EC Comics house ads!

[alicemacher]

Nearly all comics publishers run ads regularly for their own titles, within their own titles. EC Comics, in the early 50s, had more fun with many such ads than did most of their competition.



This ad, from Two-Fisted Tales #30 (Nov.-Dec. 1952), introduced Mad with Jack Davis caricatures of the EC editors and artists, each contributing his own signature.





This one, from Vault of Horror #30 (April-May 1953), features art by John Severin.





Within a year of its publication, MAD had become such a big seller that many other publishers rushed out "wacky humour" titles of their own. EC responded to this, in Mad #11 (May 1954), with not one but two parodies of the standard "beware of imitations" advertising trope. Both feature Jack Davis art; the first also highlights Basil Wolverton's infamous "spaghetti and meatballs"-style cover (of that very issue), beside the magazine it spoofs.







To be sure, EC around the same time also introduced its own "imitation" of Mad. In one of its most clever house ads (also in Mad #11), Jack Davis parodied Maidenform's hugely successful "I dreamed I [did some action] in my Maidenform bra" campaign:





And here's a Panic ad illustrated by Bill Elder, from Two-Fisted Tales #38 (July 1954):





EC's creative house ads didn't stop with pushing the comics themselves. They also encouraged readers to sign up for the EC Fan-Addict Club. These ads, from Weird Science-Fantasy #24 and #25 (June and Sept 1954), feature art by Wally Wood and Jack Davis, respectively. Note the snarky text at the bottom of the second one.







Later in 1954, as parent and church groups intensified their campaign against horror and crime comics, EC ran a very different sort of ad. Illustrated by Davis, "Are You a Red Dupe?" (Tales from the Crypt #43, Aug-Sept 1954) tapped into the early Cold War paranoia of the time by portraying those in favour of comics censorship as no better than communists. (This was sadly ironic given that, in the very same month, EC's Shock Suspenstories #16 featured a story, "The Hazing," which was very much against McCarthyist finger-pointing.)





Mad magazine, as EC's last surviving title (eventually surviving the publisher itself), would continue the tradition of funny (and self-deprecating) ads. But that's for another post.

Comments

[zapbiffpow]

Whoa, so that cartoon to the left of the first "Beware of Imitations" ad wasn't from the 90's? That's not some kind of image manipulation, or something? Because it reminds me vividly - vividly - of Tom Bunk's work on MAD.

So either it's pure coinkidink, or the man is immortal. Thanks for posting these!

[alicemacher]

Nope, not an image manipulation. Basil Wolverton was doing gross-out art as early as 1946, when he won a contest challenge to draw Lena the Hyena, a Li'l Abner running gag character whose face had previously never been shown in the strip. You can see more of his 1954 Mad work here.