Johnson & Smith Co., Quality Novelty

Way back in 1914, a little mail order business called Johnson And Smith Company opened up leading to a plethora of outlandish advertisements that would adorn comic books for decades. In 1935, they started their nationwide campaign to dominate the geek market with full page ads of absurd novelties, including having one as the back cover to the infamous Action Comics #1. The Chicago-based giant peddled everything from monster masks to joy buzzers, and as the years went on, they gathered licenses like Star Trek and Planet Of The Apes. Johnson And Smith had a foothold in the minds of young readers with their tagline, "Things You Never Knew Existed", or at least things you wouldn't bother looking up outside of funny books. Regular items in their catalog included counterfeit money makers, martial arts kits with fake medals, x-ray specs, 7 ft. tall ghosts, hypnosis kits, finger-feeding penny banks, two-headed coins, spooky sound effects records, flesh-eating plants, artificial vampire blood, remote controlled hovercrafts, pistol cigarette lighters, pocket telescopes, portable crime labs, mystery money belts, miniature radios, and ugly hand puppets for upcoming ventriloquists. The company endured through the turn of the millennium and well into the digital age, but all things must pass as they finally closed in 2019. With the advent of Halloween stores as a source of cheap costumes and internet memes replacing practical jokes, Johnson And Smith eventually folded, even though the impact they made on hundreds of comics ads granted them the status level of being the Amazon.com to vintage nerds

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