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Mars Will Send No More

~ Comic books, art, poetry, and other obsessions

Mars Will Send No More

Category Archives: ads

public service announcement

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, educational

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ads, National Human Services Assembly, National Social Welfare Assembly, public service announcements, Superman

action296_32

The images in today’s gallery come to us courtesy of the archives at The Supergirl Project. Some of these public service announcements from the National Social Welfare Assembly have graced our virtual pages here before. But something unexpected happened last year when we put one on Twitter. It got picked up by someone from the NSWA, now known as the National Human Services Assembly. It turns out they were collecting these old ads for their archives! Last we heard, they had gathered quite a collection. Enjoy a few below. Superman even makes a couple appearances!











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From Many Lands!

29 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, educational

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christmas, exploitation of the workers of the world by multinational corporations, National Social Welfare Assembly

This feel-good ad about industry and progress comes from the thoughtful folks at the National Social Welfare Assembly. Critical readers might wonder if this propaganda seeks to put a spin on capitalist imperialism and the exploitation of cheap labor by multinational corporations.

Below that, though, you see an informative page about various solstice holidays around the world. The panel with the birds is our favorite!

Mystery in Space-074_12

Mystery in Space-089_16 Christmas in Many Lands

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A Striking Example of Centuries of Progress!

14 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, dinosaur

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big news, chicago, chicago world's fair edition, dinosaur, Sinclair, Sinclair dinosaur, Sinclair Oil, Sinclair World's Fair Dinosaur, worlds fair

big news sinclair chicago worlds fair -002Today we’ll share with you a publication nearly a century old now: the Chicago World’s Fair Edition of Big News. Published by Sinclair Oil, it showcases their dinosaur exhibit at the World’s Fair in 1934.

Yes, we have shared with you some other Sinclair memorabilia in our Sinclair Archives, and specifically some things from this same World’s Fair. But this monstrous tome takes the prehistoric cake. Though our copy has damage, the images and text remain intact for the most part. Allow us to mention a few notes, or just scroll down to our gallery today and dive right in!

But first, a word from beauty and the beast:

big news sinclair chicago worlds fair -016
Notes: We spliced a few things, but the front cover has a tear requiring more digital reconstruction than we care to do right now. To keep the file sizes at 1 MB or less, we reduced our original scans by 90%. You will find you can still enlarge them on your screen a great deal and retain clarity.

One image we did not bother to splice together in our restoration efforts: the silly Sinclair Minstrels musical act with members in blackface. Some parts of American history just don’t merit the pixels they are printed on. These embarrassing racist depictions stick out like a sore thumb among the dinosaur sculptures. But, they also remind us of the cultural attitudes of the dominant class in this time period.

We know there was a second edition of this magazine with different images, but we don’t have it… yet! We also know many of these dinosaur depictions have what we now consider gross scientific inaccuracies. We could point them out to you and play dino expert, but it’s really more fun finding them for yourself!






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While Scaly Monsters Fought in Pennsylvania!

13 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, dinosaur

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ads, dinosaur, Saturday Evening Post, Sinclair, Sinclair Dinosaurs, Sinclair Oil

Look what we have here: Sinclair Oil ads from 1931 and 1932! These off-beat dinosaur illustrations ran in the Saturday Evening Post. You will see we included the ad copy, too, for completion. We confess that we don’t understand the pictures, really. Are they sculptures? Dioramas? Paintings? Pictures of sculptural dioramas developed and then painted over? If you have a clue, educate us with a comment, please!

sinclair ads 1931 saturday evening post-001

sinclair ads 1931 saturday evening post-002

sinclair ads 1932 saturday evening post-003

sinclair ads 1932 saturday evening post-004
sinclair ads 1932 saturday evening post-005

sinclair ads 1932 saturday evening post-006

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How Not to Enjoy a Vacation!

20 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, educational

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ads, advertising, National Human Services Assembly, National Social Welfare Assembly

With Summer Solstice just around the corner, you might be thinking of taking a vacation this season. Before you do, take a minute to review these handy tips from The National Social Welfare Assembly.

Despite being about 50 years old, this public service announcement captures all the modern joys of vacationing: sunburns, speeding through scenic vistas in a death machine, and trashing our nation’s parks. They did forget, though, about getting smashed on cheap, canned beer and blaring crappy music at top volume to annoy other campers! Take it away, Terry…

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Every Child Needs a Real Missile-Firing Tank!

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, humor

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ads, advertising, no rocket launchers in the house, tank

One of the great joys of being a kid is driving a fully-operational missile-firing tank through your parents’ house. And, it’s not something you want to do alone. That tank needs to be a two-seater so you can take your best friend, or your sibling, or just some random geek from the neighborhood you claim as a P.O.W. There’s just no sense in making weapons that only adults can use. Let’s blow the $6.98 on a tank and take the inter-generational arms race to the next level!

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The Transparent Man!

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, dinosaur, golden age

≈ 2 Comments

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1934, chicago daily news, dinosaur, Sinclair, Sinclair Dinosaurs, Sinclair World's Fair Dinosaur, transparent man, worlds fair

Dig this. We scanned a little piece of history for you: pages from the 1934 Chicago Daily News issues celebrating their World’s Fair that year. Sinclair Oil had a major exhibit at the World’s Fair, and you will find many dinosaurs here. They include a dimetrodon, which is not actually a dinosaur but a therapsid or something. And, you find a triceratops mis-labeled as “Mr. Brontosaurus.”

Some odd cultural artifacts populate this paper. You will find an ad for southern cooking that we might consider racist these days, ads for show girl revues, a town full of midgets, and proof that people were once very afraid their refrigerators might be unsafe. All that and more await you in our gallery here, so delve in!

And here is The Transparent Man! Hell yeah!

 
chicago daily 1934 worlds fair souvenir - -007
 







chicago daily 1934 worlds fair souvenir - -015a
 

chicago daily 1934 worlds fair souvenir - -009

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Make All Out War in Your Own Home!

24 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, humor

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ads, advertising

What kid wouldn’t jump at the chance to make all-out war in his own home? You get enough nuclear battle equipment for maximum effort warfare and massive counter-attack!

Dude, it used to be you could order guns, tobacco pipes, and ladies undergarments from comic books. You’d see an ad telling you to lose weight because no one likes fat people, then turn the page to an ad telling you to gain weight because no one likes skinny people. You could send away for the secrets of Kung Fu, a fake goatee, x-ray glasses, live seahorses, and necklaces with shark’s teeth.

Basically, if you ordered everything in a comic book, you’d have all the tools necessary to become the most awesome person on earth! Now it seems like it’s all anti-drug ads and video games. Kids, take our advice. Put down the video games, start doing drugs, get a fake goatee, learn Kung Fu, and impress the ladies with your live seahorse collection! And above all, make all-out war every chance you get. Parents love it when you turn their heavily-mortgaged house into a wasteland of trenches, landmines, and human suffering.

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Marvel Announces Intent to Use Fewer Exclamation Points!

23 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, humor

≈ 3 Comments

Readers who grew up on Marvel Bronze Age books remember fondly how practically every sentence at the “House of Ideas” ended in an exclamation point. For you, we present this humorous column from a 1970 Bullpen Bulletin.

And, if you’re feeling especially nostalgic, you can read the whole page below!

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Every Child Needs a Fully Automatic Machine Gun!

18 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, humor

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ads, automatic firing bb machine gun, war

1956 was a good year to be alive. For a small investment of $1.25, any child could own a fully automatic machine gun. Plus, at no extra charge, that child could become the Commander-in-Chief of a complete combat unit. These days, we hold ridiculous presidential elections to choose our Commander-in-Chief. But in the good ol’ days, it only took $1.25. Times were simpler then.

1956 machine gun ad bb

This ad brings back fond memories of childhood, when we commanded our own combat unit. Every morning, we would rouse our troops from their slumber and begin combat training in the back yard. Dad liked that he never had to mow the lawn, because we dug a series of trenches and fox holes into it. Mom was often disturbed by the presence of space ships hovering above our house as part of our combat unit. But she did her patriotic duty by continuing to load ammo into our automatic weaponry. The neighbors never complained when our shells misfired and took out their houses, because they knew the price of freedom was eternal vigilance.

Best of all, our new toys made our friend’s toys outdated. What a sensational feature! If only we put children in charge of the arms race, we would have destroyed our foes long ago.

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Every Child Needs a Nuclear Submarine!

17 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, humor

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ads, nuclear weapons, Polaris Nuclear Submarine, war

1968 was a great year to be a kid. For just $6.98 (plus 75 cents postage) two children could purchase their own fully functional Polaris Nuclear Submarine. Yes, fully functional. It had a real periscope, controls that really worked, and rockets that really fired. Screw you peace-loving hippies! Our kids were keeping an eye on the Red Menace, with their hands on the trigger!

1967 nuclear sub

This ad brings back so many fond memories of our childhood, where we routinely fired nuclear missiles at the godless oppressors with our little brothers and sisters. Every day, we’d flush the cooling water from the reactor into a large bucket. Mom would take it outside and dump it on the neighbors’ lawn. The neighbors never did know why all their flowers died and their pets grew hideously-deformed extra limbs. But that was the price of freedom in the good ol’ days!

It makes us sad, looking at the little tykes these days. They grow up with their padded car seats, their baby-on-board window hangers reminding everyone to be careful around them. Their Nerf guns fire foam-covered projectiles that hardly ever put an eye out. We teach them that bullies are bad and that they should not fight at recess. AARRGGHHH! You pussies! Weaklings! Learn how to operate a Polaris Nuclear Submarine! Feel the hot burn of uranium on your face in the morning and learn to love it! Atomize them all and let Jesus sort them out!

Kids these days. For more informative reading about the real joys of atomic weapons, we recommend you visit Atoman and Atomic Follies.

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Grog Grows Own Tail!

29 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads

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ads, dinosaur, grog grows own tail

Dude, a dinosaur that grows a tail you can plant and watch turn into a flowering tree. Then he grows another tail – and another – This is blowing our minds!

grog grows own tail
You know all those things on your list of things to do if you had a time machine? Going back to the 1960s to pick up our own Grog for a dollar is number 2 or 3 on ours. Take 50 bucks and get a whole yard full of them!!! The only problem will be exchanging these 2012 dollar bills…

This ad comes from the very first issue of X-Men.

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The Creature Who Stalked the Seas!

25 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, humor

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Marvel Classicworks, MMoby, Moby Dick, What The

“Turn Back! Nothing can stop MMoby!” A Marvel Moby Dick?

No. This Marvel Classicworks: Strange Tales of Whaling never actually happened. It’s a gag from issue #6 of “What The–?!” Senses-shattering symbolism indeed!

 

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Insane Vintage Sinclair Dinosaur Memorabilia!

30 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, dinosaur

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dinosaur, Sinclair, Sinclair Dinosaurs, Sinclair Oil, Sinclair World's Fair Dinosaur

In the 1930s, dinosaurs became mascots for the most endearing propaganda advertising campaigns of all time. All that mining and drilling turned up some cool dinosaur finds, and Sinclair put them to work as poster boys for the oil revolution. Sinclair Oil built a dinosaur-land for the World’s Fair, ran dinosaur-themed ads in popular magazines like the Saturday Evening Post, dreamed up some most excellent collector dino stamp books, and even used that gnarly petroleum to make plastic toys for kids. Even though they stopped handing out awesome free dinosaur toys in the late 1970s, you can still see a brontosaurus on their signs. Of course, everyone knows we call it an apatosaurus now!

Feast your eyes on this cool dinosaur memorabilia from Sinclair. And then, go picket their service stations until they start handing out free dinos again!

You might also like our scans of the complete promotional booklet, Sinclair and the Exciting World of Dinosaurs!


















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Kryptonite Rocks!

28 Monday May 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, superhero

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ads, Kryptonite, Kryptonite Rocks, Superman

Here’s another one of the rare ads we just couldn’t bring ourselves to delete from the archives. Straight out of 1979, this ad for “Kryptonite Rocks” is for one of those things we always wanted our parents to get for us. After all, they glow in the dark! …The kryptonite, that is – not our parents. On the other hand, if you asked Superman, he would tell you that Kryptonite does NOT rock! It sucks!

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Found: Lucky Skull Ring; Made of Genuine Eternium!

19 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, golden age

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

1950s skull ring, ads, Captain Science, eternium, Lucky Pirate Ring, lucky skull ring, lucky skull ring history, lucky skull ring paintings, lucky skull ring photos, skull ring

In October 2011, we ran a 1950 ad for the Lucky Skull Ring – made of Genuine Eternium! A reader believes he has one of the original Lucky Skull Rings – minus the jeweled eyes. He sent us this photograph (below.) He would like more information on the secret origin of the Lucky Skull Ring. Visit our Contact Page and drop us a line if you have stories, ads, anecdotes, or photos of your own Lucky Skull Ring to share with us.

Our reader had this to say about his historic ring:

“When my dad was in high school in the late 1940’s, he worked a summer at the community pool. When the pool was drained for the winter, my dad found this ring. He told me he thinks that it used to have “jewels” in the eyes. He gave it to me about 30 years ago. I wore it for a while and then put it away. I was looking through an old jewelry box the other day and came across the ring. Out of curiosity, I started doing web searches for skull rings and came across the old ad on your website.

The ring is just as shiny as the day my dad gave it to me 30 years ago and probably the same as the day he found it. So that “Eternium” stuff must be really tough :-). I suspect it’s stainless steel, because it is not magnetic and it’s fairly heavy (3/8 oz. or 13 grams.)”

2016 Update: The legend of the Lucky Skull Ring lives on! Kurt Spitzner of CinchSet kindly sent us a photo of “a real live kid sporting just such a ring.” The image below features a young actor in a 1955 Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse Club serial called The Adventures of Spin and Marty. Visit Kurt’s historical archives to find out more about this series!

Eternium - lucky skull ring in disney

Below, you can see the complete original ad page from Captain Science #1, 1950. It displays the name and mailing address of the company selling the Lucky Skull Ring and also the Lucky Pirate Ring: the cryptic “Montrose Co,” sporting a New York address with no zip code. Curious! Maybe that is a clue for you astute researchers of Lucky Skull Ring lore!

2016 UPDATE:
The legend of the Lucky Skull Ring continues to sweep the globe in this painting sent to us by reader Matt Eddmenson. Check out his website and get hip to him on Instagram to see even more art inspired by The Lucky Skull Ring!

lucky skull ring painting by matthew eddmenson.jpg

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Lucky Skull Ring

08 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads, golden age

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

ads, Captain Science, eternium, golden age, lucky skull ring

Normally we delete all the ads from our comic book scans, but the Lucky Skull Ring was too awesome to throw out. It glows in the dark and is made from Genuine ETERNIUM! Yes! This ad ran in 1950. Since then, Eternium has popped up in He-Man, World of War Craft, and Futurama – but this is the original!

– From Captain Science #1; November, 1950.

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Become a TV Remote Control Operator!

26 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads

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ads, Become a TV Remote Control Operator, marijuana

We hope you Martians appreciate the fact that we take any and all opportunites to incorporate writing about comic books into our college assignments. When we could analyze any print ad of our choice, there was really only one glorious option: the anti-marijuana ads published in Marvel Comics. This one came from somewhere in the middle of Matt Fraction’s & Greg Land’s run on Uncanny X-Men.

What did our instructor in “Principles of Advertising” have to say? “10 out of 10. Excellent – once in a while I get something from a student that makes ME think.”

Date: June, 2009. Magazine on stands 3 months prior to listed publication date.

Magazine: Uncanny X-Men (ISSN #1083-401X) by Marvel Publishing, Inc., a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc.

Description of Ad: 2-page, centerfold, full bleed.

“Become a TV Remote Control Operator” ad parodies the unmotivated stereotype of marijuana users and warns, “There aren’t many jobs out there for potheads.” The ad abandons traditional moral and/or safety arguments about marijuana usage in favor of a single economic argument. Ad directs readers to AboveTheInfluence.com for more information.

This ad was part of an ad series run in Marvel Comics that year, all with similar layouts and graphic sense, and showing consistent branding and logo throughout. The series included other jobs like “couch potato.” Other ads, also from this company with a somewhat different visual approach but consistent humor include two CGI slugs sitting at a table with a pile of salt, remarking, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Circulation: 04/09 Uncanny X-Men #508 – 76,442 (Obrien).

Estimated readership: Comic books are often shared with friends and siblings, and many of them are sold 1, 2, or more times on the aftermarket for used books and comics. It’s safe to assume a larger readership than circulation.

Estimated cost: Unknown. Checking with Marvel’s Advertising Department via email on rates. ***note: I contacted the listed email for Marvel’s ad department in the inidicia and no one ever got back to me.***

Target Market: The comic book is rated T+, a Marvel ratings system similar to “PG-13” for movies. The target market for Uncanny X-Men is mostly older teens and twenties, though the readership has a large segment of readers over 30. As a demographic trend, comic books are currently made in the U.S.A. by Gen X-ers for themselves and Gen Y, with a significant number of baby boomers in editorial and creative positions. The reference in the ad to college taking four long years suggests the target market of the ad itself is traditional college age – late teens to early twenties.

Does Ad Work for the audience? The ridiculous title gets your attention and interest. The ad also boasts ideal placement – not only in the middle of the magazine but in the middle of the issue’s narrative. A variety of readers sampled found it humorous enough to read the ad, and some remembered the logo and or website. All, however, remembered the point. It’s efficacy in deterring marijuana usage could not be studied, but it does at the very least succeed in communicating its most essential message.

Further Analysis:

A similar anti-drug ad running in comic books in the early 2000s was truth®. Through bold, sometimes disturbing images, truth® portrayed big tobacco as a liar. truth® invited readers to learn more of the truth about cigarettes on their website – the things big tobacco didn’t want the reader to know. Part muck-racking, part sensationalism, and part public service announcement – but did they work? A study of 50,000 youth “concluded that 22 percent of the overall decline in youth smoking from 2000 to 2002 was directly attributable to the truth® campaign” (Moriarty, 27).

On the other hand, Professor Herbert Jack Rotfeld of Auburn University claims public service advertising “misdirects resources and attention,” and calls it a “wasted effort” (278). “Advertising can’t do anything to help solve the problem,” says Rotfeld.

New Yorker contributor and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell might agree with Professor Rotfeld. In Tipping Point, Gladwell describes studies on the increase in suicides after the press reports suicides – and the strangely congruent increase in airplane crashes after the press reports an airplane crash. The numbers Gladwell cites suggest that publishing stories about suicide and crashing a plane leads very predictably to more people crashing their planes and killing themselves. One might wonder if publishing ads about drug use might not similarly lead to more incidents of drug use.

Professor Cornelia (Connie) Pechmann of UC Irvine believes that advertising for cigarettes leads to increased intent to smoke among adolescents (171). Marvel’s Editor In Chief Joe Quesada, in a move Professor Pechmann would appreciate, banned all images and instances of smoking in Marvel Comics. His father contracted lung cancer and died – and Quesada used his editorial authority to prevent children from choosing a similar path. But has Quesada defeated his own efforts by frankly addressing marijuana smoking in the magazine through advertising?

Did Marvel’s 508th issue of Uncanny X-Men persuade any readers that marijuana use is uncool, unwise, and economically unsound? Or did its collegiate audience laugh at the joke and decide to smoke? Does the presence of marijuana in the publication amount to little more than product placement? Even if we could track the hits on abovetheinfluence.com, the data only tells us the ad got attention and achieved interaction with the readers. But it would tell us little of the actual results.

Did teenagers around the country log on to the site as they abused marijuana as a prank? Were they horrified by the information there? Were they helped? It is hard to say. Because marijuana is a black market product, we cannot obtain reliable data on product sales or customer usage. Placing these ads right now is mostly an act of faith. If the federal government would allow the commodity to be bought and sold on the open market, regulated and taxed, we could obtain and track reliable data on the efficacy of these ads.

Works Cited:

Obrien, Paul. “Marvel Month-to Month sales: March 2010.” The Beat: The News Blog of Comics Culture. 03 May 2010 .

Moriarty, Sandra E., Nancy Mitchell, William Wells. Advertising: Principles and Practice. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.

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War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Beings!

26 Thursday May 2011

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads

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ads, Donald Duck, Indie Comics, Patches

Just how big a dose does Donald Duck desire to see the world in such vibrant colors? And why isn’t the duck wearing any of these groovy patches from the inside cover?

Collector’s Guide:
– From Donald Duck #153; Walt Disney, 1973. Reprinted by Whitman.

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Charles Atlas Ad

26 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in ads

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Charles Atlas

What can we say? No vintage comic book collection would be complete without some Charles Atlas ads, even here in Martian cyberspace. And remember kids, violence is the solution to your problems. What you really want to do with your life is get as huge as you can and stomp the &%$# out of anyone who gives you grief. Oh yeah, you might want to hire a good lawyer who handles assault cases, too.

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