If you've read many Marvel comics circa 1970, you've no doubt seen something like this when you get to the middle of the book:
First, it's simply a dishonest way to use two half pages to boost your stated page count to 20, when it's clearly actually 19 pages (look in the corners--they number each one as a full page!). You kids today who whine about not getting enough pages--pshaw!
Secondly, aesthetically, it's as ugly as all hell, isn't it? It's bad enough that half of two pages are taken up by ads--but it's taken up by those hodge-podgey crappy looking mini-ad pages. At least when DC used to do similar things, it was single ads, usually house ads.
Not only is it annoying, it distracts the eye away from the story...you can't help but stop at look at the damn ads when your eye should be advancing to the next page to follow the action. Plus, if you weren't careful, you might think it's just a 2-page ad spread without noticing there is content there, so you could end up skipping part of the story!!
This practice continued for over a year, depending on the title, until Marvel started jiggering around with prices and page counts in 1971. Then, thank heavens, they stopped.
I really don't have a punchline here...a just stumbled across as comic that did this while researching something and got all angry again. Sorry.
1 comment:
That's new to me, as I have no 1970 Marvels. It isn't great, unlike that FF and Cap art. While the page count boosting aspect is pretty poor, I don't mind the look - reading across the top is fine.
Mind, I grew up with UK reprints, which were laid out in all manner of ways!
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