Exclusive: All-Time Comics Taps Into Old-Time Ad Nostalgia
If you grew up reading comics in the 20th century, chances are you have a strange nostalgia for ads. The printed advertisements that appear in comics developed their own language over the history of the medium, which probably peaked in the Bronze Age. Ads for candy and snacks, for merchandise based on the comic's characters, and of course for video games (once those were invented) became a part of the fabric of comics. Now that so many of us are reading digitally or in trades, that's less true.
But Fantagraphics' new superhero line, All Time Comics, is paying tribute to classic comics ads with mock ads by some of the best indie artists around.