Snap Magazine Company Merchandise
And Ancillary Services

IMPRINTED MERCHANDISE AND ARTWORK

The popularity of The Snap went far beyond simple subscribership; it generated in some players and patrons a kind of emotional loyalty seldom seen in the world of of billiard journalism. Fans of the magazine often worked tirelessly to promote it without expectation of reward other than seeing the publication succeed. It was fairly well known to players that The Snap was a shoestring operation from the outset, and that it had to rely on word-of-mouth for its survival, a fact that eventually led several supporters to suggest that the company should come up with a line of t-shirts and other signature products they could wear and use to help promote the magazine. With several popular cartoon mascots already designed by Staff Artist Tom Pagels, the editors began applying these black-and-white images to t-shirts, towels and jackets, offering them for sale though ads in the magazine. The response was enthusiastic, and the merchandise sold so well it was decided that the selection be expanded to include full-color posters. Pagels was commissioned to hand-paint two posters, one featuring Billiard Billy and Memphis Millie, and the other featuring The Pool Doc. The posters were an instant hit, and eventually came to grace the walls of many a pool room and private game room. Unfortunately (or fortunately for those clever enough to have hung on to their purchases), all remaining merchandise was destroyed, along with all remaining back issues, in a flooding incident a few years after the magazine went out of business. Below are some examples.

TOURNAMENT SUPPLIES

As noted in the ad above center, another line of merchandise was dedicated to tournament supplies. Through constant personal contact with room owners around the country, the editors came to realize that one glaring need practically all room owners shared was for a reliable source of high-quality tournament supplies. At the time, most large-format tournament flow charts were being hand drawn and reproduced at high cost by individual rooms and/or tournament directors, so editors at The Snap decided to see if they could come up with a line of supplies that could be relied upon and ordered when necessary, and that also would cost less than what the room owners were then paying in creation and production costs. The eventual result was a complete line of tournament supplies, including laminated cards for conducting the random draws at the beginning of tournaments; pads of signup sheets; scoring materials; rule cards; instruction books; disposable flow charts; and most popular of all, large, erasable, permanent, wall-mounted flow charts like the one depicted below (please note that, since no actual charts remain, this copy had to be scanned from a small ad in the magazine and enlarged for inclusion here, which is why it appears muddy. The actual charts were perfectly clear and sharp in appearance.)

ANCILLARY SERVICES

Drawing on the talents of its editors and artists, The Snap also eventually began offering its design services to room owners, manufacturers, tournament promoters and other industry businesses, as seen in the ad below.