1968 - ASM #60 - Shoe Liftee!

As we've clearly mentioned before, comic publishers and advertisers had no misconceptions about the aspirations of its main demographic. Nor, for that matter, did they have misconceptions about who their demographic actually was...

The demographic that wants to use shoe inserts to magically grow longer thighs, head, and torso while keeping their feet and lower legs the same size.

...Shoot, sign me up, Liftee company! Let the power of forced perspective whisk me and my dream girl away into happiness! And just wait til I tell her the source of my newfound powers!

Even better, wait til she finds out where I found out about said source!

Amazing Spider Man #60, May 1968.

1967 - ASM Annual #4 - Pimple Gel

This ad is noteworthy in that it's probably the cleanest and sparsest ad I've seen yet in the comic books from this far back; most everything else is jam packed with text just to reassure you of the value you're getting with your home martial arts and hypnosis course.

Ads will eventually move closer and closer to this louder, less-cluttered style as time goes on, but the wordy ones would never go away completely.

In the meantime, just enjoy the ad and the fact that apparently boys have it much easier than girls (unless you're a girl, at which point, don't enjoy the fact; go and put your 22nd layer of cream on!)

Appeared in Spider Man Annual #4, 1967.

MEANWHILE
Completely nonsequitur, but I wanted to wish my dad a happy 50th birthday tomorrow! I appreciate you and Mama's efforts to keep "violent" comic books and cartoons away from my childhood, but I'm more appreciative that you didn't try all that hard. :)

1966 - Saturday Mornings at CBS

At around this time Marvel came out with their limited-animation style cartoons, from Captain America to Sub-Mariner, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, and Spider Man, and the comics were filled with constant advertisements to this enterprise. The ads even went so far as to name the specific stations in each region that showed them (including stations in countries around the world).

So I find it ironic that around this time they also started showing ads for competing cartoon blocks, especially this one, which included Superboy and Krypto, the Super Dog.

This was around the first peak of Marvel-DC rivalry, as Marvel's fare was starting to take root in America's collective consciousness, and DC was fighting hard to maintain their position as status quo.

The rest of the shows are also noteworthy as among those that brought rise the end of the golden age of animation, and the beginning of low-budget Saturday morning cartoons, the same kind that would eventually become parody fodder for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim.

This was among the first of a new breed of comic book ads that were more colorful, less wordy, and more aimed towards younger kids. These are the kinds of ads I loved reading in the 80's, and look forward to featuring more of as they go along.

For some reason I can't figure out which issue I ripped this ad from, but they ran around 1966.

1967 - ASM #47 - Kraven's Brawn(do)

Okay, this isn't an ad, but a frame of an old Spider Man. Specifically, Amazing Spider Man #47, April 1967.

In it, villain Kraven (the Hunter), having realized that Spider Man trumps him with his super powers, decides to fight dirty.

He does this by installing blasters that shoot OUT OF HIS NIPPLES (really the eyes of the lion's head (not main, the entire head) that he wears as a vest), rays that "MAGNETIZE HIS MUSCULAR ELECTROLYTES," thereby rendering his body a twitching mush.

Seeing as how apparently the general public still has no idea what the hell electrolytes are and what they do, this had to have just been completely incomprehensible to the average 1967 reader, and thus perfectly acceptable for Stan Lee (or whoever was ghost-writing for him at this point).

Also Kraven refers to his "ANIMAL POWERS" which, since he really has no super powers other than above average strength, agility, and probably attuned senses*, just refers to his sexual magnetism, as evidenced by his shaved chest, slicked hair, thick mustache, and his leopard print leggings that stop above his ankles like a suburban mother's yoga tights.

*Wikipedia claims Kraven gets heightened powers by regularly ingesting some sort of "jungle juice." I don't recall reading this back then, so they may have toughened him up in subsequent issues by giving him a source of power similar to what college students drink out of a rubbermaid tub at parties.