Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Bonus tracks: some ads

So, after looking at the comics from the prior post one last time before tossing them filing them away for posterity, I wanted to add a little bit about the ads. Oddly enough, like today, the vast majority of the ads were for computer/video games and accessories, mostly Nintendo, with some scattered products represented: model kits, the Star Trek Fan Club, and Tang gear, among others. I'll limit myself to three notes:



This is one of the ads for a video game, this one produced by a third party developer for use on the Nintendo system. That this represents acceptable ad-quality graphic design and illustration is almost unbelievable given the technical quality (if not creativity) of most ad work today.



This collection of three comics contained a representation of one of the more confused marketing strategies in recent memory: on the left is an ad for Dungeons and Dragons; on the right is an ad for some Advanced Dungeons & Dragons materials. TSR split the development of the game into two prongs and marketed several editions of each version for about twenty years.


Comics still had classified ads in 1989.



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