{"id":3210,"date":"2025-06-01T10:19:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T14:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/?p=3210"},"modified":"2025-06-01T12:34:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T16:34:45","slug":"on-the-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/2025\/06\/01\/on-the-house\/","title":{"rendered":"On The House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A DC Comics house ad that tormented<\/em> me as a kid. I desperately wanted to read this comic, but I didn’t have access to the direct market.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Whenever I think, “I don’t really have any more Reference posts to write,” I inevitably think of something that I want to write about that doesn’t really fit in any other category and doesn’t warrant the creation of a new one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such is the case with this post, in which I was reminded of something and decided I wanted to write about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That something being comic book house ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The house ad that inspired this post.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Comics used to have a lot of house ads – to the extent that they have ads now they’re almost exclusively house ads – which as the name and the examples above suggest, are ads for other comics the company publishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early ’80s, just as I was getting into regularly picking up new comics, DC launched the series of house ads like the one above. Each month’s comics would feature a page showing off a selection of comics that would be hitting the stands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I viewed the ads as a challenge, or even a homework assignment, pledging to do my level best to pick up all of the comics advertised, even if it wasn’t a comic in which I would typically be interested. For example, this ad inspired me to pick up House of Mystery<\/em>, a comic that I previously had never given much thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, whether or not I could complete my “homework assignment” wasn’t entirely up to me, given that I was at the mercy of chance when it came to the availability of a given comic and at the mercy of my mother’s generosity when it came to buying the comics that were available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this instance, for example, I got a B-, as I did not pick up that Legion of Super-Heroes<\/em> digest. I assume it’s simply because I didn’t see it, because if I had, my mother would have likely allowed me to pick it up, as she was generally partial to buying me digests given the value proposition. They were, after all, “the biggest little buy in comics.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, I did<\/em> tun in the full assignment eventually, as a year or two later I got that digest – sans cover – in a mystery pack<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, there were usually other house ads besides this one in a given issue, so I got extra credit by picking up two other comics that were prominently advertised that month: Saga of the Swamp Thing<\/em> #1 and The Fury of Firestorm the Nuclear Man<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Speaking of house ads…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Worldtamer Book 1<\/a><\/blockquote>