A Tribute to Comic Book Back Cover Advertisements
For all the (deserved) praise we bestow on the front covers of comic books, sometimes the advertisements on the back cover are almost just as visually striking, impactful, and interesting as what is on the front.
Because I am a fan of these back covers, I want to highlight a few examples of some of my favorite comic book back covers of the Silver Age, and help show just how interesting these advertisements could be.
The Parker-Jones Guide to Hypnotism
This is perhaps my personal favorite comic back cover. Granted, it’s not as visually appealing as some of the others on this list (the stern looking man who’s pointing threateningly at me is not going to make me buy the product), but it’s one of my favorites because of the promises that this product makes.
First of all, it starts with bright red letters and says “Give me just one evening and I’ll teach you to hypnotize easily”. The medical field is still at odds as to whether hypnosis is real, but apparently in just the few short hours between school at dinner, you can turn into a modern day Svengali.
Okay, let’s say you turn out to be a savant, a hypnotic genius, a superhero, and you master this unique skill in one evening. Then what can you do with it?
Apparently, anything.
This advertisement promises that once you complete their lesson plan, you can astound your friends by exerting your hypnotic powers over anyone, excel in business through hypnosis, lose weight and get in better shape, heal yourself and others, and, most importantly, be “POPULAR and WANTED”.
This is what seals the deal for me. Telling a kid who obsessively reads comic books in the 60’s that they can be “POPULAR and WANTED” borders on child abuse. Seriously, that angry man wagging his finger in your face, ought to be put in jail for the false promises that he made to the countless impressionable young outcasts who read these comics.
With that being said, there is something special that comes from knowing that the innocence that only the innocence of a small child can accept a claim that is so undeniably false. And, judging by the run that these ads had, thousands of young children were duped by this man and his crazy promises.
Wallace Brown Christmas Cards
This back cover doesn’t have the crazy promises, and really doesn’t even try to hide its intentions. It’s a pyramid scheme. You know it, I know it, little kids reading this knew it. Did it still work? Probably.
Kids aren’t dumb, but cash is cash, so I’m sure plenty bought these cards in order to sell them to 20 other people, pocketing 50% of the final price.
Do I hope that these children’s parents were smart enough to not let their children blow their hard earned money on Christmas cards that nobody will ever buy? Absolutely. Do I hope that these children didn’t end up with a garage (or more likely the space under the bed) filled with old product that they’ll never get rid of. Again, absolutely. Can I imagine that there’s someone cleaning out their parent’s house right now and finding 19 boxes of these cards that they never got rid of? Once again, absolutely.
Another thing I feel that I must point out is the distinct lack of diversity on this entire page. I’m not saying I’m surprised, but of the 20 faces of the people that you might know, they are all white, and the ad explicitly states that “everyone you know needs Christmas cards”. Sorry Jews.
Mike Marvel’s Dynaflex Method
This advertisement, almost more than any other of the time, tries to capture and recreate the front.
With the speech bubble that extends from spokesperson Mike Marvel’s pecs, this ad shows the same energy, excitement, and strength of any of the great heroes of the era. And, it does so in no small part because Captain Marv — I mean, Mike Marvel — looks so much like a superhero.
For just $1.98, Mike Marvel promises you a “magnificent new he-man-muscled body in just 10 minutes a day — with absolutely no weights — no bar-bells — no exercise at all!”
I have to assume that this is too good to be true, but look at how ripped he is!
Before I went through and read the Dynaflex method, I expected this exercise routine to be a whole lot of squats, pushups, situps, pullups, and other various -ups, but as I researched this, I found that it is actually a whole lot of this:
And this:
And whatever this is:
Despite my lack of faith in this exercise routine, I have to give Mike Marvel’s Dynaflex Method a lot of credit; at a time when exercise and physical fitness were not a priority, this mail-order exercise routine attempted to get kids into better shape.
While I am skeptical that someone who followed this routine would end up looking like Marvel, if a youth actually completed this whole instruction plan, I am sure he would be in better shape than when he started. And I must commend them for that.
Famous Artists School
One of the most famous back covers in comic book history, this advertisement for Albert Dorne’s Famous Artists School ran on the backs of more comics than any other.
Before his cartoon face graced the back covers of The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and X-Men, Dorne was one of the most in-demand commercial artist of the 1940s. His work was featured in some of the most popular publications of the time, including Colliers, The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and Cosmopolitan, and he did the artwork for countless advertisements.
He, along with Norman Rockwell, and with the help of the New York Society of Illustrators, founded the Famous Artists School in 1948 in Westport, Connecticut, and recruited such prominent artists as Rockwell, Flash Gordon cartoonist Austin Briggs, “Illustrator for the Stars” Jon Whitcomb, Rube Goldberg, and others to serve as the faculty.
By the time this advertisement appeared on comics, the price for a three year course and enrollment in the correspondence school was $300, plus about $11.55 for basic oil painting supplies. (A far cry from the $1.98 that it cost to learn hypnotize everyone around you!) However, this school influenced countless individuals, and helped birth the next generation of great comic book illustrators.
Who knows, maybe even some of those students went on to create some of the next generation of great back cover advertisements.
I got the inspiration for this article as I was perusing Panjo looking to add some older comic books to my collection, and was reminded about how great the back cover artwork is on the Golden and Silver Age books.
If you’re interested, you can find some of these back covers (with the rest of the comic book as well) and more at https://www.panjo.com/tags/comics.
