PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite Mainstream Ads by Comic Book Artists
Gil Kane for Buitoni? Neal Adams for the Air Force? Gene Colan for the telephone company? Dig these and more… — UPDATED 4/19/24: Diggin’ in the vault time — when we go deep into the recesses of the shadowy subterranean 13th Dimension headquarters for great columns that deserve another look. Just for kicks! This one first ran in April 2021. Right on! — Dan — Hey, folks! The celebrated Mr. K’s new book is now available at Amazon — Son of the Unpublished Comic Book Scripts of Paul Kupperberg, collecting scripts for Green Lantern, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Elongated Man and more. Click here to order; it’s $16. Or you can get a signed and personalized copy directly from Paul via PayPal.Me/PaulKupperberg for $19 US or $30 Canadian. Groovy. — Dan — By PAUL KUPPERBERG It’s well known that comic book artists have long lent their talents to the advertising trade; in the 1940s, Captain Marvel artist C.C. Beck created the Captain Marvelish clone, Captain Tootise to sell Tootise Rolls and Tootsie Pops in comic books and in the 1960s, Golden Age Green Lantern co-creator Martin Nodell famously (post-comic book career) co-created an even more recognizable and tastier pop culture figure, Poppin’ Fresh, aka the Pillsbury Doughboy. (Tee-hee!) The source for many of the early comic-book style ads was the advertising agency Johnstone & Cushing under the supervision of art director (and often copywriter) Al Stenzel. Bob LeRose, who would later become one of DC Comics’ top colorists and head of cover production, began his career as a production artist at J&C, which I wrote about in a 1978 DC Profile of Bob: “After finishing school (…) Bob landed a position as Assistant Production Manager at Johnstone & Cushing, an advertising agency specializing in comic ads. Bob’s immediate superior at the agency was Al Stenzel, the man in charge of producing ads in the form of comics… (with such) legendary comics folk as Lou Fine, Leonard Starr, and Creig Flessel. “It was in 1960 that Al Stenzel left Johnstone & Cushing to set up his own studio, taking Bob along as his right-hand man. Working alongside the man he calls ‘the Toscanini of comics’ taught Bob virtually everything he knows about the production and business of comics. The following year, Stenzel’s studio began producing the comics section for Boys’...
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