Back from the days when syndicates and newspapers actually marketed their features, here is a special strip created by Edgar Martin in 1925 to announce that Boots and her Buddies was soon going to begin appearing in the Dubuque Times-Journal. The Times-Journal would go belly up in 1927, despite the presence of this cute as a button NEA starlet.
Martin could have easily used this same art to advertise the strip in other new client papers, but this is the only instance I’ve seen where this promo was used. Scan from the collection of Cole Johnson.
I have seen other papers use this promo, I guess like most big syndicates, NEA would update them every few years; the first "Boots" promo was re-using the first episode.
At King Features, we'd put out our own , but unless it was a top title, we'd just keep sending out the same one until the artwork didn't look the same.
The problem with promos, is that you can offer a plethora of various styles, sizes, and characters, but most new clients just didn't use them, making them rare collector's items.
The Dubuque Times-Journal's last issue was Friday,1 April 1927. There was no Saturday issue anyway, but on Sunday 2 April, the rival Telegraph-Herald had incorporated their name (in small type) into their masthead, and announced the two had merged. It seemed like not much of an equal partnership, more like a buyout. On 6 May 1935 the Times-Journal's name vanished forever from the masthead.