Dive Brief: 

• For the first time, DC Comics will be running advertising on its covers. 
• The cross-marketing campaign will run ads for Scribblenauts Unmasked, a video game released by DC's parent company, Warner Bros., based on the publisher's comic characters. 
• The ads were on the covers of 20 titles in January and promoted a line of toys based on the Scribblenauts Unmasked video game. 

Dive Insight: 

While ads have run inside comic books for a long time, this is the first time a comic book publisher has devoted prime cover real estate to market a video game and toy line. It turns out special covers for comic books actually make them more valuable, so it seems to be a win-win cross-marketing relationship. What will be interesting to see is if other publishers follow suit. Could we see Newsweek or Time offering up cover space to ads?