No-Frills Comics Subscriptions

December 1983

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi #3

This has got to be the most bland subscription ad I’ve ever seen! No characters, no fancy graphics, not even an interesting font! Come on, Marvel – you can do so much better than this!

However, one thing that caught my eye on this page was “Blip” – I’d never heard of that title before. Upon looking it up, apparently since kids at this time were spending more of their money on video games and less on comic books, Marvel decided to try cashing in on the video game craze by publishing a magazine about it! It only lasted 7 issues, but it looks amazingly geeky, and I’d love to get my hands on it!

More Coastal Comics

January 1998

Thunderbolts #10

Yeah, I know ads like this aren’t super exciting, but I’m a historian and a completist, so I feel compelled to share all the ads from the books I’ve scanned.

Anyway, here we’re visiting East Coast Comics again, almost a decade after the last ad I published from them. And I thought I had a lot of tags last time – well, I think I broke my record again, because in addition to all the regular series, they also listed all sorts of limited series and special sets!

I’m sure a lot of these titles can be found in quarter bins today, but I wonder just how many of them have skyrocked in value.

 

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Heroes Return… To Your Mailbox!

January 1998

Thunderbolts #10

It’s another subscription page – this time from 1998. This one seemed to have far fewer titles than other subscription pages, but upon comparing it to one from 1997, I guess they’re actually pretty close.

X-Men aren’t quite as dominant in this one as they were in the previous year, and the number of Star Trek titles has been cut in half – and speaking of cutting Star Trek in half, here they have “Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy” listed as one of the titles – all good Trekkies should know that Starfleet is one word!

So at this point, we’ve got subscription prices ranging from $1.66 to $1.83 per issue (or $1.25 for Marvel Vision) at a time when cover price for comics was $1.99. While saving any money is always a good thing, that’s only a discount of 8% to 16%. Without doing any official research on this, I’d say that this is probably a low point (or close to it) for subscription savings.

 

Do you enjoy reading Comic Book Ads? If so, please consider supporting me by clicking here for my Amazon link – I’ll get a percentage from everything you order! Thanks!

Wanna Join the Mile High (Comics) Club?

January 1998

Thunderbolts #10

So, this seems like it’s supposed to be a two-page ad, since it lists all of the Marvel Comics but only gets to C in DC, but I swear this is all there is! I guess since this was in a Marvel comic, maybe that’s why they focus so heavily on Marvel titles, and just use DC as space filler.

In going through and adding tags for all the different titles, I was surprised by how many I’ve never heard of – I mean, I expected there to be quite a few, but not this many!

So these comics are only 50¢ each – not a bad price! However, there’s a minimum order of $20, which means you’d have to order 40 books in order to get anything! I guess for hardcore collectors that probably wouldn’t be a problem, but when I go digging thorough a bargain bin, I usually only pick up a few issues – a couple times when I’ve really gone nuts, I might’ve gotten up to 20, but I don’t think I’ve ever bought 40 comics at a time!

 

Do you enjoy reading Comic Book Ads? If so, please consider supporting me by clicking here for my Amazon link – I’ll get a percentage from everything you order! Thanks!

Quaking in Their X-Boots!

January 1998

Thunderbolts #10

It took me a minute to figure out exactly what this was – I didn’t really do any PC gaming, so while I’ve heard of Quake, I’m not really that familiar with it. This seems to be a package that lets you re-theme your Quake game to X-Men.

So it seems that in this game, you go around, taking out evil clones of X-Men… but don’t actually have contact with the real X-Men themselves? Seems like kind of a cheat to me.

 

Do you enjoy reading Comic Book Ads? If so, please consider supporting me by clicking here for my Amazon link – I’ll get a percentage from everything you order! Thanks!

Iron Santa!

March 1985

G.I. Joe #33

Hello, loyal comic book ad enthusiasts! Sorry I missed last week – I was busy with Christmas stuff. But you know who else is busy with Christmas stuff? Iron Man! Yes, he’s bringing folksy, outdated, generic toys to all the girls and boys! …Or maybe he’s just trying to get you to buy comics.

Only 42¢ per copy?! What I wouldn’t give for that price (or even the full cover price of 60¢) these days! Why/when/how did comics get so expensive? Most new issues I buy are $3.99 each! Oh, well – maybe if I’m lucky I’ll find some comics under the tree this year!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone out there!

 

Do you enjoy reading Comic Book Ads? If so, please consider supporting me by clicking here for my Amazon link – I’ll get a percentage from everything you order! Thanks!

And I’m Sure He Was Never Heard From Again…

February 1995

X-Force #43

I have a passing familiarity with X-Men and some of their storylines, but am far from an expert. However, according to this ad, apparently Professor X died in 1994/’95!

Considering that this store is holding a memorial service, it seems like it was a pretty big deal at the time, but did anyone really think he was gone for good? Comic book deaths are so fleeting, especially for main characters – I’m always at least a little suspicious when someone “dies” in a comic.

Subscriber-Man, Subscriber-Man, Does Whatever a Subscriber Can!

February 1995

X-Force #43

It’s the ’90s, and X-Men are in full swing! Despite the fact that Spider-Man is the one pictured in the ad, he’s only got six titles, while X-Men and all their various spinoffs have a whopping 13!

 

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I Could Eat Wolverine for Breakfast!… Or a Snack…

February 1995

X-Force #43

After posting an entire series of ads from an X-Men comic, here’s an ad that actually features the X-Men! The ’90s were a good time for the X-Men – it seemed like there was every conceivable type of X-Men-branded product everywhere you turned! Well, here’s one result of that: X-Men gummy snacks!

Personally, I don’t think I’d want to put anything “X-ploding with power” in my mouth, but to each his own, I guess.

 

Do you enjoy reading Comic Book Ads? If so, please consider supporting me by clicking here for my Amazon link – I’ll get a percentage from everything you order! Thanks!

Everyone Can Sell – Unlike Those Snobs at GRIT!

September 1963

X-Men #1

Well, this is it – the final ad from X-Men #1! Here’s a great opportunity for you to earn money by selling Christmas cards!

Just based on this ad, I like Wallace Brown better than GRIT – they actually encourage everyone to participate in this – not just boys! If I’d been a kid in the ’60s who wanted to earn money, this seems like a better (and somewhat more legitimate) option than a lot of the other choices out there.

 

Do you enjoy reading Comic Book Ads? If so, please consider supporting me by clicking here for my Amazon link – I’ll get a percentage from everything you order! Thanks!