An art school ad featuring people with dots for eyes might not be putting the best foot forward

This is one of the many ads from Art Instruction, Inc. (or one of its other iterations) to grace comics over the years. Usually they had the classic “draw this” test that potential customers students could submit to get an evaluation of their latent artistic ability. Here you had to send away to get the test, but same difference, you know? A hundred bucks says that the “plain-spoken opinion” was something along the lines of “MY GOD! THIS SHOWS SOME OF THE GREATEST POTENTIAL I’VE EVER SEEN! (Now give us money to help you fulfill said potential.)” Indeed, marks got a high-energy in-home sales pitch.

The school had some famous names pass through its virtual halls, as listed on its Wikipedia page, and it’s still going (strong?) today. All respect to the Fatman-fueling art of CC Beck, and other simple, clean styles, but it’s doubtful that anyone would think the material above represented the pinnacle of the profession. Maybe they wanted to set the bar low so as not to scare of potential customers students. I’d like to know what some of the tests were. “Draw a squiggly line of smoke coming out of a chimney.” “Draw stick figures.” “Draw birds that look like stretched out Ms.”