ADVERTISING IN THE 1980s

This is how we used to sell independent comics back in the old days - before Diamond became to "only" distributor. I'd put together a flyer - either 81/2 x 11" or 11x17" folded in half to make four pages, and send out 500 to 1,000 copies to each of the distributors: Bud Plant, Capital City, CavCo, Comics Unlimited, Diamond, Glenwood, Friendly Frank's, Heroes World, Styx, Second Genesis, Sunrise, and a few others.

Then the distributors would send a copy to each of their client comic book shops along with the hundreds of other flyers from publishers, and wait for the orders to come in. They were usually black & white ads, but sometimes I used colored ink on colored paper to try to get the shops attention. The August Releases (pictured above) was an 8 pager, black & white on newsprint to show all the books we had in the works.

I also ran ads in the comics press - predominantly the Comics Buyer's Guide, Comics Interview and Amazing Heroes. Click on the ads to the right for a closer look or to see all of the pages in a flyer.