This is actually an incredibly funny collection of cheapo novelties. The author describes disappointment so well, in so many ways, over and over again, and it still never gets old. Okay okay I laughed out loud. The old graphics/packaging is pretty cool too, especially the floating King Tut! ( )

Cheesy ads promoting all sorts of questionable items have appeared throughout the history of comic books. In the lavish Mail-Order Mysteries, Demarais supplies a chronicle of the more popular and infamous products. Far more than just a mere listing, each item includes the original ad, a picture of the actual item, and exploratory text broken into three or four parts: WE IMAGINED, THEY SENT, BEHIND THE MYSTERY and CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. Demarais starts with an exploration of the classic X-Ray Spex. The ad promised "Amazing X-Ray Vision Instantly!" For $1, it claimed you could "See through fingers -- through skin -- see yolk of egg -- see lead in pencil." Demarais reveals every boy's belief about the product in the WE IMAGINED. "Glasses that enable you to see real skeletons and nudity." In the THEY SENT segment he quickly debunked it, informing that the Spex were really "eyewear stuffed with bird feathers!" The feathers created the illusion of seeing skeleton or the curve of a woman's body. In BEHIND THE MYSTERY, Demarais tells us that creator Harold von Braunhut also created Sea-Monkeys. He closes the passages with "CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: Not X-actly what we X-pected, but they're X-alted as the quintessential mail-order novelty." In 150 pages, Demarais covers legendary novelties and questionable products such as the 100 pc. Toy Soldier Set, Grit newspapers, World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets, and the Polaris Nuclear Sub. He often shares little known but interesting facts about the products, their companies and creators. The only downside to this book is the lack of an index. Demarais divides the book into eight subject sections making it difficult to locate something you read previously. ( )

Anyone who looked through a comic book from the 1960s through the 1980s saw ads for incredible products. X-ray glasses! Nine-foot ghosts! Sea monkeys! Whoopie cushions! Plus opportunities for kids to pick out their own prizes after selling never-described stuff! We all wanted these things, but none of my friends ever actually purchased any of them (my parents scoffed the few times I begged too).

Kirk Demarais tracked down many of these sold-by-mail items, and, rather disappointingly, they were more hype than substance. Sure, we all expected that, say, the X-ray glasses probably were a scam -- otherwise EVERYONE would have them -- but it was just cool to think that they could actually work.

This book collects the original ads, then describes what would have been sent to the kid who shipped off his or her allowance. And most of the time, it was barely a product that was described by the ad copy (I idly wondered how many lawyers may have been involved in the process). Demarais points out a few of the toys might have been worthwhile -- I did eventually get the "mystery electronic top" as a gift, and that was pretty cool until you knew that it was a trick. It's a great trip back down memory lane, back when everything seemed possible.

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LT Haiku:

Ads promise much more
than they can deliver to
young comic readers. ( )

http://www.zomboscloset.com/zombos_closet_of_horror_b/2011/12/mail-order-mysteri... ( )

This is a book for a very specific kind of person; the kind of person who grew up perusing the ads in the comic books almost as closely as the comic books themselves, the kind of person who really thought there might be glasses that would allow us to have x-ray vision, the kind of person who measured out the dimensions of the cardboard submarine to see if it might be something that could really be played in, the kind of person who actually bought 204 Revolutionary War soldiers , the kind of person who ponderously poured over the prizes available if you sold just enough stuff, and the kind of person who continued to buy sea monkeys even after he knew what they were. This is a book for people like me.

Quite simply, it is pictures and descriptions (with amusing asides) of the kind of junk that could be bought in the 60's through mail order – primarily from ads in comic books. (At least, that's the way I remember it.) As such, it is a fond remembrance of how we all thought we could get amazing things through the mail; how we might achieve our hearts desire with just a few dollars, an envelope, and a return address.

Not a book for everyone. If you didn't experience that time, then I'm willing to bet you won't get it.

But if you were there, then you will greatly enjoy being there again. ( )