More Newtons: Advertising

These two scans come courtesy of Robert Thomas. Robert is a huge Newton collector/fanatic and has also written about the company. He did an excellent article about Newtons for the Melbourne Sunday Observer a couple of years ago - I'll freely admit that it did rekindle my interest in knowing more about the company what comics they published. Sadly as the Observer was a Newton publications, even after Newton was long dead Robert wasn't able to reveal some of the more lurid business practices - such as the bankruptcy, Newton ripping off Marvel and a bit more. It's still a damn good read though.

Robert informs me that these two ads ran in the Sunday Observer back in 1975 and were used to promote Newton comics. He also tells me that at some stage during 1975 and 1976 John Corneille was running a 'Comics Corner' column in the paper - they'll be a must find. When I'm in Melbourne over the coming weekend if I find the time I'm going to do some digging and see what turns up. If nothing else the dates the ads appeared will give us an indication as to when the actual comics were released.

Until then, enjoy the vintage ads that appeared in a proper newspaper.

FANTASTIC FOUR

Advertisment published 15 June, 1975, Sunday Observer.

PLANET OF THE APES

Advertisment published 15 June, 1975, Sunday Observer.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi Danny

Just been scrolling through your site, after learning about the John Corneille interview being published online, when I came across your reference to newspaper advertisements for the Newton Comics line appearing in the (Melbourne) Sunday Observer newspaper.

When I was a kid growing up in the 1970s, I always used to pester my dad to by the Sunday Observer instead of the Sunday Press, because the Observer had a better comics supplement (naturally!) and it also featured the kids' section, The Watchmacallit Club, which was the brainchild of writer/cartoonist Peter Viska (who has been running his own animation company, Mickey Duck Studios (I think that's the name?), for many years since then.

Seeing those newspaper ad scans triggered a vague memory with me - I'm reasonably certain that the Sunday Observer actually gave away a free (digest-sized?) version of The Planet of the Apes comic book, in order to promote the title - either at the time of its launch, or some time thereafter.

The newspaper giveaway may have been an excerpt/partial reprint of a current or forthcoming issue of the Newton Comics edition. From memory, the cover painting showed an ape on horseback, tying a rope around a bearded/half-dressed astronaut (Presumably the 'Taylor' character played by Charlton Heston in the original movie?)

Does this ring a bell with anyone who grew up reading those Newton Comics back in the 1970s? I can't be 100% certain about this, but I'm sure Newton did do such a cross-promotional giveaway with the Sunday Observer.

Cheers

- kevin Patrick
Anonymous said…
Hi Kevin and Danny.

Kevin, your memory is correct. There was indeed a POTA free special colour insert in the 1 June 1975 edition of the Sunday Observer.

This was advertised on page 1 of that edition. I discovered this a few years ago at the Canberra National Library Archives where they hold all the original Sunday Observer's in bound volumes. Sadly, the insert was missing.

However, it may be possible that it is held at the Melbourne State Library Archives. I tried a couple of years ago but they were still in the process of organising the papers into proper storage and/or microfilm. I would recommend anyone interested in tracking this down to pay a visit to the State Library.

This would have to be one of the rarest Aussie POTA collectables ever!

Robert Thomas

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