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Product Placement in Comics

 
 
Graeme McMillan
19:47 / 18.02.03
From Ninth Art:

"Have you seen those adverts for Truth? You know, the anti-tobacco industry campaign group? No, not the big two pages adverts between the pages of the stories. Not those ones. I mean, obviously you've seen them - you can't miss them. But those aren't the ones I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ones in the stories themselves. At least, in Marvel's stories... What can we tell from this surprising plethora of logos? And it's always the logo, by the way, pasted into the art. Well, two possibilities present themselves. One is that a whole load of Marvel creators have independently decided they'd like to promote the work of this admirable organisation, who have very generously agreed to make their trademark available for the purpose. The other is that the logos are paid adverts, incorporated into the artwork itself. I don't need to tell you which option is the more plausible."

Am I the only person who's kind of upset but not surprised about this?
 
 
gergsnickle
20:00 / 18.02.03
And I've always wondered about the ubiquity of M*rlb*r* cigarettes in Planetary as well. Kind of annoying, yes?
 
 
The Falcon
20:15 / 18.02.03
And Guinness and Silk Cut in Hellblazer since forever...

Silk Cut is not a working man's tab. Or even a working mage's.
 
 
Graeme McMillan
20:57 / 18.02.03
Is there a difference between the creators choosing to name/show a product and editorial pasting logos in after the fact (and possibly without the creators' knowledge and/or consent), though?
 
 
The Falcon
22:16 / 18.02.03
Twin thread, lest we forget.

Ah, they'll like the yawn reference.

I don't really care about this. Comics are probably the last medium to feature 'subliminal' (I believe it's quite apparent) advertising therein.

Marvel are a corporation. They've done far worse things in the past. (Like paying Howard Mackie, when I know I could actually throw a stone in a shopping centre and - give me 50% odds - hit a more talented writer...)

'When's the last time you had a thought that wasn't put there by them?' - would constitute the counterargument I suppose.
 
 
Graeme McMillan
00:20 / 19.02.03
Duncan - Yeah, and that thread just turned out to be fucking scary. I mean, "For me, seeing Peter Parker sip on a can of Coke makes it just a little more 'real world' than seeing him drink take down something called 'Zappo Cola'"? It's Spider-Man. Why does it have to be 'real world'?

I like starting essentially the same thread on different boards - it usually gives a wider range of argument and counter-argument, and provokes more thoughts, especially if some of the boards have a hive mind contrary to the way I normally think.

Which reminds me, I should PM you about another amusing Millarworld anecdote soon.
 
  
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