Manic Monday--The Da Vinci Con!!

Some comic book ads really, really REALLY over-promised with their merchandise:

Now, if you actually read the ad (click on it to embiggen), it's just an illustrated bio of Leonardo da Vinci and his inventions. And hey, 98 cents for a tiny picture book about one of history's coolest dudes isn't a bad deal.

But before you get to that part, the copy sells itself as a way to make yourself fly, by building your own daVinci wings.

No, wait, they promise that children can build "real flying wings" with "carpenter's tools."

As if that weren't enough invitation for injury lawsuits, they also promise that, from a "diagram," kids can build their own parachutes..."no knack required!"

Yeah, because that's what I want to jump from a plane (or the garage roof) with--a "parachute" made from 500+ year old plans by unskilled children from "cloth and string." Really, who could possibly get hurt??

And to add outright hucksterism to capitalistic exaggeration, the ad goes so far as to promise:

Yes, they tell you the book can enable you to build a "military tank."

Guys, look--you were selling a cheap illustrated biography that maybe would help some kid do a history paper--was it really necessary to pimp it up as helping kids build hang gliders and parachutes and tanks??

I can't help but imagine a suburban emergency room piled deep with breaks and bruises from kids trying to fly and chute. But hey, at least they were learning history, right?

Ad from Cloak & Dagger #1 (1952). No, not that Cloak & Dagger.