On History: Comic Comic Book Ads

If you're going to take out a full page ad in a comic book, it's not that great a leap of logic to present it in a comic format. Take advantage of the medium you're advertising in, right? And while the classic Charles Atlas "Hero of the Beach" ads are the most famous (probably followed by the Hostess ads featuring licensed superheroes), they were hardly the first or the last to utilize the idea. So for today's post, I've pulled together a small collection of full page comic book ads done in a comic format. I believe the earliest one I have here is the Sam Spade hair tonic ad from 1948.
Perhaps worth noting is that the Spalding ad was drawn by Jack Davis, Captain Tootsie by C.C. Beck, and Tarzan by Joe Kubert. I'm guessing Sgt. Shark was done by a three-year-old.

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