The
summer of 1970 saw this beautifully illustrated advert plus variations
in black & white appear in Striker, a magazine devoted to football
and thus a good place to advertise to boy readers or their dads.
I
obtained this page online from a cut-up merchant, and once I had it in
my hands I wondered if there might be a second page. Reason was that the
text mentions "over 30 action models" whereas the illustration only
shows 16 of the original Spacex Stage 1 range of 18 toys, so to make up
the numbers the text must have referred to the later Pippin-produced
series as well.
However,
our good friend Toad was most kind to look through the magazine at the
British Library to find issues and dates, and confirmed this single page
was all there was to it.
This
now makes me wonder whether the illustration may not have been recycled
from previous adverts introducing the original Stage 1 series. We so
far haven't found these yet, but since we know the Moon Base was amongst
the last toys to be available (shown as it is on card backs with the
original Lockheed illustration) this could very well be possible since
it isn't included here.
What
is also interesting is the appeal to readers (shown in detail below) to
write in with suggestions for a Spacex Club to be formed. I believe
this never actually happened (there's no evidence to prove it did, and
the next series of comic adverts two months later doesn't mention it any
more either) but it's certainly a nice idea, and a good way of
involving the target audience.
As
a final note, I have no idea what that mysterious letter A next to the
helicopter is doing there. It doesn't appear in any of the other ads.
And
as an anniversary prezzy, here's a link to a better-quality pdf version of this advert, to print out yourself (this link should remain valid
throughout this bloggiversary week - any latecomers can give me a shout
afterwards to send it again here :)
Four cheers for the blog and hearty congratulations to Woods n Wote!
--
Paul Vreede
P.S - Many thanks for discovering this beautiful piece Mr V - I suspect it may be the work of Mike Noble - can anyone confirm ? Wotan
7 comments:
Fantastic find, Paul. You never cease to amaze - well done.
I would never have come across it considering it was in a football mag. (sorry, Wote - using the 'F' word again!)
Beautiful ad page indeed, love the composition and the toned-down colour scheme. Thanks for sharing your research with us Paul, super as always!
colours are actually quite bright when it prints out, ideal for framing!
Thanks for the kind words, gents. Finding it was a serious piece of luck, and thankfully the seller remembered the title of the magazine he destroyed. :)
(And sorry for putting the F-word on the blog)
Best -- Paul
Great art and great find!
Great find Paul - Many Thanx!
That's cool!
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