GRIT was a weekly newspaper, founded in 1882, targeted primarily to readers in rural United States. During the 1940s to the 1970s, GRIT recruited children and teenagers via comic book ads to sell the newspaper and expand its circulation.
Above is a GRIT ad from 1966 published in Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics, Issue #2, when it was using the slogan America’s Greatest Family Newspaper. The ad influenced kids to sign up, highlighting they could “earn all the money you want”, get “valuable business experience” and using social proof in saying 30,000 had already joined GRIT.
This GRIT ad from 1974, published in Sub-Mariner issue #69, isn’t too different to the one above from 1966. However instead of making $1 to $5 weekly (1966), it changed to $1 to $6 weekly. Every dollar counts! And instead of 5 cents of profit for every copy sold, it became 7 cents of profit per copy.
The big change in this ad from 1980, published in Tales to Astonish Starring the Sub-Mariner issue #8, was the inclusion of girls as GRIT salespeople. Before, the conditions were clear: “Papers sent only to boys in Continental U.S.”
