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Monday, November 21

Funny comic book ads: Yubiwaza!

by Mike on Mon 21 Nov 2005 09:36 PM EST

For the past few weeks, I have been slowly buying up a small cache of old Charlton Comics from my local comic shop. I found them in a seemingly neglected box of unsorted stuff in a back corner of the shop. Some of the old Charlton Comics from the late 1960's were pretty cool. I particularly like the Charlton superhero comics like Blue Beetle and Captain Atom, which were drawn by legendary Marvel artist Steve Ditko. The few Charlton books I have read from this period are a bit edgier and unpolished compared to what some of the industry leaders were turning out at the time.

One of the comics I recently acquired was Strange Suspense Stories #75, which features a thorough re-telling of the origin of Captain Atom. Included in this issue is a full-page ad for something called "Yubiwaza."

Yubiwaza is allegedly a self-defense technique that "turns just one finger or your hands into a potent weapon of defense — without any bodily contact..." Amazing, isn’t it? Some might even use the word "unbelievable." The product is hawked by a guy named N.J. Fleming, who was apparently some sort of "Yubiwaza Master." Fleming also picks up the endorsement of Yoshie Imanami, who is described in the ad as the "pretty Japanese wife of N.J. Fleming — Yubiwaza master." As if that isn’t enough to sell you on this fine product, two free gifts are offered. One of them is the secret of "How to Do Strong Man Stunts with Ease" and the second gift is the secret of "How to Easily Overcome and Master Inferiority Complex, Bashfulness and Shyness." So apparently, once you snag all three products, you can finally win new friends, scare and intimidate them and then beat the hell out of them without leaving a mark! Where do I sign up?

I have uploaded a relatively decent scan of the full ad, which includes a dramatic comic strip entitled "What Yubiwaza Can Do for You in Just a Few Seconds." This is the best quality scan I could get while still remaining browser-friendly. The original ad itself is kind of fuzzy, which tended to happen with a lot of low-budget comics from this era.