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Hmmm…

That design is Sam Wilson Captain America, not movie Falcon.

Makes you wonder if this will not be movie inspired promotion (which has had a history with Dr Pepper).

Hi…can I purchase these cans with box? Tks

Marvel’s text ads were house ads — all pitching some book or other. I don’t remember seeing any for advertisers’ products. Harvey also ran at least one of these I remember, in 1974; again, a house ad.

Quality ran in-story half pages in Doll Man and other titles in the early 1940s, so it started very early. Even when there weren’t ads, comics art would sometimes share pages with Statements of Ownership — this happened at DC in the 1960s, and all of Gold Key’s ran on comics pages. Those tended to appear on the last story page.

A search of Heritage past auctions turns up quite a lot of half-page art; my sense has always been that those pages have been less desirable by collectors. I don’t remember seeing regular ad positions sold after the 1970s, though.

Reprising my comment from the previous story:

As someone who once oversaw DC’s ad sales business and worked with the team there to nurse it back to relative good health, I applaud this effort. As the concept appears to be an extension of the well established “Left Twix / Right Twix” campaign, it’s a pretty smart strategy . And if the creative teams were advised in advance and given time to accommodate (or even make it work for them), the better. And if DC scored a PAID ad (rare these days for them), kudos to all involved.

It should be obvious to anyone with a marketing sense and an understanding of brands that an initiative like this is not an indication of the establishment of a half-page ad unit. What it is is a vote of confidence by a national brand in the relevance of pop culture comics as a medium and the power of comics readers as a distinct demographic.

I am on Team Comics, which means that whatever keeps the publishing model viable is a good thing. The Twix ad is ugly and the use of a photo is poor match with the content of the magazine. Still, more money flowing in the publishing end of DC is a win.

Well, speaking as someone with marketing sense and an understanding of brands, I think you’re missing the point.

If the ad is divisive and produces alienation in the target demographic (deserved or undeserved) then it can’t be said to be an effective promotion of the product. It’s failed to do its job. Whether or not this initiative is a massive “vote of confidence” from a “national brand” is ultimately irrelevant in the face the response it has received… which thus far has ranged from bemused indifference to anger. Hardly a positive reception, and unlikely to meet its basic function in selling candy. Smart advertising strategies ought to be eye-catching, compelling, but unobtrusive. Why do you think people hate pop-ups?

I don’t think that any reasonable person expects ad-free comics. But I think that it’s a terrible idea to insert advertising material onto the same page as comics material. Nobody looked at this and thought that it was a clever allusion to the “Left Twix/ Right Twix” campaign, they just saw a disruption to the story they were reading. This was many of the many reasons why the use of the half-page ad unit was dropped decades ago, and its return indicates a failure of marketers to understand the demographic. It’s very hard to accept that this was a good move on the part of DC or the marketers of Twix. It’s a plainly an ill-conceived campaign.

ARCH – calm down and stop lying to yourself.
To quote you:

“Nobody looked at this and thought that it was a clever allusion to the “Left Twix/ Right Twix” campaign, they just saw a disruption to the story they were reading. ”

These comics are literally not out yet. No-one, (I repeat No-one) has read this story. You’re working yourself up into a frenzy and lying to yourself.

Chill out.

A paid advert is a good thing, it means continued survival of the comics industry. Huzzah.

And I agree with Steve – this ad split fits with Twix’s current Right/Left campaign. It may not be ‘clever’ but it’s also not haphazard. A global brand wanted to be in a comic book! AND designed an advert specifically to appear in a comic book! This is cause for celebration!

For those here proclaiming that this is some sort of trailblazing epiphany in innovative advertising, I seem to recall one of salesmanships basic tenets: advertising is supposed to entice, not repel. The overwhelming reaction to the news so far looks like it isn’t going to make DC comic book fans run out and buy Twix bars.

Ad men might be high-fiving themselves over this, but maybe they don’t realize that comic fans are a very special audience and a very special breed of consumer. They take all aspects of their books very seriously — from the content to the physical package. You can’t just waddle into the middle of someone else’s house, make an unsightly mess and then have us all stare at it and say ‘thank you’.

I’ll bet you one crisp Canadian $5 bill that this will have a negligible effect on the amount of DC books purchased in the near future. I base this assumption based off the fact that every time a comic company has increased the price of a comic or decreased page count in the past eight years I’ve been working in the industry, I had maaaaaaaaybe a couple people raise a stink in store, and of those people, maaaaaaaaybe one of them actually didn’t buy the book on general principle.

DC would have been stupid to not take this money. They might lose a few people, but I guarantee you the money they made by having the ad run more than offsets that. Just like losing a few people while gaining a dollar for every comic sold or gaining many dollars for every page cut makes sense. Of course, there is a point of diminishing returns, but this isn’t that.

I never thought I would say this, but the two best books on my pull list these days are from Image: they’re both by Warren Ellis, which means they contain actual content; they’re beautifully drawn by artists who actually have some idea of how to tell a story in pictures; they cost $2.99 rather than the standard $3.99 for most everything else; and they HAVE NO ADS. AT ALL. How Image can afford to do this in comics with no superheroes in them is a mystery, particularly when one of the Big 2 now finds it necessary to interrupt not just the story but the PAGES in a story with advertising. It’s just inexcusable. I’m a DC guy from since childhood, and this past year I feel like I’m witnessing the death throes of something that doesn’t need to die. DC’s management needs to be replaced.

It’s a trial run that will not go over well. Of course, people will accept the change, but I can’t see a lot of people enjoying a half page comics. It will break up the flow of a lot of stories.

Best thing to do: wait for the trades, or buy digital. (I assume digital comics don’t have ads?)
The Twix “left / right” campaign is pretty stupid. Though not as stupid as those insipid Sonic commercials.

People are still buying those pamphlets? Why?

So what happens when these stories are reprinted as trades? A big blank panel in place of the ad?

At Al@ – they will put the two half-pages together as one page.

As to what others are saying, what ticks off hardcore comics fans who visit comics websites tends to blow right by most comics readers with nary a problem.

“As to what others are saying, what ticks off hardcore comics fans who visit comics websites tends to blow right by most comics readers with nary a problem.”

HA! True that Glen. The # of fans who visit comic website is minuscule compared to the # who buy comics.

Crass. What numbskull thought this was a good idea. Sheesh.

Now for the real questions:

-Will consumers be getting less pages of story for the same cover price?
-How are artists’ rates affected by this?

That looks hideous. If I get books with ads like that, I’ll tape blank paper over the ads, which would be better to look at than that horror. I hate ads in general, but full page ads are easily ignored. I just turn the page, so I suppose this is their way to force me to look at them. I’d sooner give up reading DC comics than put up with ads like that. And why would I want to look at that guy’s face, anyway? They can’t say they’re not intrusive. If they’re on the same page where we’re expecting story, they are intrusive. I’ve been thrown off by full page ads, so this is just going to be worse. Much worse.

I’m out. I was down to two DC comics, and I’m dropping them.

I was picking up six titles in June, but I won’t be now. TOTALLY unacceptable!

Guess my days of reading DC are over. I myself have just started a comic book publisher called Ecliptic Comics Publishers. I would never be so money hungry to place adds on the same pages I have story. DC has really stooped to an all time low. Kind of glad, makes it easier for companies like mine to work our way up when DC is ticking off their customers.

As Bill Hicks said “Once you do an advert you’re off the artistic roll call for life.” I understand the need of advertising to pay for printing etc, but when marketing start to fight, and win, with editorial you know something’s wrong within a company.

There are few independent ads in DC and Marvel comic books.
Where they exist is on the covers.
Inside, it’s all house ads, corporate cousins, or licensees.
DC did this before, back in the 70s. Magazines do it all the time, although those pages usually aren’t visually dense.

I suspect these ads will also appear in the digital comics, allowing DC to count those copies sold as part of the total circulation? (And it’s more difficult to strip out that ad from a scan.)

As for titles like Overture… you did notice that all of the advertising appears in the back, and doesn’t interrupt the story at all? Plus, for an art-driven title like that, DC can eschew the ad and raise the cover price.

Just going to increase trade paperback waiting. This is like drinking salt water to cure thirst.

God, certainly not incitative to go back reading DC universe comics. We pay more and more and have less and less.

I can’t believe people are actually claiming they are going to quit reading DC comics over this. Talk about over-reaction….

There’s no indication here that anyone is losing a page of art. What would normally be one full-page ad and one full-page piece of art are now two half-pages of each. It all adds up the same. And given the theme of Twix’s “left-side vs. right-side” it makes perfect sense. At the same time, unless another advertiser has the same sort of theme to their advertising, I doubt it will happen again.

Yet another sigh-inducing over-reaction to change by the comics-reading audience. You’d almost think someone’s costume had been retconned or something.

Complaints from the writers and artists who’ll have to accommodate the format constraints … those are legit. Designing an arbitrary page to be split into two half pages is awkward, and may not fit what they’re trying to do at that point in the story. It’s an annoying constraint, like prohibiting the use of double-page spreads for splashes and other two-page story layouts, because they might interfere with repagination in a TPB. Creators have a reason to grumble about this.

But readers complaining about half of a two-page spread being given to an ad are missing the point that they already see this every time they turn a page and one of them is a full-page ad. DC and Marvel have done this forever. The only difference here is that usually the ad page and the story page are split left/right rather than top/bottom. That’s it. It’s the same amount of story. The same amount of ad space. It’s laid out differently.

Different. That seems to be real reason behind these fantrums. I remember my cousin with Aspergers reacted like this when the movie theater he went to every Friday night first started running non-movie ads along with movie trailers, saying he was going to stop going to movies because of it. But he didn’t, because ultimately, it’s just another 30-second sales pitch, and once he’d sat thru a couple, he learned to deal with it, ad now he watches them like all the other ads before the movie starts. If he can cope with that, I certainly hope that DC’s audience can cope with this.

Jason A. Quest:

Readers like myself hate this for the same reasons creators hate it: it breaks up the flow and prevents full page spreads and discourages creative panel layouts, which we like. These are legitimate concerns.

Off the subject, I am extremely sorry I clicked on your profile. Gross, dude.

This is nothing new, old is the new new.

I really can’t imagine why they thought this would be a good idea. It disrupts the story and creates more work shuffling around panels when it comes time to release the comic in trade paperback form. There are plenty of good reasons why this kind of advertising hasn’t really been used for forty years.

DC has made so many blunders and weird decisions like this over the past few years, and it makes me wonder if anybody actually knows what they’re doing.

why not do what movies have done for years > product placement. Just have people eating twixes inside the comic world. maby batman has a case of them sitting in his house. if anyone has read the comic powers > then you know sony has made the live action version of it. you want to know what was placed all through it ? right , sony products. from computers to tvs. So maby they need ads but there ways around it then to put ads like this.

The most newsworthy aspect of this story is that DC is actually putting creative effort into ad sales. That’s a good thing for the comics biz. For years it was basically a shoulder shrug and 8 house ads. It’s awesome that a national brand thinks exposure in comics is cool.

With today’s increased sensitivity to the graphic make-up of comics by both the artists and the readers, this is a pretty yucky and tone deaf move. I won’t lose to much sleep about it, but at three or four dollars a pop, I don’t think there needs to be any more reasons to piss off mainstream publishers dwindling readership.

And if I may, a couple of historical notes:

The half page side-by-side ads were a layout of Marvel Comics (not DC) around 1970. This was a cost cutting measure to produce one less page of art, bringing the story page count down to 19 pages (from the previous 20 pages per book.)

DC (mainly throughout the 1960’s) employed third of a page ads (with two thirds of a story page above it.) This type of ad usually appeared at the end of a story and/or a story chapter. In this regard, it was a bit less disruptive than Marvel’s layout since those ads never appeared on facing pages and would be at natural break points in the book. (And most of the time they were filled by those cool DC house ads!) However, the motive was still the same as Marvel’s — three of those broken pages in a book would equal one less page of story and art that was needed to be produced.

Perhaps we’ll start seeing product placement directly integrated into artwork in the future.

Or corporate sponsored storylines:
“Batman meets the M&Ms! The Bitter Secret of Dark Chocolate, REVEALED!”

“UPDATE: An earlier version of the article indicated that Chris was upset with the job DC did integrating the art with the advertising. This is incorrect. He was displeased with the production of the ad itself.”

If I were an artist at DC I WOULD be upset with advertising being integrated into my art/page/panel layout.

It’s like placing a commercial mid-scene of a tv show.

Goodbye DC …. you don’t care about what the fans want any more. It’s all about the dollar! Besides, a lot of your advertised merchandise won’t be available outside the US. How thoughtful. You still think your country is the centre of the world!