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| Heck of an inside front cover ad for some youngster of 1945 to see. |
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| I've often wondered what the logic was behind some of the ad placement for ads in comics back then. Who did they think the audience was? The back cover is a stunner too. What may some parents have thought when sneaking a look at their kids comics? I know my mum used to read mine.
Cheers! |
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| My theory is that publishers in the Forties and Fifties sold ads for their whole line, and appropriate placement in "relevant" titles was not a priority. For example, there are 10 pages of ads in a 1950 issue of "Romantic Confessions." These include full page ads for “Motor’s Auto Repair Manual" and a “Life-Like Rubber Skull and Luminous Ghost Mask!" and a small ad for the book “How to Get Along With Girls.” Assuming romance comics were mostly read by women, these ads don't seem "targeted" properly (not to be sexist about it). However, I agree that "The Pleasure Primer" seems inappropriate for ANY comic. Stravon also advertised in pulps and other magazines as well as comics, so perhaps this was just a slip. |
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| Dwit, I think you are absolutely right. Ad placement was probably paid for as a job lot, so the placers didn't much care about the effectiveness of the placements.
I also read EHowie60 's post incorrectly. It's the inside back cover that first made my jaw drop.
Cheers. |
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| A better question might be "Why did they put a pirate comic cover on a comic book made up of reprints of Top-Notch/Laugh comics?" It's almost as if this was trying to evade someone's radar by putting a totally unrelated cover on a different comic book. Pity any poor sap who bought this without flipping through it first, a sure setup for bitter disappointment. And what's up with that Akron, Ohio address in the indicia? Something's not quite kosher here... Or was there some kind of mix-up at the printing plant, where the wrong cover got stapled on to the comic? At any rate, I doubt very much that you'll find these same ads in any *genuine* 1945 Archie Comic Publications. |
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| This has the greatest pirate cover for a comic that has no pirates in it. |
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| Positronic1, I sincerely doubt that this particular issue was an MLJ production, even though its insides are all reprints of MLJ's "Top Notch-Laugh Comics" and "Laugh Comics stories. The Black Hood comes from Top Notch Laugh # 42, and all the comedy stories come from Laugh Comix #46. As far as I know, MLJ never had a series of Pirate-related comics. Just as Green Publishing's "Liberty Comics", "Roly Poly Comics", and "Atomic Comics" printed several reprints of early 1940s MLJ comic books' insides, and just commissioned artists to draw new front covers for them, I would guess that The so-called "Pershing Square Publishing Co." was a bargain-basement publisher, who bought old comic book art printing plates at warehouse and printing company going-out-of-business sales (like I.W./Super Comics, Norlen Publishing, and perhaps Green Publishing did. Such Fly-by-night publishers used various publishing company names, and often the address of their printer, and, like Black Swan, didn't even place a date on their indicia, IF the even bothered to print that information, which was required (at least the publisher name and address was). Green's "Liberty" and "Roly Poly" Comics printed material that was still being printed in MLJ series, like "Top-Notch", "Top-Notch Laugh", "Zip", and "Jackpot" Comics. But they put new covers on them, and their company names and addresses show no relationship, whatsoever to MLJ's. I'm guessing that "Pershing Square Publishing Co." paid an artist to draw the pirate-related front cover for this "Laugh Comix"/"Top-Notch Laugh Comics" reprint, because they did want MLJ's bosses to find out someone was infringing on their copyrights, and would then sue them for damages. There was no entry for any
Pershing Square Publishing Co. on Grand Comics Database, and Black Swan Comics is stored with MLJ (I think, erroneously). |
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