Marginalia
The Twinkie Age of Comics David A. Roach on the Hostess super-hero ad campaign by David A. Roach [Editor’s note: CBA takes pride in presenting a new column which will “chart the unknown” in comics by new CBA associate editor David A. Roach, Welsh artist/historian extraordinaire (who penned the exhaustive and ground-breaking survey of the Spanish artists in our Warren ish, #4). First up: Investigative journalism at its finest—the real sense-shattering story behind those super-hero Twinkies ads and the shocking truth on why (gasp!) you never saw our heroes actually eat a Hostess pastry. Sit tight and prepare for our mind-bending examination of Hostess, the bakery with the mostest bizarre comic universe!—JBC] Everything you know is wrong: The Hulk’s arch-foe was Cousin Betsy the Plant Lady. Gold Key was having intercompany crossovers with Marvel and Harvey comics in the ’70s. Neal Adams’ last Green Lantern strip appeared in 1977; and Mera and The Penguin had their own strips. Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! This is comics history courtesy of that well-known publishing house, the Hostess Company. From the Spring of 1975 until well into the ’80s, the pastry manufacturer ran a series of ads in Marvel, DC, Harvey, and Gold Key titles advertising the dubious culinary delights of Twinkies, cup cakes and fruit pies; but as any reader of ’70s comics will know, what elevated these ads from the depths of crass commercialism to the heights of genuine trash culture icons was the fact they were comic strips. Of course, comic strip ads were nothing new and had been appearing in comics, magazines, and newspapers for decades before Hostess initiated their campaign. Cartooning masters Milton Caniff and Noel Sickles had provided a number of “Mr. Coffee Nerves” ads for wartime Sunday supplements under the name “Paul Arthurs.” The ad agency Johnstone and Cushing specialized in comic strip ads, and Neal Adams, one of their graduates, went on to do the same with his own Continuity Studio. In the comics themselves, all sorts of companies used strips to advertise their wares, most memorably the Tootsie Roll, personified as Captain Tootsie by the great C.C. Beck; but while Tootsie looked like Captain Marvel’s long-lost brother, Hostess’ masterstroke was to use the comic companies’ own heroes in their ads, and for about eight years that’s just what they did. Of the four comic groups that ran the ads (Charlton being deemed too small presumably), DC was by far the most prolific and the longest-lasting, creating at least 60 different strips. The first ad, “Batman vs. The Mummy,” appeared in issues dated April and May 1975 and it pretty much set the template for the whole campaign: The evil mummy has captured the professor and his beautiful daughter who had inadvertently violated his tomb. So it’s up to Batman and Robin to save the day. Tragically Robin’s special Mummy Ray Gun barely fazes the Monster of the Nile, but just in the nick of time, Batman lures him away with an offer he can’t resist: A succulent box of Hostess Twinkies. “M-m-m! I’ve been around for 2000 years and I’ve never tasted anything so good!” testifies the recalcitrant Egyptian. There’s a wonderfully generic quality to the whole thing— the Mummy is there simply to be villainous, the victims don’t have names—they don’t need names—they’re just the professor and his beautiful daughter (aren’t professors’ daughters always beautiful?), and the strip seems to take place in some nondescript cave in whoknows-wheresville. Throughout the series’ run this pattern of hero meets villain, hero frees innocent bystanders and villain succumbs to beckoning pastry was repeated almost without change, creating an almost zen-like effect. March 2000
COMIC BOOK ARTIST 7
That particular ad was drawn with some aplomb by Dick Giordano while the next installment, “Superman and The Spy,” was by Curt Swan and Tex Blaisdell. Swan would go on to draw all but one of the entire run, occasionally blessed with Giordano inks, but more frequently cursed by the dread hand of Vince Colletta at his most minimalist. The sole exception to Swan’s reign was a surprising guest appearance by Neal Adams, drawing his old favorite Green Lantern (that was in the June and July 1977 titles for you Adams completists out there). What makes Adams’ ad all the more noteworthy was that he actually drew with some conviction which is unfortunately more than can be said of Swan. The principal writer was longtime DC editor, writer and historian E. Nelson Bridwell, with the occasional fillin by Bob “Answer Man” Rozakis, under the editorship of Sol Harrison. According to Rozakis, Harrison imposed several restrictions on his writers: Primarily that the hero of the ad should never appear in a comic he or she was starring in and that DC characters—no matter
Above: Neal Adams thumbnail of his single entry to the Hostess ad campaign featuring a bisected Hal Jordan. The finished ad appeared in DC Comics cover dated June and July 1977. Art ©2000 Neal Adams. Green Lantern ©2000 DC Comics, Inc. Hostess is a registered trademark of ITT Continental Baking Co.
continued on pg. 126 9