Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads Hardcover – October 11, 2011

Back in the 70s and early 80s I was an avid comic book reader, and the ads presented in "Mail-Order Mysteries" were a ubiquitous part of that scene. I convinced my mom to order me some of the stuff, but now and then I've wondered what most of the products were like in real life. Now, thanks to "Mail-Order Mysteries," a small but important gap of my childhood knowledge has finally been filled in.As a lad I coveted the small toy soldier sets, such as the 100 Toy Soldiers, 132 Roman Soldiers, and my favorite, the 204 Revolutionary War Soldiers. The first two products were disappointing because they were made of brittle, flat plastic, but the third was garrisoned with the three-dimensional softer plastic troops that I wanted. I used to spend hours setting up huge battles around building-block forts and then dropping flaming bits of melting plastic on them (I still have a scar on my leg from a misfire).The above dilemma was the big problem with ye olde comic-book mail-order ads: there was no way to actually see what you were buying until it arrived in the mail (or unless a friend had gotten one first). Remember, this was back in the days of no Internet and four channels of TV. So you sent your money and took your chances, and as Kirk Demarais and Jesse Thorn show here in glorious full color, more often than not what you got was, to put it mildly, cheaply made junk.The book is broken down into sections based on the product type, such as "House of Horrors" for scary stuff like the 7-Foot Monster-Size Monster posters, "Superpowers and Special Abilities" for gaining skills like the World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets, and my favorite due to the above mentioned toy soldier sets, "War Zone." Each product gets at least a page containing a picture of the original ad, a color photo of the actual product, and some interesting background information.I don't buy comic books anymore (I stick to graphic novels and trade paperback collections), so I'm not sure what they're peddling these days on the back covers. But if you, like me, are a chap of a certain age then "Mail-Order Mysteries" will clear up one of the bigger questions of your idyllic youth.

A cynical friend who received an allowance from his parents, and was able to buy some of the stuff advertised in the back of the comic books, warned me that the "200 lb Test Fiberboard" the "Polaris Submarine" was made from, actually meant "a cardboard box". I didn't have $6.95 when I was in the 4th grade, so there was no chance I would ever learn that costly lesson on my own. If only I could turn back time! "Mail Order Mysteries" includes the only known photograph of the actual submarine extant. What would this piece of nostalgia bring 50 years + "four to six weeks" later?Dennis was also kind enough to warn me about the "X-Ray Specs" (a fly's wing embedded in plastic to simulate the bones in your hand if you stared hard enough).By the time I reached high school and was earning a few dollars in the evenings, I was at last able to indulge in an occasional purchase from the legendary Johnson Smith catalog. Soon I was walking the halls to the "click-click" of a tin-toy pedometer, listening to the ear-piercing screech of the not so "silent" dog whistle (the dog never even lifted his ear, but every human in the house could hear it from upstairs to basement), and trying to figure out how to open the "mystery" pocket knife. My dreams of building a racing car were quickly dashed when the mail-order instructions started out "Go to your neighborhood junkyard and pick up a Model A Ford chassis". By the 1970's, the antique car collectors had long since snatched up those relics.As I thumbed through the pages of Kirk's wonderful book I was amazed at just how much of this stuff I did own at one time, or remembered seeing at friend's houses. I don't think today's kids will ever experience the excitement of waiting for treasures in the mail the way my generation did. On the other hand, there is always "amazon.com", a one-click, and then sit back and wait in pleasant anticipation for a book like "Mail Order Mysteries" to show up.

Bought this out of interest. Excellent new condition upon arrival and delivery was prompt. No problems and its good for laughs. Definitely recommend it.

少年時代のワクワク感を、思い出しました。内容も濃いのでとても楽しめました。お薦めです。

Most comic book fans of a certain age will know the feeling. You excitedly urge one of your favourites on a friend, hoping they'll intuitively grasp the genius of Jack Kirby or Neal Adams, and they'll be converted to your obsession. Only they don't, and they're not. They have no interest in the art or story. All they can see is the adverts.But they had a point. What we in the UK used to call "American comics" were full of adverts for what seemed, to kids, to be the most fantastic plunder. Amazing novelties with which to dazzle your friends. The chance to gain astounding skills and powers. And mind-boggling toys at unbelievable prices (assuming you could work out the dollars-to-sterling ratio). The fact you couldn't get them in the UK made them seem even more desirable. How I wanted that Polaris nuclear sub - over 7 feet long! Seats 2 kids! Controls that work! Rockets that fire!Turns out the fact you couldn't get them in the UK was a blessing. Kirk Demarais, the author of this thorough, amusing, informative and handsomely designed book, openly confesses to not getting the stories in the comics but being obsessed with the ads. So he's hunted down many of the most famous products advertised (including the obvious classics such as X-Ray Spex, the Charles Atlas body building course, and the boxes of toy soldiers which promised hundreds of pieces for knockdown prices) and now shares his research with us in the book,, which includes reproductions of the ads, pictures of the products, and his verdict on what you actually got.And what you actually got, for the most part, was ripped off. Turns out item after item was shoddily made, misleadingly advertised and distinctly underwhelming. As the great graphic designer Chip Kidd notes on the back cover blurb, "If childhood disappointment could ever be considered an art form, then 'Mail Order Mysteries' is a masterpiece". To quote an example, here's Demarais on that perpetual favourite, the "U-Control, 7-Foot Life-Size Ghost":We imagined: Obviously a remote control, seven-foot-tall ghost with which to scare siblings, pets and parents at a distance.They sent: A balloon, a spool of fishing line and a trash bag. To make matters worse, the balloon bears the face of the decidedly unscary Casper the Friendly Ghost.The "we imagined, they sent" format is applied to all the items covered, along with a verdict on "Customer satisfaction", plus, in selected cases, notes "Behind the mystery". It's a simple, funny and effective format, coupled as it is with the imagery noted above. The overall design of the book is superb and contributes substantially to this being a good-looking, easily digestible and hugely entertaining tome.It's fair too. Demarais is more than ready to point out the items that actually represented value for money, such as the Charles Atlas course, the various sales programmes (here's your chance to finally see a picture of the mysterious "Grit"), and, here and there, even some of the novelties.So, in conclusion, who says Americans don't do irony? Here's a book on a phenomenon which could be defined as decades of over-promising and under-delivering, but the book itself delivers information, amusement and visual pleasure way beyond expectation. At time of writing, this is the 7th review of this book, and they've all been five-star. Quite right too: apart from the pleasure it brings, this book is also a major contribution to comics history. It's rare for a history lesson to be so much fun, though.Oh, and the Polaris nuclear sub I coveted so much as a nipper? Turns out it was basically a cardboard box (and they were readily available even in Sunderland in the 1960s).

Anyone ever think of emigrating to America ? I did once as a child and this was entirely down to reading American comic books. In America you could send off a dollar and in return you could get say over a hundred toy soldiers which seemed great value compared to the British equivalent from Airfix . You can buy just about anything for a dollar in America and such great value for money everyday would just be like Christmas for an American child. The only downside was that America seemed to have the worst murder rate this side of Caligula's Rome. It wasn't until later in life I realised America's high murder rate is somewhat mythical and thanks to this book by Kirk Demarais it seems a whole generation of children have been robbed of their pocket money.The book is split in to different sections such as "Superpowers" , "Finance" War Zone" etc One thing all the products have in common is that they're not really what you're expecting . For example the toy soldiers you receive are in fact two dimensional plastic card type things and nothing like the Airfix soldiers British kids of the 1970s grew up with . An "Inflatable dinosaur" turns out to be a balloon with a dinosaurs face drawn on it . A "Seven foot long Polaris submarine " is a vaguely submarine shaped cardboard box, etc etc etc . Compared to some off the products being sold the notorious sea monkeys - hairy tadpoles rather than humanoid creatures are far from the biggest rip-offs beingOf course if something seems too good to be true then you can guarantee it'll be too good to be true . No doubt the mail order companies featured will say they're in no way comparable to the snake oil doctors from the previous century and that what would you expect if you're sending $1.00 for a product ? And Kirk does praise some of the products he received so it's probably not a book written for embittered cynics. It does have a fair amount of innocent charm as to what sort of yuck you were getting for your buck

Full of exotic promise.i like the format of this - the ad, what we expected, what we got.I too was frustrated by being on the wrong side of the pond and unable to order my own nuclear submarine.I figured out the sea monkeys ( I was a keen amateur microscopist and into pond-life.... ) but I really wished I was wrong and still imagined four-inch long mermaids swimming round being more interesting than, say, water fleas.and I knew a kid who had an x-ray spex type viewing card which we dismantled so I had a notion of how THAT probably went and I actually owned a ten-in-one scope which either came via a boxtop deal with Weetabix or it was a Bazooka Joe bubblegum token deal - around 1960, I think. The scope was a monument to trade-description artistic licence - I certainly was amused by describing half a binoculars rig as a "telescope" and that set me to thinking and looking at ALL adverts skeptically and critically so I'd study the comic ads and try and figure out what the scam might be, but part of me refused to believe there was a scam. It was a great gadget, anyway.Firestarter burning lens, magnifying glass, monacle, front objective of telecope, front objective of binoculars, front objective of microsccope... loads more, all the same.but...Drumkits, bicycles and tents, all for selling greeting cards?Damn.I've often wondered about this stuff and now, thanks to this great book I have a much better idea of what terrible disappointment I could have suffered if I'd actually managed to get hold of... hey, I didn't see the shrunken heads.Did they get missed?I STILL want that submarine.. and the hypno disk. I really really want the hypno disk.