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A comic book is so far above an ad as to make the comparison silly.

That's absurd. Just because the motive of the advertisement is to sell you an idea, doesn't mean it isn't done creatively and artistically. In fact, advertisements tend to be most effective when they are extremely artistic and unique.

Art is supposed to be emotionally engaging. What does a comic book do better?

A comic book has a theme, a moral, characters, continuity.

An ad has "Buy this car! Buy this car! Buy this car!"

I deny ads work better when artistic. True, you remember them better. But often I totally miss what the product was, which makes them score Zero on the ad-o-meter. Do you remember the product for those 'artistic' Apple ads? Not good enough to say "some Apple thingy".

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