DC Comics Asks: What Do YOU Think is Groovy?

While recently paging through Justice League of America #83 (1970), I came across an interesting little reader poll conducted by a desperate-to-be-hip DC Comics (some things never change).  Leading off the pitch was the epitome of hipness himself...Superman!

To which wary readers might have replied,
"Hey, Far Out!...but what's in it for me, man?"

Flash?  Tell the hippie what he could win if he fills out the Groovy Quiz...

Get that?  A portable TV set...see the handle on top?  Sure, not a big deal here in the iPod age of portable video...but back then?  Let me put it this way:  A portable TV in 1970 was the equivalent of the iPhone on the High-Tech Awesomeness Scale.

If the prospect of winning a portable TV wasn't hip enough for the readers, surely this additional blurb from Superman completely sealed the deal:

DIG!  Click on the link below to jump to the survey!

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Note:  No comic book shops, mail order subscription services, or eBay!
Also, comic books could potentially come from your enemies!

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Watching TV?  Reading a book?  Going to a movie?  Wow...DC was really targeting the heavy duty, cutting edge hipsters there, weren't they?

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To heck with pollution and romance...I wanna read about Black People!  And who wanted to read comic books about hobbies...and where's the "superheroes punching each other repeatedly" choice?

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Was there some startling new level of consumer insight two
breakfast choices provided that only one breakfast choice couldn't?

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Yeah, if it weren't for Dr. Doom, I never would have learned the phrase "imbecilic cretins". Or the speed of light from Flash comics.

(186,282 miles per second)

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They just weren't going to let go of the school angle, were they?

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Ah, the good old days...when there were only two choices.

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Come on, did these guys honestly think kids actually
kept track of itemized expenses?  I sure didn't.

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"Imbecilic Cretins"

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Finally...an easy question!

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Thanks for taking time away from your lifelong War Against
Crime to explain the mundane mailing procedure, Batman!

Comments

[Lisa]

I love how "english" isn't capitalized.

[Mark Engblom]

Right...while all of the choices three questions before that one are ALL capitalized! (Space Flights, Pollution, City Problems, etc.)

[Hube]

Man, this is yet another classic and what makes this my fave comics blog. How sad was it, though, that "Black People" was actually a choice 37 years ago for something you'd like to see in comics? Yeesh. It sure is a good thing we wince at stuff like that these days, and that a comic co. wouldn't come even close to considering such a question like that today. And that's not out of PC, but that it would be patently absurd as blacks are -- finally -- considered as much a part of American society as anyone else.

[Shar]

This was hilarious, thanks for digging up this stuff! I'm surprised they didn't use Green Arrow instead of the Flash.

In terms of where you could buy comics back then, my friends and I always called the stores "candy stores", though I'm not sure that's the correct term. These places sold candy (of course), comics, magazines like Life, and there was usually a luncheonette counter complete with fountain sodas, egg creams, etc.

[Ivan Wolfe]

I remember learning the speed of light from Flash comics.

[Mark Engblom]

"Man, this is yet another classic and what makes this my fave comics blog."

Wow...thanks, Hube. Considering your blog is one of my favorite political/pop cultural blogs, that's high praise indeed!

"How sad was it, though, that "Black People" was actually a choice 37 years ago for something you'd like to see in comics? Yeesh."

Well, at the time, I think the Establishment was trying their best to do the right thing, despite the clumsy presentation or phrasing. Sadly, though, there are still tons of people who wish to reduce us to our most simple components of humanity (skin color, ethnicity, etc) rather than the content of our character.

[Mark Engblom]

"This was hilarious, thanks for digging up this stuff! I'm surprised they didn't use Green Arrow instead of the Flash."

Thanks, Shar...there's so many great little things like this sprinkled throughout older comics, I'm happy to share them with all of you.

Good point on the Green Arrow. At the time, Ollie was definitely the appointed "Cool Guy" of the DC pantheon of characters...so it's a mystery why Flash would be chosen to be Mr. Groovy (which nobody familiar with the character would ever accuse him of being).

[Mark Engblom]

"I remember learning the speed of light from Flash comics."

Seriously, I think I retained more information from the "Flash Facts" feature than I did with anything I learned in Elementary School! It must have something to do with the format and the context in which the information was presented (a fun comic book I voluntarily read vs. a dull classroom I was forced to attend).

[Hube]

Mark: I actually won a spelling bee in 6th grade thanks to reading 60s-70s Marvel comics. In the finale between me and another kid, the word was "grotesque." The night before I had read HULK #197 (if memory serves) where the Jade Giant battled the "Macabre" Man-Thing and the "Grotesque" Glob. Not knowing how the Glob's adjective was pronounced at the time, I consulted a nearby dictionary! And wouldn't 'ya know it ...!

Not only was my opponent flummoxed that I knew the spelling, but I think my teacher was, too!

Thanks, Marvel! :-)

(Oh yeah, my personal favorite Marvel villain put-down is "microcephalic dolt.")

[Ivan Wolfe]

As Mark Evanier once said (this is probably badly paraphrased): you can always tell which elementary school kids read comics, because they have the biggest vocabulary. What other first grader is going to know the meanings of invincible, invulnerable, and grotesque?

[jakubkurtzberg]

Maybe someone can help me with the follwing. This is a German reprint of a FLASH FACTS page. If anyone recognizes ist and could name me the source, it would be great. Thanks a lot http://mitglied.lycos.de/Zzutak/HCZusatz/HC002.Z02.jpg

[imagogami]

Man, I wish we could read more about black people in today's comics.

[rhys]

Groovy! Dig!! thanks batman i will "do my thing!" and mail my details to you