Sunday Johnstone and Cushing Day.
Some time ago I shared some scans from a Johnstone and Cushing produced advertising comic for pertrol stations. I can't recall which oil company company, but the name Richfield, which is mentioned in these strips, doesn't ring a bell. The comic book Under the Hood was produced by Johnstone and Cushing (actually there were two issues) and filled with cartoons and short gags by all of their regular funny artists: Dik Browne, Gil Fox, Sakren, Jack Markow and more. Apparently gil Fox did a comic strip ad for Richfield around the same time, possibly related. They were published once a week, but at various different dates for different papers. Not a lot, but any Fox is Good Fox for me.
Richfield merged with Atlantic Refining and became ARCO.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a despicable ad campaign. Richfield gas was "hydrogen powered" in that, sure, the chemical make-up of gasoline includes hydrogen molecules. So is the gasoline of every other petroleum company. A print ad of the time boasted that their "Ethyl 101 Plus" gas, which consumers might mistake for 101 octane -- ridiculously high, perhaps an impossible rating -- refers to the 101 different hydrocarbons present in gasoline -- any gasoline, of course, not just theirs. And the advertisement goes on to extol their gasoline as a peaceful purpose for hydrogen, giving the the more dimwitted readers the idea that hydrogen in gasoline performs the same explosive purpose as it does in the hydrogen bomb. Wow.
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