Once upon a time–over 21 years ago–I would occasionally get mail like this:
And I looked forward to this. It meant a new catalog–or catalogs plural–for mail-order comics! As of this typing, I don’t remember for certain, but I’m pretty sure there’d be a new Entertainment This Month catalog with the current month’s worth of "new, hot comics" available for pre-order with an accompanying general catalog of "back issues" and such in the American Entertainment catalog.
While some might say "hoarder," at the moment I’m taking to the term "master of ephemera" in finding a box of these old catalogs. Of course, growing up in the ’90s with the collectorism and such, I "saved everything." It helped that it was pre-internet and so outside of getting the actual issues, stuff like this was the only way to get and see some pieces of art…and with some of the promo images (like the Batman one in the lower left above) these may not have even made onto the covers or been finalized images…so might only have been here.
Still on other ones there are just favorite images–like the Superman one above taken from the "newsstand edition" of Adventures of Superman #505.
While I was very definitely aware of the advance-order cycle in comics–I recently re-discovered that I have a 2+ year "run" of Advance Comics from 1993 into 1995ish–I do recall American Entertainment and Entertainment This Month being a key part of my awareness.
Additionally, I credit them as getting me back into comics in 1992, after letting comics slip outta my life in 1990/early 1991. (Long origin story told briefly: my sister got a subscription to Barbie through a school magazine drive, which got her onto a mailing list for an Entertainment This Month mailing, which led to my "return" to comics.)
Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: #TBT, #ThrowbackThursday, American Entertainment, Entertainment This Month, mail order comics, marketing, new comics, Throwback Thursday |
Comic Reviews by Walt 
Yeah I had a lot of the early 90’s one and saved the very best ones with nice covers. I recently bought some from eBay and always looking to get the ones that I didn’t have. I think Diamond swallowed them up, but it was a nice time right before the comics industry plummeted. The quality was already getting bad, but I blame DC and Marvel for doing all those hologram covers and variants. Sadly I see that happening today. I just don’t get these companies…oh yeah I do. The money that’s right.