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All-In-One Cigarette Lighter FOR KIDS!

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H. And S. Sales Co. truly stepped into it when they ran this ad in comic books during the 50s, and these were comic books intended for children. The ad is for their All-In-One Cigarette Lighter and Full-Pack Case that comes with personalized engraving in 23 karat gold, supposedly because they were out of 24 karat gold at the time, and for $1.98 isn't it a bad deal considering it would be about $28 today. The problem is a good portion of the comics this ad was shown in were meant for kids, and each ad had its own separate message letting readers know that it was an introductory offer for that particular issue. Some of the comics for the lighter were adventure comics for more mature kids like Western Fighters, Space Detective, and Rulah: Jungle Goddess. The fork in the road is the ads they had done for comics that were specifically aimed at toddlers, mostly from Ziff-Davis Publishing with kid-friendly titles like The Teenie-Weenies. What really kills it is that the little comic strip...
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Damn Yankee Girl

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For someone who only had two appearances, Yankee Girl surpassed her meager run to being one of the most identified good girls in comics. The superheroine first appeared in Dynamic Comics issue 23 from IW Publications in 1947, the series itself was an imprint from Canada's Superior Publishers. She didn't show up again until 1964 in Danger Comics issue 16 from Super Comics which was also an imprint of Comic Media and drawn by Miss Masque artist Ralph Mayo in the 50s but didn't see daylight until a decade later. There was a character labeled Yankee Girl that came out before this from 1941, but she was really an adventurer named Kitty Kelly who sometimes wore a superhero-themed outfit. The genuine Yankee Girl was Lauren Mason, a socialite who had the ability to gain superpowers whenever she said the phrase Yankee Doodle Dandy. How she gained these powers, which included super-strength, flight, and durability, is never revealed, although it's obvious to see that they copied ...
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Kids Can Relive The Horrors Of The Civil War

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Hey kids, wanna relive the fun times of the American Civil War? Then, boy howdy, do the fine folks at Josely Co. have a deal for you! Aside from being one of the darkest chapters in our nation's history, somebody thought that glamorizing the horrors of the Civil War in cheap toys intended for children was a great idea. Josely Co. ran comic ads for this since the 60s, and their kit came with 150 soldiers for each side that were blue and grey along with cannons, ships, and wagons that were all flat cutouts, so essentially, you're just buying a set of plastic-molded paper dolls that crack to pieces just by looking at them. For the time, A dollar and half doesn't seem like too much, but considering its over sixteen smackers nowadays, that's more than too much for some 2D garbage. Whether it was a coincidence that Josely chose 150 soldiers for this was inspired by the Combahee River Raid where Harriet Tubman help Col. James Montgomery and lead 150 soldiers against the South ...
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Beowulf: Dinosaur Hunter

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The Eastern Color Printing Company began as one of the founding publishers of comic books including Famous Funnies. One of their few one-shots was Conquest in 1955 which did short bios of historical figures, one of which was the fabled Beowulf in a story drawn by Bill Ely, although here they stuck with the supposedly trendier name of Beowolf The Mighty. The opening narration mockingly states that Beowolf was even stronger than the superheroes of time, although Beowulf probably couldn't sneeze an entire galaxy to dust like Superman. The story gives him a short intro of being a brave warrior, and gets called to Denmark by King Hrothgar to tangle with a particularly nasty monster called Grendel, although for this adaptation of the legend Grendel is a freaking dinosaur. Whether its a T-Rex or an Allosaurus that managed to survive the Ice Age isn't told since there weren't any eggheads from Jurassic Park around at the time, Grendel is obviously a ravaging reptile instead of a lu...
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Landor: The Fresh Monster Maker

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Famed Sheena artist Bob Powell used the pseudonym Gregory Torey when he created the character of Landor, Maker Of Monsters. It was originally intended be just a filler in the first issue of Harvey Publications' Speed Comics but went on to have it be a regular feature in the first 11 issues, although each one was short around 4-pages long. Landor was one of the first genuine supervillains to get his own segment in a major comics anthology and not a regular foil for a reoccurring costumed hero. Landor is a generic mad scientist who creates a new monster for each issue, and lather, rinse, repeat. Some have seen him as a ripoff of Dr. Frankenstein, but he evolved into being a hideously deformed figure after surviving a fire and now sporting wearing a reaper robe. Most of Landor's experiments were foiled by the generic adventurer duo of Anthony Torrence and his perpetually single fiance Marcia, occasionally with Anthony's old school chum Kung Fu-Tse who was also a criminal exper...
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Approved Comics Before The Comics Code

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As hypocritic as the Comics Code Authority was when it was first established in Oct. 1954, there was a series of comics that was actually titled Approved Comics. The strange thing is that it ceased publications just a few months before the Comics Code went into effect which was set up to cater to the panic that moral monarchs like Dr. Fredrick Wertham set up in the early 50s with his book Seduction Of The Innocent preaching that youth were being corrupted by horror and crime comics that went outside the accepted standards and would only allow approved comics to be circulated. Leading up to this was an imprint of Ziff-Davis Publishing called Approved Comics that started in 1950 which included titles like Crime Clinic, Weird Thrillers, Tops In Adventure, and the original Cloak And Dagger. Eventually, Ziff-Davis sold several of their titles to St. John Publications which were simply labeled Approved Comics, even though it wasn't titled that. Within the span of six months from Mar.-Aug...
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Expand Your Pickwick Library

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Pickwick Books strikes again! After WWII they plastered dozens of issues with this 2-in-1 ad for two totally different lines. One of which was for self-taught language books including Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Polish with Pickwick claiming this would be the best way to plan a postwar campaign whether it would be for business or pleasure. Considering that they used a picture grab of a leggy samba dancer would indicate Pickwick intended this to sell more to lonely former soldiers, especially when it boasts that Spanish is only good for romance and opportunity, although you might want to dedicate more than just 10 minutes a day to it for a foreign language to sink in. The ad also boasts that it will offer a set of books to learn numerous fighting styles, one of which is plain old "scientific" boxing, while the others are for "police" wrestling and "police" jiu-jitsu. Now how police wrestling and jiu-jitsu are different from whatever type they were...
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