Advertising Comics, 1940

Comics Go Legit, Sorta

In an earlier post I presented some comic-strip-style ads that found their way into the New York Art Director's Club 1939 Annual of Advertising Art. In this installment I offer the three strips that appeared in the 1940 edition.

In those bygone days three kinds of comic-like strips appeared in American magazines and newspapers. The Art Director's Club lumped all three into one category, "continuities." In my blogs I limit "continuities" to the most common sequential ad form: a series of photos or drawings illustrating a story told in typeset captions beneath the pictures. These continuities tended to be illustrated by "classy" illustrators like Albert Dorne, Jon Whitcomb, and James Williamson. The second category, the least common, told the story comic style with balloons and captions, but used photos instead of drawings. The third group was the standard comic we know and love, drawn either by noted cartoonists or by anonymous specialists.

In the hallowed halls of the Art Director's Club, all three types received short shrift. In the Annuals a magazine illustration was often reproduced on a full page. Comics were crammed three to a page at the back of the section. Nonetheless, given the books' high-quality printing, it's possible to extract viewable copies. Of the three 1940 entries the halftoned Wizard of Oz strip suffers the most.

Note the blank spots in the Pep and Oz strips. This suggests they were reproduced either from originals or from early proofs taken before type and stock cuts were added.

This full-page ad introducting Wizard of Oz was drawn by Joe King. In my earlier post you'll find speculation about King, who may have been an eccentric painter--or just someone with the same name. I'd love to see this strip in print. This tiny (3-1/4 by 3-3/4 inches) repro looks really good. I get the impression that in the finished product there may have been typeset captions beneath the panels.Next is an outing with The Captain and the Kids (or was it the Katzenjammer Kids?) credited to Rudolph Dirks. Advertising agency Kenyon & Eckhardt, Inc. produced it for Kellogg's All- Bran cereal. If you read the copy you'll find All-Bran is promoted as a laxative.Finally an energetic geezer named J. Fuller Pep teaches a bunch of kids the glories of Kellogg's Pep cereal. I don't know if J. Fuller was a continuing character. I've never seen another strip featuring him.Another Kenyon & Eckhardt project, the Pep half-page originated at the Johnstone & Cushing comic art studio. These Annuals are useful because sometimes they reveal the names of unsigned commercial artists. Not this time. Only the studio receives an art credit. Has anyone ever seen it in print?

1950s Advertising Comics--2

When You Cash In On a Star
I don't know how far back one can trace the use of celebrities to advertise products. My guess is the turn of the twentieth century, at least. Anyway, the comics pages were always glad to call on a familiar face to hawk food...cigarettes...beauty supplies...automobile parts...you name it. In descending order of fame, here are four advertising comics I enjoy.

Coming in first place is Mr. Ray Milland, a screen star who will be familiar to anyone who likes classic American movies. In 1952 Ray discovered V-8 Vegetable Juice Cocktail while building a cabinet with his friend "Bob." As he recounts in his typewritten voiceovers, Ray had never had a V-8 before, and he promptly introduced everyone at the movie studio to the drink. No wonder Campbell Soup Company hired him for this strip!

A lighter line than most ad strips of the time, and some decent likenesses of Mr. M. As always I'd appreciate any artist ID's.

Golden-voiced Vaughn Monroe was one of the kings of the late Big Band era. He recorded many hits, including the best-known version of "Ghost Riders in the Sky." He also took a fling at being a singing cowboy. Vaughn's music made him rich and famous, while his movies made him a comic strip star. In 1950 he promoted Quaker Puffed Wheat while performing stunts for his new feature, "Singing Guns." Helping him was a remarkably literate six-year-old ("Hello, Mr. Monroe. Your fans are thrilled that you're starring in your first movie!" ) Bet the kid grew up to be an ad copywriter. The artist here did a good job capturing Monroe's likeness. Nice painting of him in the splash panel, too. I notice his movie debut was filmed in the notorious Trucolor process...which means its color probably looks as good today as does this beat-up tearsheet's!

By the way, my folks often tried to get us to eat Puffed Wheat, but it tasted dry and bland. The only thing that could liven up Puffed Wheat was LOTS OF SUGAR!! Which was available pre-applied to Sugar Jets, my favorite breakfasttime tooth-rotter.

Speaking of teeth, give an open-mouthed smile to Bert Parks, unforgettable host of a zillion radio and TV game shows, as well as the Miss America pageant. In this undated strip (probably circa 1950-1952), Bert shows his pearly whites for Vitalis Hair Cream, which guarantees the TV camera won't catch him with a "gooey film" on his hair.

It appears Vitalis left a gooey film on the illustrator's Art-O-Graph, though, because he seems to have had only one photo of Bert to work from. I'm reminded of an old Cracked parody of The Millionaire that John Severin drew . He had obviously been given only one still of Marvin Miller (playing "Michael Anthony," the guy who distributed million-dollar checks). I gather it annoyed him, because Severin drew one caricature of Miller (a full-face shot), made multiple stats, and pasted one onto each Michael Anthony figure throughout the strip, regardless of the position of his body!

Be that as it may, we have one more face from the past: lovely Kitty Kallen, who may not be remembered at all. After a career in the Big Bands, Kitty made a comeback in the 1950s with two hit singles, "Little Things Mean a Lot" and "Chapel in the Moonlight." 1954 was Kitty Kallen's big year. It was also the year she thanked Halo Shampoo for helping launch her career.

To me, using quotation marks within balloons was one of the sure signs of an ignorant comics scriptwriter, right up there with having the tail of a pointer touching the speaker's mouth. But Miss Kallen doesn't mind so long as she has her Halo.

I remember that Halo package well. It was a slick design, a ridged spindle-shaped clear bottle of thick glass. The golden color of the shampoo made a neat glowing reflection on my grandmother's vanity as the sun shone through it. The only shampoo that was aesthetically superior was Prell, with its thick Oz-green bubbles. But I digress.

1950s Advertising Comics

Mr. Coffee Nerves and his Rivals
I don't know if Mr. Coffee Nerves was the first advertising comic strip "super-villain." He certainly was one of the longest-lived. I have plenty of Postum strips in various reprints, but the only real one I own is this battered one-third-page from 1949. It stars the modernized Mr. C. N.: A snazzy jet-pack replaces the old opera cape and a Buck Rogers helmet substitutes for the top hat. The artist is surely Lou Fine. The surprisingly awkward balloon placement interferes with the slick professionalism that marks most Johnstone & Cushing strips.

But Mr. Coffee Nerves wasn't alone in the world of invisible enemies whose lives were devoted to bringing misery to the American family. From 1952 comes this adventure of Peter Pain, the little green man with a strange flat hat and the chin of a 1930s safecracker. Ben Gay to the rescue! The delightful drawing is by Jack Betts. If you want even more Pain, Ger Apeldoorn has a gallery of them here:
http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/search/label/Peter%20Pain

From 1954 comes this chronicle of a rather flabby-looking green guy with "Mr. Stomach Upset" scrawled on his tummy. His flaming trident is about as convincing as his "hep" dialogue in panel two. When he's banished by Pepto-Bismol, he says "Curses!" like his old mentor. Strictly bush league, if you ask me.

I wonder how many of these series pain-pushers there were. If anyone knows who was the first such mascot, won't you let me know?

Big Readership with 10% Balloons!

I'm going to delay describing the other obscure strip I found so I can post this unique item, re-discovered while excavating my computer room. It's from a 92-page, tabloid-sized softcover book called ADvisory Service for Students of Advertising. On the first page is "Copyright 1954 by Thomas E. Maytham, Publisher, Westport, Connecticut." There's no other information about who produced the book.

An introduction positions the magazine-like volume as a way for students of advertising to understand how real ad campaigns are created. The remainder of the slick-paper book comprises full-color spreads featuring case histories of numerous national ad campaigns: Coca Cola, Bufferin, Westclox...and Vaseline Hair Tonic. On the left page is a detailed description of the thinking and research that went into creating the campaign; on the right is a sample of a finished ad. Credits are given for agencies, art directors, even copywriters...but never, ever artists.

The star of the show for me is the final case history: selling Vaseline with Rusty and Dusty comic strips. I scanned the article so you can read it for yourself. It's a fascinating nuts-and-bolts piece, brimming with statistics like "When the total number of balloons occupies less than 10% of the total area of the comic strip, the advertisements fall more often in the high [readership] groups."
Another intriguing statistic maintains that Rusty and Dusty "leads the list of the ten best-read comic strips, with an average 'Men Noted' of 35% and 'Read Most' of 31%."

I don't have the eye for ad agency comics artists that some other bloggers do, so I have no idea who inked the strip. But based on the caveman in panel 2 and, especially, the typical "sock" scene in panel 6, I'd bet dollars to donuts Mike Sekowsky had a hand in the penciling.

In conclusion, I direct you fellow strip artists out there to heed point number 6: "Two or more balloons in this [first] panel may discourage reading appreciably." You've been warned!