Expand Your Pickwick Library

Pickwick Books strikes again! After WWII they plastered dozens of issues with this 2-in-1 ad for two totally different lines. One of which was for self-taught language books including Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Polish with Pickwick claiming this would be the best way to plan a postwar campaign whether it would be for business or pleasure. Considering that they used a picture grab of a leggy samba dancer would indicate Pickwick intended this to sell more to lonely former soldiers, especially when it boasts that Spanish is only good for romance and opportunity, although you might want to dedicate more than just 10 minutes a day to it for a foreign language to sink in. The ad also boasts that it will offer a set of books to learn numerous fighting styles, one of which is plain old "scientific" boxing, while the others are for "police" wrestling and "police" jiu-jitsu. Now how police wrestling and jiu-jitsu are different from whatever type they were teaching at your local gym at the time is uncertain, plus scientific boxing makes one think of big guys in trunks, big gloves, and lab coats ready to spar in the square circle. How legit Pickwick's language or fighting instructions were is highly iffy, but if it was as psychologically damaging as their ads for dancing books hoping to save you from being a social pariah, then they must've made a little scratch as this double-barreled deal ran in comics for years.

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