CSBG Archive
I Saw It Advertised One Day #15
We continue a MONTH of I Saw It Advertised One Day! Each day this January you’ll get a piece looking at advertisements in comic books over the decades that amused me for whatever reason. In each installment, we’ll take a look at three ads!
Here is an archive of all installments of this feature.
Enjoy!
I will give this X-Men phone scam this much credit, they limit the amount you can spend to $4 a call, and they limit your calls per week to 4. So while $16 certainly is not a drop in the bucket, it is not a TON of money, even in 1991.
But otherwise, boy, what a scam. I am sure plenty of kids had great difficulty getting past the first level.
That being said, the artwork by Erik Larsen is quite good!
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This 1978 AAU ad is another Graeme Burk contribution (he scanned it, as well).
That was one trippy ad.
“Dirty Sneaker,” indeed.
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I love how upfront this 1955 ad is with the fact that it is just scamming you out of a $1.
“Yeah, we’re not even going to try to sell you some junk and tell you it is worth the money we’re charging. We’re just going to sell you the CHANCE at getting something good!”
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That’s all for this installment! If you can think of some goofy comic book ads you’d like to see me feature here, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com. Do not make suggestions in the comment section, so that they can still be a surprise for future readers! In fact, I think I’ll just delete comments that contain future suggestions.
21 Comments
Bill H
January 12, 2011 at 5:43 am
The X-Men ad was one of my favs for a long stretch, and really only because of the art. I had no idea Larsen did it, and even when you said it was my first thought was ” Are you sure?”
Closer inspection says, yeah, your sure.
But, no Daisy ads? I’m disappointed
KAM
January 12, 2011 at 7:02 am
I like those AAU Shuperstar ads. Golden Age style in Bronze Age comics. No wussy “putting the bad guys in jail” for him.
What I really like about this one is that despite Dirty Sneaker talking to himself Shuperstar has no idea what Sneaker is up to & depends solely on his “shupernatural powers” to decide to act.
I also like to imagine that the people at the disco don’t realize what Dirty Sneaker was up to, they’re just glad Shuperstar kicked that dirty hippie out of there.
chad
January 12, 2011 at 7:29 am
i remember the x-men phone ad. though never got around to playing it for thought it was just a money scam. the shoe ad always thought the creators might have been high when they made it. and the grab bag ad glad i am not the only one who thinks they were scams.
Nitzan Rotschild
January 12, 2011 at 7:52 am
“My shupernatural powers tell me there’s trouble afoot…”
Oh man.
Rob M
January 12, 2011 at 8:17 am
Is that Alan Moore before he broke into comics?
PATRICK RAWLEY
January 12, 2011 at 8:43 am
Thre were a bunch of Shuperstar ads. One I recall had a villain steal medicine from a dying boy. After a short foot chase, the Shuperstar got the medicine back and the boy was, if not cured, then at least relieved.
Craig B.
January 12, 2011 at 10:57 am
Regarding that last ad, what the heck is an “automatic pencil?”
Ganky
January 12, 2011 at 12:01 pm
I’m a Shtuperstar! Shtup- Shtup- and awaaaay!
T.
January 12, 2011 at 12:15 pm
I’m worried that I enjoyed Shtuperstar so much. And not in a so-bad-its-good kind of way.
I think it’s because I’m pretty sure it’s done tongue-in-cheek, fully cognizant of its own silliness and playing it up on purpose. Or at least I hope that’s what’s going on. I LOL’ed.
Josh
January 12, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Looks to me like a Bizarro John Lennon.
Edo Bosnar
January 12, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Don’t feel bad about enjoying the the Shuperstar ads so much, T., they were in a class of their own. By the way, other awesome villains that I recall were the Sinister Sole and Missile-toe. If somebody did an entire Shuperstar comic in that same style, I would have bought it.
DanLarkin
January 12, 2011 at 1:19 pm
I always thought it was awesome that Banshee got included in that X-Men game. I suppose his power would translate better over the phone then say, Rogue’s or Psylocke’s.
T.
January 12, 2011 at 1:19 pm
Hey Brian, are you going to cover more AAU Shuperstar ads? I found some more via Google that are absolutely hilarious, but I don’t want to put links to them in case you plan to cover them in the future.
Dominic
January 12, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Oh yeah, Missile-Toe – from memory that was the better shoe ad of the two…
By the way, how does a dance contest reach a feverish pitch?
Brian Cronin
January 12, 2011 at 1:56 pm
They probably mean a mechanical pencil, right?
T.
January 12, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Yeah, that was the one I found!! It was hilarious, especially the nonstop shoe puns. But I didn’t want to share it if Brian was going to feature it later on…
Ian
January 12, 2011 at 4:29 pm
I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure my brother’s friend won that x-men phone in thing. Either that one or the one with the grid of art full of pretty obscure characters.
Jesse
January 12, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Oh my god, I haven’t seen that X Men phone ad in years! Look at the left hand side and tell me Juggernaut does not look like his head is a baseball. That always confused me…
Travis Pelkie
January 12, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Feel free to delete this post, but there were a bunch of those phone-in scams. As someone mentioned, there’s one with a grid of tons of characters (Ron Lim art, I think), and one with Ghost Rider/Midnight Sons art. Maybe one of those will show up later in the month.
Excronimuss
January 13, 2011 at 8:02 am
The shoe ad… did Doug McLure just boot John Lennon out of the disco?
Christopher Stansfield
June 2, 2011 at 10:34 am
It is well known that in 1991, $16 was equivalent to $136,000 in 2011 money.