In late 1971/early 1972, this subscription ad appeared in the comics. It always intrigued me. There weren't any newsstands in Vancouver, as far as I knew--maybe there were in the 1960s--and the newsstand shown in this ad looks so old-timey, like something you'd see in an old movie. The artwork interested me but I've never been able to figure out who did it. Could it have been the man himself, Carmine Infantino, then publisher of National Periodical Publications? There are some Infantino-esque elements to the art.
At that time, the comics were 48 pages for 25 cents. So in the U.S.A. this worked out to a straight deal. Twelve comics at 25 cents each would equal three dollars. But in Canada, paying four dollars would have been over the cover price. The comics sold for the same amount here as in the States, back then, and there was no tax. Plus, to get a money order in U.S. funds would have cost even more than four dollars Canadian.
It was something I considered doing, since it would guarantee me getting the comics I wanted. And I did later subscribe to some titles, when a better deal came along. But the comics that came in the mail were not in perfect condition. I was probably better off in the long run buying comics in the stores.
However, there was no one store that was dependable for getting all the comics I wanted. And, when I became a teen-ager, I would wander further and further away from home, going into new stores in search of comics. I found out that an hour away by foot from our house, there were stores that got their comics weeks ahead of when the stores in our area got them.
By around 1978, there was a comic book store downtown that got all the comics in on time. So, by then, I think I was making the long bus trip to that store each week to get all the comics I wanted. But before then, I had a tough time finding those comics.