"GROW MONSTERS?! Yes, please sign me up!" I remember little me thinking, but never having been able to convince my mom, I can only base the next thing I'm going to say on what I was able to find online...I would have been very, very disappointed! After some research I found out these were essentially Chia Pets, cardboard monsters that you spread grass seed paste on and watched their "hair" grow...ugh! I wanted to be a little mad scientist, not a botanist!
MONSTER SIZE MONSTERS! Now these bad boys I fully believed would be the coolest thing ever! As I said before, I discovered horror movies and horror comics when I was about 5 or 6 years old. Some ads promised Frankenstein and Dracula, others Frank and Boney the Skeleton...in any case, the "monster kid" in me couldn't think of anything cooler than the idea of a 7 foot tall monster standing behind my bedroom door! Again...I couldn't sell Mom on these...and turns out, it was probably OK. Depending on which ad and when these were sold, you either got heavier stock paper or vinyl posters. I had envisioned giant plastic action figures, or inflatables of some kind. Funny story though, I did eventually get Frankenstein, sort of...years later, while working in a video store I had the opportunity to bring a cardboard standee of the big guy home...he was a great roommate, and an interesting test of my dates...looming over the bed from behind the headboard for a few years!
And there were Sea-Monkeys! I won this battle! Mom caved and bought me some, but warned that I'd be disappointed...and I was (though that didn't stop me from buying them again as an adult...and being disappointed then too). What kid wouldn't want tiny amphibious people of their own? I fancied myself a miniature Dr. Pretorius (from Universal's "Bride Of Frankenstein") and pictured myself lording over little kings and queens...but they're just tiny shrimp...and they didn't last long...oh, well.
I find it sad these kinds of ads aren't in comics today...somehow reading comics doesn't feel the same without them, even with the potential disappointment involved,...
It is a shame that today's comics no longer have all those great junk ads for toys and fitness programs and martial arts courses and GEDs and other stuff. I suppose the lack of ads also contributes to the ridiculous prices of comic books. But why would you advertise in a magazine with such low circulation as today's comics have?
ReplyDeleteThere's a real joy about going into the comic shop for me, about leafing through real paper pages...I hadn't even thought of it that way, but you're right...lower circulation, more readers going digital...and that makes it seem even sadder to me. I guess "the times they are a changin"
ReplyDeleteI always preferred the drugstore spinner experience. The luck factor of finding something you want, or something old still there in the back, or some weird comic you never heard of...priceless.
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