Beetle Bailey Sales – 1963
In 1961, three advertising executives from Chicago published “The Executive Coloring Book” and sold 300,000 copies. The following year, the “JFK Coloring Book,” which featured caricatures by MAD magazine’s Mort Drucker, made the bestseller list and adult coloring books had become a hot trend.
King Features Syndicate picked up on the fad and came out with “The Editors Coloring Book” by Mort Walker in 1963 (cover and first page shown above). This cleverly designed sales brochure for Beetle Bailey was sent to newspaper editors around the world encouraging them to pick up the strip.
In addition to special black-and-white illustrations, meant for coloring, there was a complete list of all 900 Beetle Bailey clients.
Below are the rest of the pages from this unique 1963 King Features sales kit.
As a special bonus, here is a link to a downloadable PDF that can be printed out and colored. http://www.mortwalker.com/1963BBcolorbooksm.pdf
We hope you have enjoyed seeing this historic promotional item from our archives.
– Brian