Classic Ads: Who SAYS Comics Aren't Educational?

Back in the 1960's, whenever DC Comics had unsold ad spaces to fill, they would plug the gaps with various in-house features such as simple cartoon strips, hobby hints, or educational facts. 

In most cases, the educational factoids were interesting and memorable stuff...like when I learned the speed of light* from the "Flash Facts" feature of the super-speedster's solo title. In other cases, like this filler ad printed in Justice League of America #22 (1963), the information wasn't exactly stuff you were clamoring to know.

* 186,282 miles per second.

Comments

[Pat Curley]

Do potatoes actually rot much? They're one of the few foodstuffs that you can leave out for weeks at a time.

I've often thought that somebody should put together the "DC-opedia" some day with all those fillers.

My English major dad would point out that the word you're looking for is "clamoring".

[Warren]

Oh yes, potatoes can rot.

My roommate left bag a potatoes under our kitchen sink and then he deployed for Turkey for three months where the potatoes remained forgotten.

A month later after I moved out he called and told me he found them dried and shriveled where he left them. Explained both why there were fruit flies everywhere and why the sink smelled like something died there.

[Comic Coverage]

Thanks, Pat. Correction made.

Yeah, potatoes were certainly an odd choice. I can imagine them using, instead, one of those corpses from the old E.C. comics for the "rotting" panel.