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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Justice League of America Postcard - 1961

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This amazing little item is a postcard, presumably sent to regular DC readers, promoting DC's new Justice League of America comic book.

I had never seen this beauty before, until F.O.A.M. member Kyall Coulton, who runs the awesome Wonder Woman Collectors website, who in turn got it from a woman named Julie Kim,
sent a scan of it to me.

Since we can see from the address side of the card that Ms. Kim was not the original recipient, we can only imagine how many hands this passed through before it finally landed to her, and then through her onto Kyall's Wonder Woman site.

Not only do I love the idea of such direct marketing like this (all to sell a magazine that cost a dime!), but the JLA are so low-key and charming: Superman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman,
Aquaman, Green Lantern, and Batman, in full parade formation.

Thanks for sharing this with the Shrine Kyall!

5 comments:

Diabolu Frank said...

Wowee-wow-wow! I assume it was hand colored by the kid...

Richard said...

I had no idea DC ever did anything like this. I wonder if the recipients were taken from subscription lists or were they readers who sent in letters?

Frank, it's really hard to tell at this size. But if that was a black-and-white postcard later hand-colored, the youngster responsible had a very steady hand *and* had exactly the right crayons to match all the costumes (and martian skin tone) precisely. I'd hope he or she was later hired by DC. But I think it may actually have been printed in color, and the mottling effect is an artifact of the paper stock, age, etc.

Russell said...

This is adorable! It reminds me of the post card DC sent out in the late 70s early 80s when you sent them a question or letter. That was the JLA Mail Room picture, and was in black and white.

It is hard to tell, but I'd guess somebody somewhere along the way colored this in by hand. It just has that look, and I know that if *I* had gotten this as a kid, I would have colored it. :-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Rob & Kyall. Cool indeed.

This IS from the time when the first real Fandom Generation was making itself heard, through fanzines, contacts with DC, etc.

This is a tangible artifact of that changing circumstance.

Best,
-Craig W.

Jim Kealy said...

Looks to me as though it was coloured using

crayons..!!,.and does that number on the front of

the card at the bottom of the date stamp refer to

the year ? ,it does seem so.