As you know, there’s a substantial Comics section that’s periodically refreshed and fixed; still some issues to address, but it’s not one of the sites that makes me wince when I think about it. Huge? It is huge. Somewhere in the depths you’ll find Archie comics, and also ads from 70s comics, but this is an entirely different set.

I’m not a fan of Archie comics. I’ve nothing against them, but they were never my bottle of pop. I liked the girls, and the timeless smalltown life. But while every iteration of Archie has left me cold, I liked the idea that it was out there, a piece of American pop culture that connected the decades. There was a radio show, too. It annoys me.

Anyway. This comic is a Laugh-Out. Without the Loud part. In text terms it’s LO. What does this mean? Well, children, the key is in the letters “TV,” which refer to television. And hence Laugh-In, a TV show cancelled years before. But this doesn’t have anything to do with TV. At all.

Archie doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for the lower classes:

Of the comic itself, I’ll say nothing, because it’s just standard Archie hijinx. Hey Jughead! You eat a lot, yet remain slender! You must be throwing up in the school bathroom! Oh, here comes Reggie, sneering like a Dreamworks character. And so on.

The high price of a threesome, I guess:

In 1976 dollars, that's about $40. More to the point, he predicted the events of 2001: note the two towers below "911."

No, let’s consider the ads, which are as 1976 as you can get.

NECK-KNACK

The Love one looks like some Dr. Strange spell cast in the Ditko years. I’m not sure why there was a foot. Except that bare feet were Carefree and Honest and Real and Back to Nature and all that, minus the stepping-on-rusty-nails-or-cowpies part.

TRANSFERS

You think you’re getting a shirt. You’re not getting a shirt. You sent your buck away to Encore House, Roberts Lane, Glen Head NY.

It’s a small part of Lungeyelan, and I can’t find a Roberts Lane. (They were responsible for the Neck-Knacks, too.) There’s a Roberts Road. All residential. I’m guessing this guy ran the company out of the basement.

Back to the ads!

“The cute child next door will love you for this gift.”

Eeeeehhh yeah, don’t do that.

They’re made from Genuine Styrene!

Address: 160 Amherst, East Orange, NJ. It’s a laundromat. Could’ve been commercial then; could’ve been a house.

Every lad spent hours looking through these pages.

		I had this. Even better: I have this.

Speaking of pens:

Some sort of crystal set? Guaranteed to pull in several stations in your area! But to be honest all you'll get it static.

People never talk about how creepy Sea-Monkeys were.

On the back cover, the enticement we always wondered if we should try. Prizes? Sure! But CASH. Ahh, cash.

There was, of course, a bitter lawsuit.

The decision is not overly long or complicated. Seems like a classic example of the family business vs. the friend who joins the biz and comes up with some good ideas.

In 1956, O'Hara suggested, and developed in large measure, a program conducted under the name "Sales Leadership Club" to promote the sale of imprinted Christmas cards and other greeting cards. This involved some variation of the same marketing plan used by Junior Sales and had greater advantages both for the young distributors and for the sponsors of the program. It used in part the same customers lists and also some rented lists.

An initial test period by a partnership was undertaken before this operation also was incorporated in 1958 as Sales Leadership Club, Inc. (Sales Leadership). The partnership filed a partnership tax return for the test period showing as equal partners only Willard and Ryland Robbins. O'Hara received no income from that partnership. Ryland Robbins could not recall whether O'Hara was told in advance that Sales Leadership Club was to be incorporated. In any event, O'Hara became an incorporator of Sales Leadership and was shown on certificates of condition as having subscribed to one share of its stock.

And so on.

There’s a Sunshine Art Studios in Mankato, but I don’t think it’s the same company. They’ve only been in business for 60 years. The company that put ads in cmics was around in 1944, according to the obit of one of the family members who joined it.

I’d give you some links to their products, but it’s pinterest hell.

Perhaps you’re wondering if anyone took them up on the offer, and sold cards. Heck yes. I googled around, found some odd small blogs where people discussed how it brought them out of their shell, taught them skills, provided exciting moments of waiting for the prize to arrive through the mail.

Oh, we were all tempted. But most of us could see ahead to inevitable disappointment, and some of us were mortified by the idea of knocking on strangers’ doors to sell greeting cards. It’s not like you couldn’t get them down the street at the drug store or the grocery store or the Ben Franklin. If these were so good, why weren’t they in the stores?

So you're wondering about what the comic was about? Reggie spies on Arche and Jughead and Betty and Veronica and thinks they're all on a date. Hilarity, resulting, etc.

There was also a Li'l Jinx. I knew about Li'l Jinx from reading an Archie someone had left at the dentist's or Grandma bought to amuse the grandkids. I had no idea I was looking at characters that went back to the 40s - and I probably would have been surprised to learn she'd be revived in the impossibly futuristic year of 2012, but that's what happens.

Everyone connected with the art and genres we were discussing yesterday is forgotten, but the comic books from the 40s abide. It's a sweet spot: that stuff keeps incapable of being forgotten.

Finally: here's something to carry us through the week. It's . . . it's not Lance Lawson!

But it's a strange case, so it has that going for it.

Well, his revenge is usually . . explosive.

That'll do; see you tomorrow! Unless you skipped ahead. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT