Vintage Comic Ads

[vintagecomicads]

MAGIK™ (Illyana and Storm Limited Series) Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1983.

Page 29

I won’t post a direct link but it is relatively easy to track down copies of James Bond 007 the tabletop RPG if you are curious about it. In most of the tabletop games I’m familiar with, the player is presented with a detailed world to explore, but is ultimately responsible for creating a character and personality to inhabit that world. In this game, on the other hand, the fantasy is much more precise: you are specifically James Bond, or someone basically just like him. The game advertises that it can be played even with just one player and a game master. The enemies and scenarios are all intentionally designed to be far weaker than the player, to provide the feeling of being a larger-than-life actor on a stage designed to make you look great. 

The only comparison among tabletop games that I’m familiar with would be the original Dragonlance modules, where you were provided the character sheets for named characters like Tanis and Goldmoon, and encouraged to play the adventure as them. They seem unusual to me, but at the same time I can see the virtue in this. You’re giving the player a very well-realized character, someone who’s mannerisms and motivations they’re already deeply familiar with, and telling them to act the part. This is arguably much easier than trying to invent a character from scratch, and a pretty good way to introduce someone to the concept of role-playing in tabletop games in general. 

[vintagecomicads]

MAGIK™ (Illyana and Storm Limited Series) Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1983.

Page 28

I wasn’t initially sure whether to include this, as it’s not precisely an ad. But part of my reason for doing this is a desire to document the interstitial material from these old books - the stuff that isn’t included in TPB reprints and, hence, lost to the ages. Bullpen Bulletins are most definitely that. The monthly hype box and checklist were an at-a-glance way of letting readers know basically everything going on in the Marvel Universe that month. 

My funds were limited and my appetite for words was bottomless, so I would read and re-read every single element of these books, every letter on the letters page, every title description on the checklist -- even for titles I wasn’t really interested in. The Bulletins were a crack in the door between me and the adult world. By looking through it, my spongy child brain began to absorb the knowledge that the adventures of Storm and Illyana, Spider-man, the Hulk, et al., were the product of effort from actual human beings - weird, snarky, funny, creative people who took the time to write and draw and ink and publish these adventures - and that this was something they did all day, as a job!

This one still resonates with me because I work in an industry where the honchos do actually leave for weeks at a time to go hit the conventions. It’d be fun to make an event out of that. 

[vintagecomicads]

MAGIK™ (Illyana and Storm Limited Series) Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1983.

Page 21

I like how he starts off using his prosaic, mortal vocal chords to speak, then continues his speech via the Left Hand Way. Basically he’s shooting some kind of magic bolt into a word balloon? Possibly the Doctor has to do the occasional bit of advertising work just to keep the Sanctum afloat (magic doesn’t always pay the rent), and so just as a part of his professional trade, he’s learned to use his sorcerous arts to record and playback his own canned promotional spots?

And we haven’t even touched on the “Conjurer’s Courier” yet. Do you mean to tell me there’s a  form of mass communication among the practitioners of the mystic arts that is so institutionalized that it actually has a brand name - and it, too, is primarily devoted to ad space? What kinda cyberpunk ish is that?

[vintagecomicads]

MAGIK™ (Illyana and Storm Limited Series) Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1983.

Page 20

Brought to you by Model Products Corporation, which, well, I guess branding has come a long way.

I wonder if anyone actually won this contest? Verifying it would be an interesting challenge. It says contest winners would be notified by mail, which obviously isn’t public info. You’d probably be relying on newspapers from March - April of 1984, pretty much anywhere in the continental US, to have maybe done a little writeup on the contest winner.

There is of course the “for any inquiry” contact information in the contest rules, but according to Wikipedia, MPC has been consumed and digested by numerous corporate entities in the intervening decades, and now exists only as cellular information in Round2 LLC’s data structure.

[vintagecomicads]

MAGIK™ (Illyana and Storm Limited Series) Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1983.

Pages 16 - 17

I honestly don’t remember the Shirt Tales very well. I am upset by the way Tyg’s name is pronounced. 

At one point the Smurfs were extended to a two hour block. It was a rough two hours. As a kid, I did not find a lot of aspirational material in there. They didn’t fly, or transform, or wreck evildoers, or even look cool. They mostly just lived in the woods and tried not to get eaten. Maybe there’s something relatable in that though, at least relatable enough to get us to stick with them for the two hours until more exciting shows came on. 

Failing that, you could always check out ABC or CBS. They may not have had “the Jazz” but they usually had something other than Smurfs.

I mean, it’s not like we were gonna STOP WATCHING TV for two hours. This was before the concept of “too much screen time,” and we were committed. 

[vintagecomicads]

MAGIK™ (Illyana and Storm Limited Series) Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1983.

Page 13

1) The little “Advertisement” notifier at the top. In case you thought you were reading “The New Dadaist Adventures of Storm and Illyana,” in which the world intermittently transforms into a living corporate commercial as a part of Belasco’s insidious curse, and surviving the curse means learning how to operate within that context without losing one’s essential humanity, until reality reasserts itself ...

... okay, not gonna lie, I would read the hell out of that. Somebody get Grant Morrison. Legion’s doing really well right now, This could actually work. 

2) If I’m understanding this life cycle of the depicted creature correctly, you take the gum bite into it, releasing vital fluids, then chew the corpse and blow it into a ghostly balloon. The ghost, now capable of speech, advocates for the slaughter of its living kin (willingly? As part of a strange compulsion? Who knows?), thus perpetuating the cycle of sentient gum misery. 

3) I mean really, violence is woven right into the bones of the thing. Just saying.

[vintagecomicads]

MAGIK™ (Illyana and Storm Limited Series) Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1983.

Page 4

Of all the oddities that arose within this hallowed, 5-hour block of targeted toy and cereal advertising, I probably had the most questions about Rubik. 

Just look at this little weirdo. What does he want? What is his long game? There is no way he is anything but the scout and emissary of some occult intelligence that regards human beings as less than ants, in the grand scheme of things. He’s basically a Lemarchand's box for kids. Do not trust him. 

[vintagecomicads]

MAGIK(tm) (Illyana and Storm Limited Series) Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1983.

A rare early hot-dog-borne example of “owo face” in North American media. 

Also, are we seeing the chef’s eyebrows making shapes UNDER his hat somehow, or are they ghost eyebrows? Or are they embroidered “surprised eyebrow” designs on the hat itself? There’s a lot to unpack here.