1 So that’s how to be attractive! We’re all familiar with the basic formula of the comic book ad featuring a bodybuilder telling readers how he can turn them from scrawny pipsqueaks into muscle-bound hunks. This 1966 ad, though, goes even further, with its booklet “The Secret to Being Attractive.” It tells you Mike Marvel’s secret method for developing a new, almost magnetic way of being attractive and popular! At parties, dances, at the beach—you will have women clustering around you breathlessly, while other guys watch enviously and say, “What does he have that we don’t?”
2 If you can predict the future, why are you working as a telephone psychic? Once you get past the unsettling idea of a bunch of prepubescent boys controlling people’s minds, ponder the concept of a company selling “hypnocoins.” I also like the idea of them being sold by the Hypnotic Aids Supply Co. How would you like that on the top of your letterhead?
3 I know that it was the sixties, but still. I suppose that, eventually, model kit companies just run out of new model cars to sell to kids, but this particular kit from 1968? A customized garbage truck, mod musicians, and surfboards? I don’t know if this scene actually existed anywhere on Earth during the 1960s, but if it did, I’m terribly disappointed at being five decades late for it!
4 Truth in comic book ads! One of the go-to ads throughout comic book advertisement history has been the X-Ray Spex. The idea of seeing through objects (and, let’s face it, most young male readers were thinking “ladies’ clothes”) is fascinating. However, what’s even more fascinating is to see how someone must have been forced to step in to clarify the product for readers, because compare the X-Ray Spex ad from 1966 to the X-Ray Spex ad from 1967.
