I love 70's Hostess Comic Ads

[megoscott]

Who's with me?

Seanbaby's Hostess Page

[palitoy]

I am, I'd always read them as a kid. Hostess stuff was hard to find in my area, we were under the thumb of Vachon. So I had to wait until I was 15 to have my first fruit pie.

[samurainoir]

Those were always a lot of fun and good for larfs.

I always had a hostess snack in my brown bag school lunch as a kid. I'm sure they were no different than the Vachon snacks like Joe Louise's and Mae Wests that the other kids had, but to me Twinkies, Cupcakes, Ding Dongs, Hoho's etc were synonymous with Star Wars trading cards and Superhero adverts.

[megoscott]

I was always deprived of Hostess products. My mom and her lame Granola bars! UGH!

The ads are awesome, seeing the greatest heroes in the world solving problems with delicious golden cake in 5 simple panels or so. They do a great job of setting up the premise and telling the story quickly and simply with a lot of fun.

I had no idea they did so many, there's some real surprises on that page. Red Tornado?

[samurainoir]

I am, I'd always read them as a kid. Hostess stuff was hard to find in my area, we were under the thumb of Vachon. So I had to wait until I was 15 to have my first fruit pie.

Really? Would it be a regional thing, because I never had any problems getting my twinkies, cupcakes and King Don's fix in grocery stores as a kid in the GTA. I was even overjoyed to see them in the snack machines when I attended Queen's in Kingston.

I spent most summers in California, so I had fruit pies, but they were never my thing. I don't think fruit pies ever came with any trading cards either.

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

Kinda surprising nobody's brought them back. (They KIND OF did back in the 90's, with superhero milk ads.) Ever see the parodies First did back in the day? (Or Normalman 4, where you find out Hembeck is the one making them?)

DoN C.

[The Toyroom]

Curt Swan drew most (if not all) of the DC ones....not sure on the Marvel ones. One of the few examples of 70s product (like Mego) that effectively used BOTH DC and Marvel licenses at the same time.

[palitoy]

Really? Would it be a regional thing, because I never had any problems getting my twinkies, cupcakes and King Don's fix in grocery stores as a kid in the GTA. I was even overjoyed to see them in the snack machines when I attended Queen's in Kingston.

Yeah, Twinkies and cupcakes were at my local Miracle Mart, in a box. I could con Mom into a one off treat in a variety store but a whole box of twinkies? That happened maybe annually at best...

[Uni]

That's a great site and I didn't realize how much I do love them, indeed!

[EMCE Hammer]

I suddenly have a craving. I love these ads. I can't remember the last time I had a Twinkie.

[aquatroy]

I really like the Hostess ads. Great memories.

A couple other great comic book print ads are the CC Beck, Captain Tootsie full page ads. And, the Wheaties sports ads. They were full page ads featuring sports figures of the time. Beautifully drawn.

[HardyGirl]

I have a bunch of Archie's ads in my old comics too. And of course, it would make you wanna run right out and get some! I know the trans-fat was bad for you, but it made those cupcakes taste so good! They're still good, but not the same anymore.

[Earth 2 Chris]

When I was drawing my Yankee Doodle comic strip, we wrapped it up with a Hostess tribute. He stops the bad guys with fruit pies and cupcakes!

Yeah, Swan drew most of the DC ones. I seem to recall some of the Marvel ones look like the work of Ross Andru before he jumped ship back to DC.

If they did the Hostess ads now, the "heroes" would give the bad guy the Hostess Twinkie, disembowl them, then sift through their entrails till they got them back.



Chris

[johnnystorm]

Never cared much for the actual pies themselves (we live under the empire of Tastykakes- and Chocolate Juniors are literally the Food of the Gods).
But I love the comic strips...I think the one that comes to mind first is Batman & Robin vs. the Mummy by Dick Giordano. And Marvel had the Captain Marvel vs. Nitro one, which when I see it now makes me think how sad that Mar-Vell actually died for Hostess Fruit Pies- I'm sure that Jim Starlin just covered up that part of the story to avoid Marvel losing business with Hostess.
I always considered the one-pagers to be an actual part of the comic book itself, like a bonus extra.
Does anyone know how much these ads really affected Hostess' sales? I mean, they had to be successful, they ran for years and in pretty much every publisher, I know there were Archie & Josie ones as well as the superheroes, and the DC ones ran in the Gold key books- plus I seem to recall Roadrunner & Bugs Bunny ones, or is that just me imagining that Wile E. Coyote was tricked with apple pies?

[ctc]

>the "heroes" would give the bad guy the Hostess Twinkie, disembowl them

I think the Twinkie would do that on it's own.

Don C.