you... you'd get one of these whacked-out little wonders:
Just makes you wanna go out and
slap Mort Weisinger's kids for him, don't it, though...?
Unca isn't quite certain -- upon pained and disbelieving retrospect -- just which of the elements provided us, here, is the most bone-headed; condescending; and/or insulting, overall.
On one hand: you've
got back-of-the-hand "compliments" aplenty, throughout. (I mean: "STRONGER Than a Herd of ELEPHANTS... and Much, Much Prettier"...?
Just whom, precisely, is being described. here: Lois
Lane, or Rosie O'Donnell, f'chrissakes...?)
On the other hand, however: Lois' gleeful, chirruped response to an openly incredulous Superman's exclamation that she's manifesting super-powers ("Right, Superman! Now do we get married?") is a pretty ripe slice o'bad, anyway you wanna look at it, really.
Perhaps we should all simply
agree that ANY comics story entitled "Courtship, Kryptonian Style!"
is probably a pretty bad idea, all around; and simply leave it at that,
then.
This one, too, remains a personal
fave; chiefly on account of how many weirdly disparate elements are contained,
therein.
A Bruno Premiani-drawn FLASH (shown hanging out with the decidedly unJustice League-ish DOOM PATROL, no less; one of the two or three all-time great BATMAN covers, slightly down and to the immediate right; and -- AND! -- a Kurt Schaffenberger-penciled SUPERMAN and LOIS LANE, gesturing towards the idiotically beaming (and just plain idiotic, actually) SCOOTER; with The Big Blue Boy Scout, himself, smilingly assuring us that "Everybody'll dig him!"
I mean: Jesus please
us.
Let's wrap things up tidily, here, with the Silver Age DC house ad which finally forced a reluctant, pre-adolescent Unca Cheeks to pony up the pennies for his first-ever war comic: a four-color sub-genre in which he'd never before evinced or expressed even the most minuscule of interest, prior.
This is how it's done, people.
Nothing "fancy." No cute li'l tricks, or gimmicks. No bells, whistles or bunting, save for the hangman's noose "framing" the dramatic Joe Kubert cover, overall.
Unca's willing to bet real, hard, American coin of the realm -- right here; right NOW; step right up, step right up -- that DC Comics regularly managed to goose the sales of its various titles, over the years, a good fifteen or twenty percent, by means of such engaging and innovative ads as those we've seen and sighed over, these last two pages.
... because: they're equally enticing (and helpfully instructive) for the tyro or newbie reader as they are to the seasoned veteran.
... because: they aren't
afraid to tell the reader why he (or she) should be haunting the news
stand, weeks ahead of time, as well as showing them. (Go
back and re-examine how text heavy they all are -- other than that last
one, I mean -- by today's lazy, lackadaisical "here it is; buy it if you wanna,
I guess" standards. There's no shame in s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g t-h-i-n-g-s
o-u-t for the uncommitted reader, if doing so sways even one of 'em into
forking over the ol' dough-rei-me.)
... because: they're so well-designed and pleasing to the eye, they entertain the reader, rather than annoying him.
... and, because: they were bloody there in the first place. On page after page after page. Waving their gaudily-daubed little arms frantically to and fro, and squealing, excitedly: "Looka me! Hey! HEY! Looka MEEEEEEEE -- !"
Which it was (as amply demonstrated, just now) a real and genuine pleasure to do, nine times out of every ten.
I'm just... y'know... sayin',
here, really.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT: "Comic Book 'House Ads'
of the Silver Age (1)
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