Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Selling Romance - Pursettes Tampon Ads

Anyone who has flipped through a romance comic knows that they hold a few strange ads, considering the primarily female demographic. Take for example, the ubiquitous fishing equipment advertisement that can be found in many '60s/'70s comics, including the romance books. Trolling lures and trout flies just aren't things you would typically associate with a young female audience! But tampons? Now that definitely makes more sense! The following are advertisements for Pursettes brand tampons ("the tote tampons") that ran in romance comics as well as teen magazines such as Seventeen from the late 1960s into the the '70s.

Girls' Love Stories #144
(July 1969)

I Love You #108
(September 1974)

Time for Love #40
(February 1975)

Young Romance #207
(September/October 1975)

Young Love #118
(October/November 1975)

Young Love #119
(December 1975/January 1976)

Young Love #120
(Winter 1976)

The bulk of these ads centered around teenage anxieties and the eternal quest to fit in, are effectively illustrated by legendary Mad artist, Mort Drucker.

Posted by Jacque Nodell at 12:32 PM
Labels: , , , ,

6 comments:

  1. My goodness, what a treasure trove of Drucker! Plus, these are some of the simplest, cleverest ads I've seen for teenagers. They really catch the fun of teen years, with a healthy dose of the dramatic anxiety, quite accurately.

    ReplyDelete

  2. There's a deeply awesome set of 1920s-era ads for sanitary pads featuring a mother-daughter team. The daughter is pulling Mom into modernity via skiing, wearing pajamas, learning to fly a plane... and wearing Kotex! I'll have to try & find those again....

    ReplyDelete

  3. Dang, I was sitting here reading these and thinking, hey, that's Mort Drucker and nobody else knows it. And then I saw the tags and Mykal's comment. Doh!

    ReplyDelete

  4. Mykal: They are fun! I can see if these would have been sold and advertised earlier they may have gone the "medical doctors agree" type route, but I like the light teenage voice of these.

    Elaine: I would definitely like to see those!

    Pat: Yup! Drucker!

    ReplyDelete

  5. Hmmm, The first three are Mort Drucker for certain. The last three I would say are not.

    ReplyDelete

  6. David: The last two are quite different -- from the layout to the actual artwork. Any guesses on who the other artist could be?

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
Comic Blog Elite