Friday, April 11, 2008

Smokin' Comic Strip Ads!

The demand for comic strip advertising may have diminished over the years, but it has never entirely vanished. Just look at these fun cigarette comic strip ads from 1971.


I can't tell you much about them... the anonymous artist's style is unfamiliar to me. Its an appealing style that sort of looks like something you'd find in Playboy, which is where this first ad appeared.


Mind you, Doral was an equal opportunity nicotine provider. The same month they ran an ad for (clearly) a very different target market in Woman's Day magazine.


With all the talented and knowledgable visitors this blog gets every day, perhaps someone out there will be able to tell us who drew these ads. As well, I'd love to know if there were more in this series.

In these modern times, advertising cigarettes with cute cartoon characters seems like a pretty disturbing idea (and yes I do remember Joe Camel). But considering where the ads appeared, I doubt the client's strategy was to try to appeal to kids... or am I being naive?


I've added both of these to my Comic Strip Ads Flickr set and my Smoking! Flickr set.

Have a great weekend!

* Amendment to this post: Over on Flickr, my pal Glen Mullaly has ID'ed the artist of today's pieces as Playboy cartoonist Dink Siegel - thanks, Glen!

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