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Friday, January 13, 2012

Aquaman Volume 4 House Ad - 1991

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This grim, downbeat ad for the then-new Aquaman series (by Shaun McLaughlin and Ken Hooper) was a one-sheet handed out by DC staffers to attendees of the 1991 Dragon*Con, the only time I've ever heard of such direct marketing for a comic book title.

The ad itself is fine (if, as I said, a bit of a downer)--I like how it repositions the Sea King a bit, establishing that this new book will be more than just "Aquaman vs. Black Manta and/or Ocean Master" all the time. But what's with that "Returns in October" chicken scrawl?


Thanks to my Fire and Water Podcast co-host The Irredeemable Shag for sending this in to the Shrine!

3 comments:

Tempest127 said...

Loved that series---great, solid version of Aquaman. Not enough Garth, of course, but that was mainly because he was in that darn century-long coma (made up for nicely in issue #8). Excellent read end to end!

Marc Tyler Nobleman said...

That's pretty powerful, I'd say. It doesn't come across as heavy-handed to me. Nice (yet odd) that they combined a promo with a message.

The Irredeemable Shag said...

rob - Thanks for featuring this! I've always enjoyed this piece and figured it must have appeared somewhere else. I know they produced a color sticker of Aquaman from this image which I used to have (lost many years ago).

I enjoyed this series and wish they'd had more time to stretch their water-wings and dive into more ecological issues.

The Irredeemable Shag
http://firestormfan.com