On the Rag: An Opinion on Advertising & Comics

Product placement in comic books.

There are people deriding this. There are some begrudgingly accepting it as a necessary evil.

I look upon it as excellent.

First off, the most ridiculous aspect of the single issue comic book is the ratio of story to advertising space. Sometimes every other page is an advertisement. It ruins the flow of the story and artwork. In fact, as an artist working to provide that storytelling, I'd be insulted to have something break it.

Or, as Marvel and Top Cow often attempt, you cram all the ads in the back. Which results in a seamless comic...but who's ever going to read those last 10 pages of pure advertising? Advertising is a necessary evil. It helps subsidize the costs, and if you're anything like me, $2.99-$3.99 for a single 22 page issue is really pushing it already.

Advertising offsets this, somewhat. But the advertisers have a problem.

What gets me is that many of these "hip and trendy" ads are vague as all get out. If the whole point of an ad is to make me want to buy a product, then why am I instead perplexed by hip graphitti art and street slang, that don't do a very good job of telling me what the hell "Nike 6.0" is?

This advertising within the artwork is a solution to the comic publishers, and the advertisers. And if you're a creative pop-culture whore artist like myself, it's great for the artist.It works the same way that advertising in video games works: if you're trying to ground something in reality, specifically Western culture, then for better or worse, name-brand and corporate logos are the easy way to do it.

It's easy to sell a setting with a Ford billboard in the background, or sell a character with the Converse star on their t-shirt. And as an artist, I find it fun to decide what band or brand my characters would logo themselves with, as many real people do.

In fact, I find the complaints ironic, coming from people proudly sporting Punisher and Superman logos whenever they get the chance.

And perhaps, if all the major advertising can be tastefully merged into the artwork, we might get more pages for our issues.


5 Comments:

Blogger brunbbmerc said...

I don't really see a decline in ads coming, but I don't mind the advertising either, as long as it isn't a main aspect of the book.

Also, Nike has brand recognition. They know when people think Nike, they think shoes.

I was just looking through some books, trying to find the ad you were talking about because I swear it did have shoes in it (I found another Nike 6.0 ad that had shoes), and I couldn't find it. But I did notice they seemed to have a lot less ads than before. I don't think it's from product placement though.

12:26 PM  
Blogger Yoda Man said...

I agree. I'd rather have product placement (as long as it doesn't get out of hand), rather then some stupid ads that even not only ruin a story's flow but are completely foreign to my fragile 17 year old mind.

2:35 PM  
Blogger ULI/KFP said...

I have no idea what Marvel and DC charge for advertising, but I can't imagine that a product placement in the artwork is going to net them enough money that they can start to cut the number of ad pages.

I've noticed one Nike ad in one book (New X-Men, IIRC). I don't tend to be super observant. So I gotta wonder if there's value for the advertiser to have the brand or logo featured if it isn't featured prominently, y'know?

So, I suppose I'd say that unless revenue from in-artwork promotional placements can cut down on the number of ad pages in the average comic, then I'd prefer that it stay quite limited.

7:13 PM  
Blogger Gambit898 said...

Very nice article. You CAN do the frug.

Anyways, I get your points and agree with them, though I hope we won't get any two page "Truth Sewn Up Eye/Mouth" splash page ad like we did in the past.

8:29 PM  
Blogger ULI/KFP said...

Maybe if they clustered the ad pages, not all at the back but in bunches, say a third of the way through, then two-thirds of the way through, and a few more at the back. That would divide each issue into three acts, a more usual if typical story format. I think I'd prefer that to ads peppered throughout.

We may complain about the ads, and many say they skip over them quickly, but I bet we all know the ad gambit is talking about. Or how about those Civic ads? If an advertiser comes up with something catchy, we will notice it, even as we pass over it quickly. Saturate the ad in a bunch of books for a few months and it does sink in. So I don't think advertisers should be concerned about clustering the ads in three main spots (plus the inside front and rear covers) - in the same way that they might resist the ads ALL being at the back.

Although if they mixed some ads into an extended letters column, that might work too.

Now I gotta go get some smokes, grab my Nikes and hit the road in my Civic.

9:57 PM  

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