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Marvel
Treasury Ads
Below,
courtesy TreasuryFriend Jim Wedaa come pics of
these super-cool Star Wars Treasury Edition display
boxes! I had no idea these even existed; Jim explains:
"They
were actually the shipping boxes which in turn folded
out to become 'dumps' for placement in bookstores. These
boxes are not folded together as I want to keep them
pristine.
The
boxes were made by Whitman and have their logo prominently
displayed. As far as I know there were just two types
of dumps (both seen here.)
They
were packed with either 25 copies of #1, 25 copies of
#2 or 25 copies of both #1 and #2. These two boxes each
contain 13 #1s and 13 #2s."
I
absolutely love these boxes--the graphics are
beautiful and exciting; what kid could've not
wanted to get these books when sold like this?
Just
when I think I've found everything there is to find
concerning the treasuries, some wonderful, er, treasure
like this pops up. Much like the DC
Comics Treasury display box, I really want to
get ahold of a set for myself someday...
Thanks
so much Jim!
In
the 2006 Marvel Holiday Special one-shot, among
other fun things, there's a cover gallery of some previous
Marvel Christmas issues, which leads off with this delightful
surprise--Giant
Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag #1! Not an ad per
se, but I wanted to post this somewhere and this seemed
like the best spot!
While
DC did make some attempts to bring back the treasuries
with their Ross/Dini books in the late 90s, Marvel has
seemingly completely abandoned the format after their
various licensed one-shots in 1983. So it was nice to
see that some people at Marvel still remember their
grand old treasury days.
An
interesting thing to note, however: go to the page for
the original book, look at the cover. On that cover,
Hulk, Thing, Thor and Cap are smiling. Here, they're
all grimacing. What the heck? Did someone go
in and re-draw the faces for this page, which seems
unlikely (and completely pointless), or was the proof
of this piece damaged and some point over the last thirty
years and re-drawn along the way?
I
found this mention of the Flintstones
Christmas Party treasury in the July 1975 issue
of Kull and the Barbarians. It's unusual for two
reasons--one, Marvel did very little promotion for these
HB tie-in books. Second, was that it was in a Bullpen
Bulletins (not "Bulletens") column in one of
Marvel's black and white magazines, which were
always aimed at older readers than the normal color line
anyway.
Next
is from the Bullpen Bulletins page in Marvel's October
1975 issues. Titled "The King is Back! 'Nuff Said!",
Stan's Soapbox relayed the exciting news of "King"
Kirby returning to Marvel, and what he'd be working
on.
Courtesy
TreasuryFriend Brian Heiler is a big advertisement
for coloring books by Parkes Run. The books were as big
as the spread--each of them measured a whopping 17x22''!
And, as you can see, featured old friends Spider-Man,
Hulk, Cap, the crew of the Enterprise, and characters
from the H-B stable.
You
can find the Parkes Run name on some treasuries, too,
like Marvel's
Empire Strikes Back adaptation. They specialized
in coloring books but like Whitman, had their own imprint
for a few licensed titles.
Anyway,
thanks to Brian for the cool scan!
Marvel
didn't advertise their treasury comics with anywhere near
the same effort that DC did. In fact, the first ever ad
for a Marvel treasury (The
Wizard Of Oz) I found was from a DC comic!
(Justice Inc. #2 to be exact)
I
love the little inset picture of the two kids reading
the comic together. Ever try and read something along
with someone else? Really annoying.
Courtesy
of #1 TreasuryFriend
Rogerio Baldino, come several super-cool ads
for Marvel treasuries from the pages of Marvel Tales
and some other titles.
I
love the ad for the Superman
vs. Spider-Man book. Usually, of course, you
could depend on Marvel for sky-high hype to promote
even their weakest material ("The greatest comic
you've ever seen---'Rom the Spaceknight'!!").
And here they are, promoting probably the highest-profile
comic of the time, with the relatively-low-key "This
Says It All!!" tagline. The
other ads underscore one of my pet theories about comics--it
looks awesome when you have a bunch of covers
put together. It just looks so exciting.
Interesting
note: the background color cover for Marvel
Treasury #9 Giant Superhero Team-Up in
the ad is a bright magenta, yet the cover ended up being
a dark blue (ok, maybe not that interesting).
Further
down, the B/W ad is from issue #5 of Marvel's great,
briefly-running magazine Unknown Worlds of Science
Fiction. At the time, Marvel was also publishing
magazines like Dracula Lives, Monsters Unleashed,
Haunt of Horror--all great, fun stuff. Two more
interesting treasury-related tidbits were in that issue
as well.
One
was a subscription ad, where Marvel was offering a deal
where if you subscribed to six titles, you got a seventh
free. You could actually subscribe to Marvel Treasury
Edition (!), but there was a note that said: "Sorry,
pilgrims, but your free seventh sub cannot be Marvel
Treasury Edition." Damn!
The
other was in the letters page, where a reader asked
if they were possibly going to produce a full-color
UW annual. Marvel's response was:
Well,
I love the idea, but I guess i'm thirty + years
too late. Sadly, the magazine folded with the next issue,
so we never got to see the dreamed-of treasury. *sigh*
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