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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Heroes World Ad - 1976

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F.O.A.M. member Aaron Bias sent me a bunch of pages from the 1976 "Heroes World" catalog (actually known as The Superhero Catalog on the cover), and one of them was this, a page I've never seen before, featuring a lot of stuff with Aquaman on it! Thanks Aaron!

I'm not even going to get into the travesty that is Aquaman not being included in the top half of the page's "Super-Hero Baby Brigade" line of plush dolls (don't get me started again on the whole Shazam!-instead-of-Aquaman thing), and instead concentrate on all the fun Super Friends party favors at the bottom, all using that classic Alex Toth stock shot.

As you can see, these products got a lot use in my house:
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...you know, I never noticed before that, on all the SF merchandise, the line-up goes, from left to right, Robin, Batman, Superman, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman, except on the centerpiece, where its flipped. Huh?

Over the years, I've managed to find all these items over again, except for the centerpiece and the cups. Off to eBay!

7 comments:

Richard said...

The centerpiece is two sided, right? So if the image on one side is Robin on the left and Wonder Woman on the right (as seen in the upper photo) the image on the reverse must necessarily be flipped over to have Wonder Woman on the left and Robin on the right (as seen in the lower photo) or else the silhouette doesn't work.

IADW said...

Wow - I must be getting too old...

There is such an unsung craft in hand-drawn ads, pre-photoshop and text programmes - what a great time to be an illustrator!

Wings1295 said...

Cool stuff & some great old pics there, Rob! The closest we came to Super-Hero birthday items was Superman/Batman cakes my mother would make with the Wilton cake pans. No Aquaman, though. :(

Luis said...

Rob,this is one case where I'm glad Aquaman was omitted from the line since he was spared the humiliation of being part of the *shudder* "Baby Brigade".
Also, note how the Batman version is called Bat-Mite, though he in no way resembles Bat-Mite.

Siskoid said...

There IS a stigma attached to Aqua-baby, after all.

rob! said...

RAB-

Duh, I can't believe I missed that, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU CAN SEE BOTH SIDES IN THE VERY PICS I POSTED!! I'm not having a good day.

Dan-

Hand-drawn ads certainly do have a nice, quaint feel to them, but having designed some like that when I starting out, give me desktop publishing any day! :)

Joe-

Yeah, I had fun birthdays. My Mom would always bust out the SF stuff--and then it was all Star Wars, after that. Check out the tie fighter and Darth Vader t-shirt I was rocking for my 7th bday!

Luis-

I want Aquaman on any and all merch, regardless of how silly it might be.

Siskoid-

Good point! This was right around the time DC offed little Arthur Jr.


And..Is it me, or does Baby Spidey look vaguely Asian?

Plaidstallions said...

My son has a wall piece with that logo on it, I have no idea where I got it.