Flea Market Finds: Drew Struzan caricatures, the Archies, and the Far Side

I didn't buy much at the Civitan flea market in Arlington this past weekend. Just 4 items for $6 in all. I got two record albums - I used to collect more cartoonist-covered albums, but most of them got destroyed a few years back in my basement flood. Still I could't resist The Watergate Comedy Hour because the cover is by noted poster and postage stamp artist Drew Struzan. Wikipedia says he actually did a lot of album covers,* but this one was particularly of interest due to his caricatures being so obviously influenced by Jack Davis and also probably Mort Drucker of MAD.

 

My actual first purchase was this less-visually-interesting Archies album. Notice that while Everything's Archie, the actual musicians and singers are never mentioned in the liner notes. And don't those cover models look exactly the way you picture rock fans to look in 1969?

     

Here's a transcript of the liner notes shown on the back cover below:

The Archie phenomenon seems to get more phenomenal every year. Having begun life

as comic-strip characters, the perennially teen-aged brain children of John L. Goldwater

have been translated into more than ten languages, known radio and TV stardom and are

now in the process of creating a sensation in the record world. Who could ask for a more

diversified career than that?

Maybe the secret of the Archie characters' popularity has something to do with the fact

that they have always been so tuned into the times. When they made their debut back in

1942, they were, like all American teen-agers, wearing bobby-socks and sloppy sweaters

and dancing the jitterbug to music known as "jive." Today Betty and Veronica are teenyboppers

in miniskirts, Jughead wears love beads and Archie plays rock 'n' roll music on

his souped-up electric guitar.

Proof that though Archie and his cohorts have been around for more than two decades

and, yet, fit perfectly into the world of the "now generation" lies in the current success

of the weekly animated Archie cartoon series which made its CBS-TV bow during the

1968-69 season. The show, with its zany skits, hip dance lessons and groovy musical

numbers, made such a hit it will soon be expanded to a full hour and renamed "The

Archie Comedy Hour."

It was Don Kirshner, the series' music supervisor, who decided to make recording stars

out of Archie and his friends. Following his spectacularly successful association with

The Mo11kees, it was perhaps only natural that he should want to give another new group

the benefit of the Kirshner touch-and it was a lucky move for everyone concerned! The

Archies' first album, THE ARCHIES, took a big step toward establishing them as an important

new vocal-instrumental team, and their first single release, Bang-Shang-A-Lang,

soared on the charts. That song, and the groups' second single, Feelin' So Good

(S.K.O.O.B.Y.-D.O.O.), was written by the young, talented composer Jeff Barry who has

produced and written most of the songs that have appeared on the two Archies albums.

Barry has captured the cool, contemporary Archies style, and the selections run the

gamut from youth-oriented songs like Circle of Blue and Melody Hill {both written

by the young writing team of Mark Barkan and Ritchie Adams) to rock-based dance numbers

like Don't Touch My Guitar and Rock & Roll Music. You have only to hear them to

realize that the world-famous Archies have gained an exciting new dimension.

DEBBIE SHERWOOD

Contributor,

Who's Who in TV

Watch for "THE ARCHIES" in color every Saturday morning on the CBS-TV network.

The same person who sold me the album had this comic book. One of my favorite Archie comics artists is Al Hartley due to the sheer insanity of his work. By the 1970s, he was doing art on regular Archie comics, but also on a licensed religion line.** This issue of Archie's Parables has 6 stories squeezed into it with settings varying from the Middle Ages, science fiction, and a Western (described by the GCD as "In the old West, the Sheriff [Archie] comes to the school marm's aid. She [Betty] complains about the Bible being taken out of schools, being forced to teach evolution, and the filthy books being sold at the trading post." The World War I story features Archie and Jughead being bombed by Germans (including Principal Weatherbee and Reggie) raining down entertainment, including tv sets and golf clubs, that kept people out of church on Sunday. Archie & Jughead take to flying to shoot down the distracting barrage balloons.

 

 

 

 The last item was this Far Side mug with a "Midvale School for the Gifted" cartoon by Gary Larson. I passed on it, and then went back when I realized that I didn't see these everywhere the way one used to. 

And no wonder. It's been 38 years since this was made. I'm not sure this cartoon would make it onto a mug anymore either.  Note that Larson owns his creation in 1986.

 

 

Here's an older one from my kitchen cabinet, "The real reason dinosaurs became extinct."

Note here in 1982 that Larson did not own the copyright to his strip, but his syndicate, Chronicle Features (now defunct) did.

So that's my cartoon gleanings. There were plenty of comics for sale, but nothing else caught my eye.

Endnotes!

*After graduating from college, Struzan remained in Los Angeles, and a trip to an employment agency found him a job as a staff artist for Pacific Eye & Ear, a design studio. There he began designing album covers under the direction of Ernie Cefalu, relishing the creative aspects the 12x12" size the record packaging afforded him. Over the next 5 years, he would create album cover artwork for a long line of musical artists, including Tony Orlando and Dawn, The Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Roy Orbison, Black Sabbath, Glenn Miller, Iron Butterfly, Bach, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Liberace. He also illustrated the t-shirt that George Carlin wears on the front and back cover of his album Toledo Window Box.^[8]

Among these, Struzan illustrated the album cover artwork for Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare, which Rolling Stone would go on to vote one of the Top 100 Album Covers Of All Time.^[9] Despite the burgeoning demand for his talents, however, Struzan was still only earning $150 to $250 per album cover.^[10]

**He began writing and drawing for Archie Comics, infusing some of the stories with his Christian beliefs. At one point he was directed to cut back. "I knew God was in control, so I respected my publisher's position and naturally complied".^[4] He later received a call from publisher Fleming H. Revell, for whom he then freelanced a comic-book adaptation of David Wilkerson's The Cross and the Switchblade in 1972, quickly followed by adaptations of God's Smuggler by the pseudonymous Brother Andrew and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. Inspired, Hartley helped launch the Spire Christian Comics line, and pitched Archie president John L. Goldwater to let him license the Archie characters. The Jewish Goldwater, himself religious, agreed, and Spire went on to release 59 comics – at least 19 of them Archie titles, along with six Bible stories, 12 biography adaptations, four other book or film adaptations (including Hansi: The Girl Who Loved the Swastika), and nine children's comics.

Corporations vs Collectors: The Excesses of Hallmark Christmas ornaments (UPDATED)

An editorial by Mike Rhode
(updates in italics 12/26/2019)

I used to collect Hallmark's Christmas ornaments. I slowed down last year and completely stopped this year. (Hypocrisy update: Well, I had stopped until I went to a Hallmark store looking for Scooby-Doo ornaments and cartoon cards. Then I slipped off the wagon again. A habit since 1993 is hard to break it turns out, at least at half-price.)

Here's roughly what's on offer for 2019:

(not pictured - Spider-Man, Lego Robin)

In 1993 Hallmark started producing superhero ornaments for their Keepsake line, but only one a year: 1993 - Superman; 1994 - Batman; 1995 - Batmobile; 1995 - Superman.  In 1996, Marvel was included and Wonder Woman and Spider-Man appeared. 1997 was Marvel's Hulk with no DC one. The situation reversed in 1998 with DC's Superman miniature and no Marvel one.  1999 saw three DC ones - The Flash, Batman and Robin miniature, and a Celebrate the Century postage stamp of Superman. 2000 was back to two from DC - a Catwoman miniature and a Super Friends lunchbox.

By 2006, 13 years after Hallmark started licensing them, they had four ornaments - two from DC (Superman The Man of Steel and Batman The Bat-Signal) and two from Marvel (Spider-Man and New Breed of Superheroes).

Christopher Reeve as Superman is this year's Superman, and a bit strange, since there's no anniversary associated with the 1978 movie and 2019.

This year, they have 13. Or 14 if you count the two "mystery" versions of Captain Marvel. The second version shows her uniform in the Kree colors.

 

Or 15, if you count the non-Keepsake series Flash.

For some reason, the 1960s Batman tv show continues to be popular, with two ornaments this year. The second of which is a Bat-guitar, for some odd reason.

 

As does the Lego Batman movie, with a Robin figure this year.

Wonder Woman in her invisible jet is at least a classic icon from the comic books.

Batman's pose is taken from the classic Frank Miller story, The Dark Knight Returns, which has seen several sequels in recent years.

And the Iron Man ornament wears his classic armor from the 1960s and 1970s, drawn most often then by Gene Colan.

Spider-Man in a Santa hat is a perennial.

(photo from Hallmark's website)

For a few years, they've done these mini-ornaments.

One wonders who wants to hang Thanos, a genocidal space alien villain on the tree though. That's two ornaments by the way - the Infinity Gauntlet has broken from it's hanger above.

Let alone a villain from The Walking Dead...

But the main reason I stopped collecting these is cost.

 

Aquaman	$8.99
Green Lantern	$8.99
Here Comes Spidey Claus	$15.99 $16.99
Lego Robin Captain Marvel	$17.99
Marvel Studios Avengers: Endgame Thanos	$18.99
Infinity Gauntlet	$19.99
Christopher Reeve as Superman	$19.99
Batman Rocks!	$19.99
Batman	$22.99
Wonder Woman Invisible Jet	$24.99
Iron Man	$29.99
Batboat	$29.99

At an average cost of $20, the whole superhero collection (not counting Walking Dead or the non-Keepsake Flash at $8.99) will cost you $256 before tax. And there's so many of them, that within a couple of years, the only ornaments on a tree would be superheroes. I've already got at couple of storage tubs full, because I foolishly never expected these to be produced for so many years when I started collecting them at the beginning. It's in the nature of corporations to maximize their intellectual property, and I shouldn't be surprised about this. I also know that nobody is forcing me to buy all of these, or any of these, and that superheroes are big business now. I'm just bemoaning the ever-increasing tendency of  fandom to be run into the ground by the ever larger companies that control the IP behind it. A very similar blog post could have been written about Hallmark's Star Wars or Star Trek ornaments. And this isn't even looking at animation characters from Disney or Warner Bros... At some point, the golden goose is going to die from overuse, I think. But I might be wrong about that too.

Should you be interested in any of these, you can get most of them through Hallmark's website.  There's even more there that I didn't see at my local Hallmark shop, and it's also hard to tell what's new for this year and what they still have in stock from last year. And Hyperallergic just ran an article on the Henry Ford Museum collection of them.

Did you get your Death of Superman watch at Hecht's in 1993?

Target has retro Defenders t-shirts

Holy 1970s!, but too late for Sweet Christmas!

These are at the Target at Skyline in Falls Church, VA

The Commercialization of Comics: A Broad Historical Overview (1999) part 3 of 3

Click here for part 1.

Click here for part 2.

Merchandising types

           

            The amount and types of comics merchandising are literally innumerable.  Over the 100 year lifespan of comics,  books, sheet music, plays, rings, greeting cards, postcards, trading cards, keychains, banks, radio shows, television shows, movies, novels, Big Little Books, buttons, watches, jewelry, children's books, dishes, toothbrushes, record albums, plates, dartboards, coloring books, T-shirts, hats, food products, puzzles, toys, games, posters, dolls, action figures, statues, busts, models, books-on-tape, cups, mugs, video games... anything that one could imagine have been made.  A few major forms are worth examining.

 

            Reprint book collections were among the first merchandise, with one of the Yellow Kid by early 1897. These book collections, now frequently called "platinum age comic books¹⁶," were very popular and even sold through the Sears, Roebuck catalogue.  Major publishers such as Embee and Cupples & Leon reprinted books of most successful strips like Bringing up Father, Buster Brown, Mutt and Jeff, the Gumps, Happy Hooligan, the Katzenjammer Kids, Little Orphan Annie, and many others (Beerbohm, 1997).  The practice continues today with Andrews McMeel of Kansas City being the dominant publisher.  Other early forms of merchandise continue to be popular until today.

 

           




Figure 8 Postcards with holiday messages were popular in the early years of the comics as this 1904 Happy Hooligan Valentine Greetings shows.

Many types of merchandise might seem to be modern inventions, but  arose around the time of the comics.  Postcards and greeting cards, as common in 1900 as today, featured comics figures including Happy Hooligan, Maggie and Jiggs, Little Nemo and Buster Brown (Figure 8).  Dolls and action figures date back to the Yellow Kid as well.  Children in the 1940s played with a carved-wood Superman, while in the 1960s, Captain Action could be dressed as one's favorite DC or Marvel hero and in the 1970s, Mego sold poorly-dressed superheroes.  But the golden age of the action figure began in the 1980s.  No longer marketed as dolls, most of DC's characters were issued for their Superpowers line and Jack Kirby wrote and drew two comics miniseries promoting the toys.  Marvel followed suit with a Secret Wars toy line and  miniseries (DeFalco, 1992). The trend has continued in the 1990s with more than 200 different Batman figures created.  Trading cards, another popular item, also date to the Yellow Kid.  The first superhero card set, of Superman, was produced in 1940, two years after his creation (Wells, 1994: iv).

 

            Newly-created media use old cartoon standbys for inspiration.  When video games became popular in the 1980s, Atari produced a Spider-Man version, and linked with DC to have five Atari Force comic books (1982-1983) which were given away with the games.  The story began in the miniature comic book and continued in the game -- a new hybrid form of entertainment¹⁷.  Video games remain popular, although usually tied in with a movie such as Batman & Robin.  Acclaim has failed three times as a comic book publisher, but their Turok game was a hit while the comic was cancelled.  

 

            As with video games, a new sport or hobby brings new opportunities for licensing tie-ins.  Since NASCAR racing has grown in popularity, comics characters have been applied to race cars.  Batman, Joker, Alfred E. Neuman and four Superman cars are circling race tracks¹⁸ ("Nine", 1999). 



Figure 9 Superman did not actually appear at the Palisades Amusement Park, but one can find many comics characters in amusement parks now. From World's Finest #161, DC Comics, October, 1966.

Theme parks based on cartoon characters date at least to the establishment of Disneyland in 1955.  In the 1990s, these parks have proliferated (Figure 9).  Six Flags amusement parks have Batman and Superman rollercoasters.  Spider-Man and Popyeye rides opened in 1999 as did Camp Snoopy at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.  The Ripley's Believe It or Not! strip spawned twenty-six "museums" in the U.S., Korea, Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Thailand, Mexico, the Philippines, Denmark and England (Ripley's, 1999).  Metreon - "A Sony Entertainment Center" opening in San Francisco has a game area designed by Moebius based on his Airtight Garage (Metreon, 1999). 

 

            Comics' penetration of culture means that characters sometimes become more than just a licensing opportunity and become part of society, an example being composer Michael Daugherty's Metropolis Symphony (1996), based on the Superman mythos.  Charles Schulz recounted one of his experiences with people wishing to use his characters in a non-commercial way:

 

[NASA's] Al Chop came to me and they had just had that tragic fire where the astronauts were killed and so they wanted to start a new safety program and he had an idea to build the program around a cartoon character and he asked me if Snoopy could be the character and I said, "Sure, I'm very flattered." So they made posters and all sorts of things.  They made beautiful little metal things which were really nice pieces of jewelry and if a person on the assembly line has a good safety record, one of the astronauts would present him or her with the pin and of course, those pins were taken to the moon and the moon landing" (Marschall & Groth, 1992: 22). 

 

Superman was the subject of a Smithsonian Institution exhibit, Superman: Many Lives, Many Worlds, on his fiftieth anniversary in 1987 (Patton, 1987) and in 1999, he appeared on a postage stamp in the USPS's Celebrate the Century series as one of the 15 major highlights of the 1930s¹⁹. The United States was a latecomer in honoring cartoon characters on stamps, as Canada had an earlier Superman stamp and many other countries have pictured their native characters.  (Rhode, 1999).

 

            Jane Gaines (1991: 208-227) has theorized, especially in regard to Superman, that the high levels of popularity will eventually work against the ownership of popular characters as they will move into the public domain through their universality, as the term "aspirin" did.  Given the spirited defense of copyright and trademarks mounted by major companies, this seems doubtful, but may be possible. Copyright  is limited, although it now lasts longer partly due to lobbying by Disney which had feared Mickey Mouse cartoons would enter the public domain in 2003, although Mickey would still have had trademark protection.  Chairman Michael Eisner's appearance on Capitol Hill helped convince Congress to extend copyright's duration (McAllister, 1998).   Metropolitan Life's website includes the warning, "No part of the PEANUTS materials may be copied, reproduced, used or performed in any form (graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems) for any purpose without the express written permission of United Feature Syndicate, Inc.," which would seem to ignore the fair use clause in copyright law.  In contrast, a trademark can last forever as long as it is actually being used.  Expansion of both copyright and trademark to protect intellectual property has benefited the owners of cartoon characters, creating a very different situation from what Outcault encountered.

 

            Some comics characters are undoubtedly created to be merchandised in a more lucrative medium.  Rom, Spaceknight hit the toy and comic book stores simultaneously, but the comic survived the toy by years.  Oddly enough, there is an example of a cartoonist being created and then merchandised - television's Caroline in the City.  Cartoonist Bonnie Timmons provided the artwork purportedly done by Caroline on the show, and a line of Caroline greeting cards soon followed.

 

            Commercialism of comics is certainly not unique to the United States.  Mauricio de Sousa in Brazil has built a multi-million dollar business based on his character Monica (Vergueiro, 1999: 178-181) and in Europe, Tintin and Asterix are icons in a manner perhaps surprising when one realizes how few graphic novels of each were published.  (There were only 23 Tintin graphic novels, the last new one in 1976).  Asterix, recently the star of a live-action movie, has had a theme park outside of Paris since 1989 (White, 1995; Tagliabue, 1995).  Merchandise based on the Tintin and Asterix is so prevalent that specialty stores have opened in the United States in San Francisco, New York and most recently, in Washington, D.C. 

 

            Japan has taken the commercialism trend to its highest level, as Schodt (1986: 147) noted:

 

In 1980, there were over 150 'animation' and 'comics' albums released in Japan.  Records linked with comics in Japan can be music or poems composed or performed by popular comic artists; dramatizations or musical interpretations of popular comic stories; or theme songs and background music from television animation, theatrical feature animation, and live action films based on comics.

 

Presumably the number has only increased since then, and Japan's experience has been repeated throughout Southeast Asia.  Lent (1998: 33) reporting on Korea, said, "Dai Won is the dominant part of a five-pronged corporation by the same name, which specializes in the production of animation, comics, video and 'fancy' (cartoon-related merchandise) ...Comics magazines appear first, which are spun off into comic books and animation, and later, video"  (Lent, 1998: 33).  Elsewhere Russia has recently seen the opening of a restaurant based on Andrei Bilzho's strip character Petrovich (Kaiser, 1999).  Frequently, European and Asian  companies try to export their characters to the U.S.; Peyo's Smurfs was one of the most successful in this regard, although its popularity in the 1980s was a result of an animated television show, and not the original comics albums.  Not all attempts by foreign companies to breach the American market are successful though; for example, the attempt by DIC Productions to bring Sailor Moon to the U.S. failed (Grigsby, 1998).  In the other direction, Disney recently was unsuccessful in marketing Franquin's comic strip Marsupilami in America and lost almost 10 million dollars in court decisions based on that failure (Deutsch, 1999; "Disney", 1999).

 

            It is worth noting that merchandising probably cannot sustain a company without new original material.  In 1982, Disney was widely believed to be moribund, while it moved to making three-fourths of its income on merchandising and theme parks instead of films and animation (Mills, 1982: 53).  With the revival of its animation tradition and the success of The Little Mermaid, the company grew prodigiously but recent experiences suggest that it might need to review its merchandising policies (Bates and Eller, 1999).

 

            Comics have been used for advertising and licensed and sold as merchandise since their creation in the last century.  An uncountable number and types of products linked to comics have been sold, and some adaptations have proved artistically fruitful.  The commercialization of comics has been historically extensive and probably will not lessen in the foreseeable future. 

 

Acknowledgements

 

            I would like to thank my wife, Cathy Hunter, both for letting me collect the materials that this paper is built on, and then editing it for me  Also, my colleagues Anne Clair Goodman, Charles Hatfield, Gene Kannenberg, Heather Lindsay and Robert Montgomery for suggesting ideas, providing technical assistance and editing the final draft.

 

 

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 -Watterson, Bill. 1989.  "The Cheapening of the Comics."  Festival of Cartoon Art, Ohio State University (October 27): http://www.teleport.com/~ennead/ampersand/watterson.html#ppkk.

 -Wells, Stuart W. III.  1994.  Comic Cards and Their Prices.  Radnor, PA: Wallace-Homestead.

 -White, Andrew W. 1995. "Parc Asterix: A Comic Kingdom." Washington Post (April 23): E2.

-Winchester, Mark D. 1993.  "Cartoon Theatricals: a Chronology." Theatre Studies 38: 67-92.  An updated listing is available at http://www.yellowkid.com/Cartoon/CT/default.html.

 -Winchester, Mark D.  1995.  "Litigation and Early Comic Strips: the Lawsuits of Outcault, Dirks and Fisher."  Inks 2(2; May): 16-25.   Also available at http://www.yellowkid.com/Cartoon/CL/default.html

 -Witek, Joseph. 1999. "Comics Criticism in the United States: a Brief Historical Survey." International Journal of Comic Art 1 (1; Spring/Summer): 4-16.

 -Worcester, Kent. 1998.  "Bob Fingerman,"  The Comics Journal (207; September): 69-106.

 

 

Bibliography

 

-Armour, Robert A. 1987. "Comic Strips, Theatre, and Early Narrative Films: 1895-1904." Studies in Popular Culture 10(1):14-26.

 -Bifulco, Michael. 1989. Heroes and Villains: Movie Serial Classics. Woodland Hills, CA: Bifulco Books.

 -Borden, Bill.  1997.  The Big Book of Big Little Books.  San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

 -Braun, Debra S. 1998.  Garfield Collectibles. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.

-Bruegman, Bill.  1996.  Superhero Collectibles: A Pictorial Price Guide.  Akron: Toy Scouts, Inc. 

-Crouch, William and Lawrence Doucet.  1990.  The Authorized Guide to Dick Tracy Collectibles.  Radnor, PA: Wallace-Homestead.

 -Daniels, Les and Chip Kidd.  1998.  Superman, the Complete History: The Life and Times of the Man of Steel.  San Francisco:  Chronicle Books.

 -de Klerk, L. Ronald. 1999.  Record Covers Drawn by Comic Artists. http://people.a2000.nl/ldeklerk/index2.html.

-Dini, Paul & Chip Kidd. 1998.  Batman: Animated. New York: HarperCollins.

 -Geissman, Grant.  1995.  Collectibly Mad: The Mad and EC Collectibles Guide. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink Press.

 -Grandinetti, Fred. 1990.  Popeye the Collectible.  Iola, WI: Krause Publications.

 -Grossman, Gary. 1976. Superman: Serial To Cereal. New York: Popular.

 -Hake, Ted. 1993. Hake's Guide to Comic Character Collectibles: An Illustrated Price Guide to 100 Years of Comic Strip Characters.  Radnor, PA: Wallace-Homestead.

 -Hake, Ted. 1996. Hake's Price Guide to Character Toy Premiums. Timonium, MD: Gemstone Publishing.

 -Hershenson, Bruce. 1998?  Cartoon Movie Posters.  West Plains, MO: Bruce Hershenson.

 -Hofstede, David. 1991.  Hollywood and the Comics.  Zanne-3.

 -Jacobs, Larry.  1996.  Big Little Books : A Collector's Reference & Value Guide.  Collector Books.

 -Kidd, Chip.  1996.  Batman Collected.  Boston: Bulfinch Press.

 -Lesser, Robert. 1975.   A Celebration of Comic Art and Memorabilia.   New York: Hawthorn Books.  

 -Lindenberger, Jan.  1998.  More Smurf Collectibles: An Unauthorized Handbook & Price Guide.  Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.

 -Lindenberger, Jan.  1998.  The Unauthorized Guide to Snoopy Collectibles, revised edition. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.

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 -Lindenberger, Jan and Cher Porges.  1999.  More Peanuts Gang Collectibles.  Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.

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 -Margolin, Freddi and  Sandra Cramer. 1997.  The Ultimate Peanuts Price Guide [foreword by Charles M. Schulz].  Landmark Specialty Publications.

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16.  In 1997, the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide began listing "platinum" age comic strip collections and is probably the best single bibliography for them.

17.  DC also published a newsstand issue Atari Force comic book.

18.  Of course, the NASCAR promotion leads to additional licensing including a comic book.  "To commemorate the drivers, their vehicles and the unique Superman-themed promotion, DC Comics created a custom comic book featuring all nine drivers as characters in an action adventure story with Superman. The limited-edition custom comic will be sold exclusively by Kmart in its mass retail stores. Action will design, market and distribute a variety of exclusively designed collectible die-cast replica cars, adult and children's apparel items and other merchandise to fans and collectors. Superman Racing memorabilia will be available trackside and through Action's established distribution channels. Related Hasbro Winner's Circle (R) products will be available through mass retail outlets" ("Nine", 1999).

19.  There was, of course, merchandise besides the postage stamp available from the U.S. Post Office.  It included a magnet ($5.99), magnetic greeting card ($2.99), puzzle postcard ($2.49), key chain ($4.99), pin ($4.99), memo pad ($3.99), shipping labels ($2.99), gift tag/magnet ($3.99), foil notecards ($6.99), color clings ($2.49), shipping envelope ($2.99), gift bag ($3.99) and a limited-edition reprint of Action Comics #1 with a first day cancellation.  The Post Office and DC Comics also issued ten comic books, one for each decade, featuring characters explaining the significance of the stamps.