Comics just don't have a large enough circulation to make advertising in them desirable.

I think the big reason is something you brought up around hiring and mentoring and all the claims against people, comics are not run as a business. Not being run as a business means that there is no concept of extra cash flow is extra cash flow even if it's not go to the bank Rich money. Not being run as a business means no one has an idea of how to restart an external ads department after not having one for 20 to 40 years. Not being a business means no one is sure of how to go find non comics ads that will resonate with comics readers. I specifically think the last one is well demonstrated by the question of why World's Finest is being advertised in Sandman. I think it's also well exemplified by their real inability to know which story lines are resonating and which aren't. So, that's my answer. Comics are not a business in and of themselves. And what makes it worse, is as divisions of these large conglomerates they are not attractive to hard-charging junior execs as a place to go and make your bones. So what under their current business structure should be the source of that business knowledge is kind of strangled or at least optimized to provide the worst available candidates, not the best.

The current spate of facsimile editions offer fascinating insight into ads of the past and who was buying comic books. A lot of comic ads in the 60s were clearly aimed at unemployed men and specifically guys leaving the military. It's not until the 80s that you see more ads aimed at children and teens, with ads being about Saturday morning cartoons or new toys. Ads in the 00s started being about cars. I don't have a comic in front of me, but my gut says that comics today are primarily advertising other comics.

I think another thing advertisers would have to consider: who is seeing their ads? Who should they be marketing to? Before the death of the newsstand, advertising was aimed at children because that was known to be the audience. But now? There really aren't any solid metrics. Based on my experiences at my LCS, the current audience is largely white males in the 35-50 age range. The second largest is 50+. I don't know how accurate that is to the rest of the country. So you could target that age group but the current political climate makes that an iffy proposition.

Honestly seeing ads from sources outside the company’s would probably give me a hint of nostalgia at best and just be completely ignored at worst. Like I remember reading olds comics from the 80s and 90s back in elementary and middle school in the late 2000s and early 10s and I always thought it was so fun seeing those ads. Like do fun to point where when I would draw my own comics I’d draw fake ads into the books. I don’t see why they’d shut out that potential revenue stream, but the same thing could be said about a ton of things in comics

The comic book business topics may not be as exciting as debating Nightwing's sexuality but they are probably far more impotant for the public to understand what the industry is really like. On another topic: the last non-house ad I recall in a DC comic was for the Rue Morgue horror magazine. Always wondered why Marvel and DC comics weren't filled with ads for Disney and Warner Bros. movies, not to mention related video games, TV shows, etc. Maybe the ad departments really have just shut down.

I loved ads in comics. I love flipping through an older comic in my collection from 20, 30, 40 years ago or whatever it is and seeing an ad with OJ Simpson advertising boots, Hostess fruit pies, an ad for Final Fantasy 7 on the Playstation 1, TGIF trading cards and more stuff than I can possibly list. Ads were part of the charm of comic books back in the day along with the letters pages, and, as with literally every other decision comics have somehow managed to make over the last couple decades, their absence makes comics less fun than they used to be. Seeing an ad in a comic book is like opening a time capsule buried in the ground. Bring them back.

Really shocked it took x amount of years for this question to be asked. Some ads in the comic would signal to the reader that they’re trying.

In the early 2000’s they went overboard, like they were trying to make up for all the lost revenue from the crash, like 1 ad every 3-4 pages

I bought Sea Monkeys from a Superman comic when I was a kid-late 70s/early 80s. The pic of the advertisement for them sure brings back memories.

I’m glad we’re not getting any more of those anti smoking ads from the early 2000s. And I’m not a smoker, but for some reason I found those ads really off putting. On the other hand, I miss the ads from the 80s with hand drawn art. It didn’t matter that I had no interest in Reese’s Pieces or M.A.S.K. or Hostess fruit pies, they added to the overall aesthetic of the comic. Weird, I never really considered any of that before. Thanks for the food for thought, Perch.

As a teenager, I actually enjoyed seeing ads in the last pages of the comics. Unlike some publishers, Dark Horse placed their ads after the story concluded, not interrupting the narrative flow. These ads often featured stunning artwork, which made them visually appealing to browse. I have no problem with well-placed ads in comics, especially when they appear at the end and don't disrupt the reading experience.

In theory, buying ad space in comics could make a series last longer

Unless you can get the ads for dirt cheap then it would be a total waste to buy ads in comic books.

The contrast with KZfaq and print newspapers is a good point. Sounds like the real answer is it would create more work for people who, by and large, aren't really interested in the business aspect of things to begin with

When I was collecting comics in the 90's and 2000's I always found the ads ruined the flow of the story. Going back to those comics 20-30 years later, those same ads fill me with nostalgia.

I’m honestly more annoyed by the fact they advertise their best selling titles instead of shining a light on their up and coming talents. The Stormbreakers promos from Marvel put me onto a couple great artists.

Had bought the Jack Pot Bank from one of those ads in a Spider-Man comic. Found the quality appalling. Rarely ever worked correctly. As I recall, the smoke bomb rifle neglected to mention that it didn’t include ammo and broke after a few attempts at using it. Nearly struck my dog when the spring sprung out of the business end. For Pete’s sake, there should have been a return policy on these things. Certainly didn’t get my money’s worth from the junk offered inside that Amazing Spider-Man back then. Come to think of it, not much has really all that changed.

Back in the day, my little brother bought some X-Ray Specs from an ad in a Marvel comic.

Advertising, on a whole, isn't what it used to be. TV commercials and printed ads are stale compared to what was produced in the 70s and 80s.

One of the issues is all the online ad companies are all self serve. If you put an ad on Roku, facebook, KZfaq, the advertiser is doing all the work. It lets them cut the price of what you can charge. Having that ad department drives your margins way down. I wonder if the change in work of advertising agencies has anything to do with this. The death of the news stand has something to do with this too. I say bring back superheroes winning battles by throwing cakes and pies at villains.

Part of the problem is that almost any non-comic company that wants to advertise in comics still work under the assumption that comics are a kids market, so they flush money down the toilet when their ad does not reach the target audience. I am sure that this has had a long term effect. The greater problem though, is the shrinking circulation numbers. Even lazy advertisers will notice the relatively small circulation numbers and realize that it will not reach enough potential customers.

I believe that I shouldn't have to deal with ads for premium products. Comics already have house ads (which have helped me realize a book or two I wasn't aware of was coming out) and they're too damn expensive. I will deal with ads if you get the damn prices back down.

Disney Channel used to only advertise other Disney products during commercial breaks. It seems that they brought that strategy to their comics.

I always think that the digital market is the place where ads could more easily be fitted. Easier to produce and distribute and even customisable based on user info. Reading a comic online is similar to streaming, so the ads will always be up to date and can therefore constantly generate revenue. The CBR software I use puts ads in automatically which is slightly annoying but on the other hand, it's free.

I have been seeing quite a few ads in recent marvel books like Ultimate Spiderman. There are ads for upcoming movies and candy and all sorts of stuff

Why not Product Placements? Like Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel almost made its whole production cost back with just Product Placements. In those awesome big splash pages of Gotham or Metropolis, there could be a billboard of Pepsi in the background Or Peter Parker taking MJ out on a date to the movies. In one hand he has a bucket of popcorn and in the other a bottle of Pepsi Also I can confirm that High School and College newspapers does has Ads in them. At my old printing job we mainly printed newspapers and magazines. And I did work at a newspaper and most of the money made was from Ads. The only problem was we didn’t have any good Sale people. I myself got more Ads than they did lol. But I’m sure at WB or Disney, they have way more qualified Sale people.

Shit, given what the modern comic book audience is today, if Marvel and DC did run ads, and those ads were were tailored to look like old advertisements, (drawn ads like that Sea-Monkeys one, and OJ) they could probably get the people reading those comics nostalgic for the ads, and looking forward to seeing the advertisements in the comic. There is just a classic presentational aspect to comic book advertisements that if done correctly could be integrated to feel as much like the comic book experience as the actual comic itself. The “comic fans will be pissed if there are ads) argument is funny given they are still running ads, it’s only now they’re just house ads. Personally, just having house ads piss me off more than normal ads, because at least I can understand why you’re breaking up the story for an actual ad you’re getting paid for. It’s like how (I don’t remember exactly when, the late ‘90s, maybe the year 2000) Disney Channel went from presenting itself as a premium cable station to acting like they were basic cable (despite still being premium cable) and starting putting ad breaks in shows and movies, only the ad breaks were real commercials like basic cable and network television would have, they were just commercials for things that’d play on Disney Channel.

One time I was reading a comic and in it there was an ad for the comic ai was reading…

Paper print advertising on comics can bee outsourced 2 an advertising agency who can sell ads 2 their clients. A few great advertisers DC Comics could publish include Ford Motor Company, Adidas, Disney World, Chase, + many Moore national brands

You've mentioned it as a problem elsewhere in comics, is it just laziness? All the hassle of having to now manage a marketing team probably seems daunting to the current crop of comics leadership.

I would put up with a dozen ads an issue if it meant we never got Paul. I used to buy into the idea that the low print runs meant there just wasn't interest in ads and they couldn't make money off them, but that was really small thinking on my part. Mayube you can't charge very much, but the terribly low page rates mean that extra money could still be put towards a 50% increase in those terrible page rates, which might mean better writers, which might mean better sales, which might be a positive feedback loop. Or it's just your people are better off. Either way, it's worth a shot. But no, they don't want to try for the same reason as everything they don't do. The comic companies are run by a small entrenched group that's stale and insulated from most consequences. Avengers sales tanked over the last decade despite them being the biggest they've ever been in pop culture, that's ok, please save X-Men the same way you "saved' the Avengers. Write a wildly unpopular story that disrespects the characters and makes the franchise worse, in the process costing you tens of thousands of sales a month? Better keep that guy on for another year and a half. Imagine how much more successful Comics could be if the people in charge cared about making successful comics.

I don’t mind reading ads. In fact I like the facsimiles because it has the old ads. It makes me nostalgic. Alterna allows us to buy ad space in the comics. I often buy space and give to another creator to advertise their comic in the pages of the Alterna comic.

Printing costs. I'd say it's as simple as that.

I learned over my life that there is almost no such thing as bad money. But this is just another indication that the people running comics today not only don't know how to make comics, they also don't know how to make money. How do they stay employed when they do so badly at their jobs?

I’ve seen some coke advertisements and even an add for some band recently.

haha,perch should do more anti ads.he's already doing it for arby's frequently enough

Furiosa was great.

If Marvel had some kind of shrewd business person with some authority, they'd at the very least cannibalize a modicum of Disney's advertising budget and have ads for every Disney movie, show, video game, etc in all the comics.

Oh my God, somebody else wrote about the ads

Comic book ads actually kinda work though 🤷‍♂️ just put a bunch of candy ads nobody's gonna complain and all parties are going to make money. Nobody's gonna complain you brought ads back because for the most part we just ignore them anyways. Also shut up Perch, you have a butter-smooth radio voice that I better be hearing narrate a public domain "Not" Superman radio show when I'm 40 😂

Ha. The fat jokes are always funny, even if I'm a fatass myself. It ain't always the food that does it. Having a job sitting 10 or 12 hours a day can be rough. Even with a decent diet and hour+ of exercise, it can be difficult to do anything other than maintaining the current weight and keeping new weight off.

Fat jokes again? sigh.