Humor
Vintage Martial Arts Comic Book Ads
A couple years ago, Dan Kelly did a retrospective on the martial arts advertisements found in comic books from the 1950s to 1980s. He breaks it up by advertisers, and you’ll see familiar names there, such as Joe Weider, Bruce Tegner, Count Dante, Ketsugo, etc.
We would like to eventually post something similar with earlier ads from our collection, especially the early 1900s “jiu-jitsu” ads that appeared everywhere. A marked difference between the early ads and those of later years is the choice of advertising venue. While Dan Kelly lists ads from pulp comic books, earlier ads could be found anywhere, for example, in the 1900s, John J. O’Brien advertised jujutsu in the Scientific American and similar publications, a far cry from comic books. Of course, judging by the commercial success of children’s classes today, maybe that’s why O’Brien never sold nearly as many correspondence courses as the folks that ran the ads collected on Dan’s site.
See Comic Book Martial Arts Ads or click on the Destructive Power Punch above.
Discussion
3 comments for “Vintage Martial Arts Comic Book Ads”
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Thanks for the link!
Greetings!
I am have had an interest in the martial arts since the early 70’s. (I now hold a 2nd degree Black Belt) I remeber every one of the ads you have on your website.
There is one ad I had seen for a mail order product called the “SHOCKER” glove (?). As I recall, it was some type of glove you slipped on your hand, and I also remember the full page ad had some type of “x-ray” illustration showing how the device reinforced the KNIFEHAND striking edge of the hand. It wasn’t battery powered like in a stun gun, but I think it was some type of “SAP GLOVE” with powederd lead sewn in to it.
and it amplified the force of your strikes.
Have you or anyone else ever come across the ad?
and it amplified the force of your strikes.
Rich, I’ve looked around at some hardcopies and done some googling to no avail. Coincidentally, I wrote an article for EJMAS which was never used that tracked the patent forerunners of the stun gun and taser, but never done much research on saps.
I’ll post about it and ask around a bit to see if anyone recalls it.