iFanboy Mini Video Podcast

iFanboy Mini #111 – Old Ads: The Punisher #3

Show Notes

Comic book ads are a window to the past, and you see them in every book you read, and boy do they bring you back.

Josh opens up The Punisher #3 from Marvel Knights, by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, but doesn’t bother with the story. He’s here for the ads.

Ooh look, multi-colored game systems!

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Comments

  1. Ha. Good mini. I particularly liked the Mile High Comics ad. Some of the ads that stick in my mind most are those from the old mail-order comics businesses. East Coast Comics was particularly awesome; you could hunt and peck and find great runs for cheap prices, before those runs were reprinted. I remember I got pretty much all of Frank Miller’s Daredevil run from East Coast Comics for about a buck an issue (minus the first Elektra appearance). And American Entertainment ads were always the most ridiculous example of the speculator craze. ("Buy FIVE copes of Prime #1 and we’ll throw in a free chromium cover version of the zero issue!") Wasn’t there another company like American Entertainment that had similar ads? I think the two companies were connected, but I’m not sure how. It was like a scam: they created their supposed biggest competitor just so they could have a reason to increase prices.

  2. Great little trip down memory lane. I was re-reading Shadow Of The Bat recently and it’s plastered with ads for Batman Returns, which is both cool and eerie when you think about a certain film that’s been out this summer.

    Where’s Green Arrow? He’s disappeared completely now! 

  3. Josh, you need to pull some 80’s comics.  I was just rereading the snake eyes silent issue of G.I. Joe (#21) and man those were some nostalgic ads.  Just about everything was targeted at children. 

  4. This episode was damn funny.  The Marvel Restaurant?!  I still have my milkshake collectors mug.  I think I got the Green Goblin Peanut Butter milkshake. 

  5. Ad’s today are so boring: ‘Read Final Crisis!’, ‘Coming this Fall….’, ads for video games….Blah Blah Blah.

    Where are the ads I’m seeing in this mini? I remember a time when ads would be run by Hostess and would actually make a fun ad about it. I remember a time when advertisments were just more then reasons to pick up another issue of a comic. I remember when ads were, dare I say, actually fun to read?

    It’s a sad day when Hostess isnt on an issue of Marvel now.

  6. I heard that Darth Maul is coming back for Episode II. Except he’s gonna be cloned in to like a hundred different guys. I can hardly wait for Anakin to become Vader! Just to see him on the big screen again will be a real trea–

    "Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

  7. Mini’s like this are always good. This feature needs to go back to the 90’s, 80’s, 70s, so many good ads oddly enough. Chips Ahoy, Hostess, Q*bert, heck throw in Bullpen bits as well with the cool-o-meters. 

    Before I ever heard of previews magazine I used to see what was coming up in comics from those mail order ads that had small descriptions or a word about future issues.

  8. I remember every one of those ads! I remember them better than the actual comic, honestly…

    Hope you do more of these. Fun stuff 

  9. This could very easily become my favorite mini. I overlook ads in my comics but absolutely love to check out ads from old comics. 9 years ain’t that old though. Is it?

    Am I old?

  10. @JumpingJupiter – You are not old.  This stuff feels like Yesterday.  I want to see some solid NES ads and a Lucky Charms ad featuring a whopping 4 different types of Marshmellows.  That shit is old.

  11. I want to see cracker jack ads.

  12. Great idea for a mini Josh.

    I love the time machine that are the ads in the older comic books.

  13. I love this idea of looking back at old ads. For the record though Josh, they’re still doing Got Milk? ads. The most recent one I saw was the All American Rejects, I can’t remember if it was in a comic book though.

    The ads I remember most fondly were video game ads from the late 80’s/early 90’s that would show the box art from the game, and then photographs of dudes dressed up in cheap barbarian costumes that looked nothign like the actual game rendering instead of an actual game screenshot.

    Remember those old ads (that usually appeared on the back covers of comics) for that company that would send you stationary and crap that you would go door to door and sell, and as you sold more and more crap, you would get to choose certain "prizes" like a bike or home spy kit, or for the girls, a makeup case?  There was an ad for the original Metal Gear game on NES that I remember that was a parody of those ads, where instead of showing all the prizes, it showed all the different weapons and equipment you could use in the game.  Rocket launcher, night-vision goggles, etc.  That add totally worked on me when I was a kid.  I remember kicking and screaming to get Metal Gear on my NES that christmas.

  14. Also, Marvel Comics Island is still there in full force as part of the larger Islands of Adventure theme park. 

  15. I love this piece.  However, DUDE you cannot think that Islands of Adventure didnt make it.  It is still there and is huge. I could live on Marvel Super Hero Island.  It is probably the coolest place on the friggin’ planet.  I just got back from there in July and it you don’t make a trip down there every few years just to eat burgers in the Baxter Building or the Captain America diner then I am dissapointed …

  16. Here’s another supporter of Islands of Adventure.  It is geek Nirvana.  Also, the rides are really good.  It lives up to the hype.

    Bean

  17. Yes, I understand.  The Islands of Adventure are still operating.  Many have written.  I have understood.

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