Today frequent comic book advertiser the Cleveland Institute of Electronics steps it up a notch. It's not enough for you to be deathly jealous of your more successful friend's life to sign up for a career "in electronics."
No sir, they've called in a friend. They've called in... ELECTROMAN
That's right, Jim. Electroman wants you to know two things: one, that his name is written on his shirt. And two: don't give up on your future! CIE can help you "bust-out" into a rewarding job. Find out how. Just fill in and mail this coupon today. He'll see that you get your two free books.
That's right, Electroman's powers are... DUH... getting you free books when you mail a coupon in.
Also I assume by bust out he was comparing your career to when he just demolished someone's brick wall three panels prior.
By the way, you think CIE got the same illustrator that drew Pajama Man?
This ad for the Cleveland Institute of Electronics was from Amazing Spider-Man #146, July 1975.
I've had a personal fetish for the concept of hovercraft since I was a little kid. I say concept because 26 years on, I still haven't seen a production vehicle that comes close to the promise of what hovercraft are supposed to be (i.e. something Doc Brown and Marty rode around in).
So it comes as no surprise that the following ad was something that caught MY eye when I was a kid reading comic books. What does come as a surprise was that said ad came out a full fifteen years before I was of comic-reading age!
Yes, I remember seeing the very same ads in comic books and (if I recall correctly) issues of Boy's Life in the 90's. Had I known that these ads for Wijit Works' hovercraft plans had been running since the mid-70's, and seeing that the world still hadn't been overrun by kids floating about in homemade flying machines, I wouldn't have even begun to consider paying money to Wijit Works.
Okay, I probably still would've.
That's right, Wijit Works claims that you can build your own man-sized air car powered by an ordinary vacuum cleaner motor. My family already had an old vacuum cleaner, surely they wouldn't mind the sacrifice if they saw me sliding over the pavement in one of these things.
And best of all, the plans are FREE!
Oh wait, no it's not. The plans are three dollars, and comes with a free astronaut iron-on with order.
At this point I would be surprised if the iron-on actually worked. The cynic in me would just assume that if you had fallen for this, your parents would come home and find the following:
The vacuum cleaner disassembled, the house covered in dust.
Your bicycle disassembled (I would also assume)
Several t-shirts ruined and burned from attempted ironings
You, three dollars poorer.
Oh well, I only need to wait five more years until I can get me my own hoverboard anyway.
This ad for Wijit Works' Hovercraft plans was published in Amazing Spider-Man #145, June 1975.
Martial arts ads usually combined Asian mysticism with American machismo, bringing the mysterious, "previously forbidden" arts to the limelight in a straightforward "I'll kick your ass you look at my girl crooked again" approach.
That's why I have no idea why John Keehan, teacher for the Black Dragon Fighting Society, aka, the deadliest man alive, and who certainly looks close enough like it in his ad, would pick for himself the decidedly un-threatening name of Count Dante.
Why he chose to render his own name in fruity cursive and surround himself in fuschia is beyond me as well.
Still, despite all this, Count Dante and his paste-on eyebrows and motorcycle helmet afro aroused the fascination of many freaky kids.
Danté, or his marketers--though he was more hands-on than the other comic book senseis--were ahead of their time with the "red" ad. While most ads (and even Danté's earlier ads, appearing in Marvel's black and white magazine-format comics) tiled every square inch with copy extolling the benefits of their system, Danté made himself the focus (no challenge, since he was a legendary egomaniac). Danté looked the part of the '70s martial arts master, carefully cultivating his "deadliest man alive" mystique. It's also worth noting that the picture in the "red" ad is heavily retouched. Danté can be seen as he really looked in ad number 2 (still intimidating, but slightly more rakish, and less reliant on the Ming the Merciless look than the figure in the "red" ad). One is unable to tell if he's white, Latino, or black (he was actually Irish-American); which might well have been his intention.
Count Dante even inspired filmmaker Floyd Webb to create a short film delving into Keehan's past:
Fascinating, but he'll always be fake hairy creepy white dude with cursive name and fuschia explosion.
This ad for Count Dante's Black Dragon Fighting Society ran in Amazing Spider-Man #144, May 1975.
So let's say you're a kid in 1975. You've just saved up several weeks' worth of allowance and now you have three dollars to waste on something for sale in Amazing Spider-Man #143. You come upon two small ads, right next to each other:
The first one, apparently are lessons for how to draw monsters, taught by professional cartoonist Monsterman, who may or may not be an actual monster (I'm leaning towards may). In fact I'm assuming that monster is Monsterman's self-portrait.*
The other is an ad for TWENTY FIVE LIVE SEAHORSES. Or rather, apparently, "one pregnant male" who will give birth to as many as 25 babies. Now, I've shown before how surprisingly legit these ads for live pets are, but I'd be willing to just assume that all I'd be getting is one pregnant male and up to 25 dead black specks. But still, 3 bucks for a seahorse is pretty cool.
Which one would you pick?
*Turns out Monsterman is "Scary" Harry Borgman, an actual cartoonist who isn't satisfied with just one creepy nickname. Leif Peng compiled images from the book in a blog post. Still no word on whether or not Harry Borgman is a real monster.
These ads ran next to each other on the same page in Amazing Spider-Man #143, April 1975.
We update every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with a brand new ad from the pages of a Spider-Man (or related) comic, attempting to go in chronological order from 1962 (Spidey's first appearance) to the present.
