The worst kept secret in comics is that comics themselves don't actually make a whole lot of money. Back in the Golden Age funnybooks would sell upwards of millions of copies per issue (well, at least the big names like Batman and Superman did); nowadays, a besteller manages to shift something like a hundred thousand issues. Unless it's an outlier like Star Wars #1. Which means that, for the most part, comic book publishers are subsidised by adverts. Well, adverts and blockbuster movie adaptations. That's why roughly 25% of your average 32-page comic will be comprised of adverts. Most of which will involve corporate synergy of some description, or at least things the target audience are interested in. Ad agencies have got their comic book game down in the 21st century, but it was not always so. Before car companies and TV channels put down cash for those precious interstitial pages, the wild four-colour frontier was home to any number of bandits and snake oil merchants. Before the polished, copywritten ads of today, kids were faced with the opportunity to spend their hard-earned allowance on everything from sea monkeys to miracle workout regimens to something called Space Ice. Here are twenty bonkers adverts that actually appeared in old comics.