The Ephemerist

These ads in comic format come courtesy of Yesterday’s Papers.

The Comics Museum MUF in Lucca, Italy commissioned a campaign to spread the word, and this is what advertising agency JWT came up with. And the Museum approved, surprisingly.

I guess it’s a little hop forward from “Comics are not for kids anymore”, but “just funnier” - that is wrong on so many levels. Not only is it not hard to come up with examples of art that’s “funnier” than some comics (just compare Pieter Brueghel’s Peasant Wedding with Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s Shadowplay), “funny” hasn’t been a defining part for comics since pre-code days. And finally, the campaign materials themselves aren’t funny, only silly.

I think it’s time we call off the adagio that all publicity for comics is good publicity. In Dutch “muf” means “stale”. That says it all. Really, you need to try harder…

(from Ads of the World)

Advertisments by Albert Donne, courtesy of Leif Peng’s Today’s Inspiration.

You may not be the hero you want to be. A nice campaign for a costume provider, by Ogilvy & Mather Santiago, Chile.

(more after the click)

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Sure to be tender, because they have no skins !

(From vintage ads.  Thanks,  Mr. Beaverhousen !)

Two nice examples of cartoon art in advertising by Hajo Müller (Germany, top); Andy Yang (Singapore, middle) and Maria Battle (Chili, bottom). Large-size scans, and loads of different versions, can be found at Ads of The World.