We've showcased more than a handful of ads done in the style of comic art. We've even done comic-style ads selling a second career. All of them are pretty square, some downright creepy, but today's entry is about as mediocre as they come (to hilarious results! I hope!)
Of course, I dunno how much you can really call this a comic when not only is the lettering in the plainest type font you can think of (at least it's actually in all-caps, like all comic lettering of the time), and utilizing only three speech bubbles, all of which were clearly done in hindsight (i.e. they seemed to originally be just boxes and had tails and rounded corners added later).
Clearly the Locksmithing Institute think they're too classy for the comic book medium, but not nearly classy enough to run an ad IN a comic book, trying to attract the kind of person who has no job and spends all day looking at Luke Cage beating up Spider-Man, as was what happened in the issue in which this ad ran.
The entire ad smacks of disrespect to the fine art of comics with the exception of one element: the half-invisible "personal instructor" that manifests itself upon reading the course materials. For ad guys who are way too conservative to use proper speech bubbles they sure had no problem featuring an invisible mad scientist on their ad.
In conclusion, this entire ad could learn a thing or two from Charles Atlas. In fact, given the title of this ad, I'm pretty sure they started learning, but then decided to stop. Clearly they are just not man enough to learn all of what Charles Atlas is trying to teach them.
That's right folks: locksmithing is what people who don't want to stand up to bullies amount to.
This ad for The Locksmithing Institute ran in Amazing Spider-Man #123, August 1973.
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