HARRISBURG, Pa. – An illustrated advertising section in Rolling Stone magazine violates the tobacco industry’s nine-year-old promise not to use cartoons to sell cigarettes, prosecutors in several states, including Maine, said Tuesday.

Attorneys general in Ohio and other states planned to file lawsuits against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. starting this week about the advertising for Camel cigarettes in the November edition of Rolling Stone, officials said.

The section combines pages of Camel cigarette ads with pages of magazine-produced illustrations on the theme of independent rock music.

“Their latest nine-page advertising spread in Rolling Stone, filled with cartoons, flies in the face of their pledge to halt all tobacco marketing to children,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said in a statement Tuesday.

Pennsylvania, New York and Washington state were filing lawsuits Tuesday, Corbett’s office said. Attorneys general in Maine, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio and Maryland also said they were suing.

Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe said Maine has made great strides in reducing the number of children who smoke.

“The elimination of tobacco ads targeting kids has certainly helped with this effort,” he said.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown called the publication a “rather clever piece of advertising.”

“They agreed not to do these kinds of things ever since Joe Camel,” Brown said. “We have to call them to task.”

The landmark 1998 settlement between 46 states and the tobacco industry reimburses states for smoking-related health care costs. In an effort to prevent the industry from pitching to minors, the agreement includes a provision against using cartoons in advertisements.

The cigarette ads in Rolling Stone tout “free range rock” and support for independent record labels while using photographic images of people in 1950s dress, farm animals, an old-fashioned tractor and furnishings like a phonograph against a farm backdrop. Those pages fold out to reveal a four-page illustrated spread of an “Indie Rock Universe” with animals, imaginary figures and other drawings.

David Howard, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds in Winston-Salem, N.C., insisted the Camel ads contained no cartoons. While the company was surprised and concerned by Rolling Stone’s illustrations, R.J. Reynolds bore no responsibility for it, he said.

“Had we been aware of the graphics prepared by Rolling Stone, we would not have advertised adjacent to the gatefold,” Howard said.

Corbett’s office said the states are seeking fines of $100 per magazine distributed within their borders, as well as $100 per hit on the related R.J. Reynolds Web site, www.thefarmrocks.com.