Four Color Fu

Join the Ninja Society! The Greatest Self-Defense System Known to Man! I Can Make You a Master of Kung Fu!

We all remember the come-ons and the headlines that threaded their way through the pages of comic books for years, trying to separate us from our money by promising to make us tougher, make us stronger, and teach us the fighting secrets of the “Orient”. The inimitable Mr. Dan Kelly traces the history of these ads in These Fists Break Bricks.

Decked out with Chinese takeout fonts, blazingly violent copy, mystical gibberish, fear tactics, and flimflam, the ads took advantage of the dying view of east Asia as a place containing ancient secrets of savage violence. "Fill out and mail in the below coupon," ended each ad in a crashing crescendo, "and be imbued with the bone-shattering fighting arts of the Orient"—and for only 99 cents at that!

Naturally, what was promised and what one actually received for that 99 cents were very different things—par for the course with American advertising at large. What made these ads more interesting than others were the freaky mail order senseis behind them, the highly dangerous "product" they allegedly sold, and the unflattering way the ads reflected American attitudes and knowledge about martial arts and their places of origin.

The full history is featured in the book, but here’s a gallery of some of the come-ons you might remember from back in the day.