Sea Monkeys Ads Comic Books
Long time comic readers might remember ads in the pages of 60s 70s comics selling live squirrel monkeys for only 25.
Sea monkeys ads comic books. In the beginning we comic book. Around the same time von braunhut founded transcience corporation to streamline the manufacturing and sales. George has the story of one fan who bought one which resulted in an er visit and 28 stitches. Originally sea monkeys didn t sell at all.
Old comic book ads x ray specs sea monkeys kit charles atlas workout if something seems to good to be true. An updated ad campaign began to appear in comic books in 1964. First they were just miniature shrimp with an incredibly short lifespan. Obviously being a superhero was not all.
Share share tweet email. The impact these ads had on his imagination is spelled out in his 2004 short film flip about a boy who dreams of the wonderful life such 1 products could bring him. Read on true believer. Here are 10 of the most outrageous comic book advertisements ever.
You know how the story goes. By jorge khoury sep 28 2008. Sea monkeys could be ordered by mail directly from the sea monkey headquarters. One of the ubiquitous and most intriguing ads that could be found in the pages of a comic book were those for sea monkeys an underwater family of weird little mammalian fish that you could keep all to your own.
It wasn t that no one was buying them it was that no one wanted to sell them so harold got the idea to place an ad for instant life inside comic books to market directly to kids. Comics i was never going to be spider man no matter how i tried to swing from washing lines or scale neighborhood walls or tumble out of trees. Demarais who is 39 became fascinated with mail order comic novelities as a kid in small town siloam springs arkansas where he s lived most of his life. Sea monkeys were intensely marketed in comic books throughout the 1960s and early 1970s using illustrations by the comic book illustrator joe orlando.
The comic book squirrel monkeys. Many purchasers were disappointed by the dissimilarity and by the short lifespan of the animals. Vintage comic book ads that were too good to be true. We ve tried to bring you the worst comic book ads of the bunch.
The name instant life was replaced with the more market friendly sea monkeys a moniker inspired by the brine shrimps long tails and ability to live in water. If today s generation y and z ers accuse us baby boomers of being cynical and distrustful well i for one blame it all on comic books. These showed humanoid animals that bear no resemblance to the crustaceans. How many of us who grew up in the 1960s and early 70s were.
There are a few upsetting truths about sea monkeys.