Who Was The “King of Comic Book Kickboxing Ads” – Count Dante?
Readers of comics likely remember him in ads dressed in black and posed in a fearsome fighting stance as he glared from the page. Surrounded by blurbs promising, “The World-s Deadliest Fighting Secrets Can Be Yours,’ it would be hard to forget Count Dante, the “Deadliest Man Alive.’
His full name was Count Juan Raphael Dante. His given name was John Timothy Keehan, and he was born in Chicago in 1939. Before martial arts were well known in the United States, Keehan learned jujitsu and various forms of hand-to-hand combat while in the marine reserves and army. He became a sensei after earning a black belt in karate.
He gained notoriety by forming the World Karate Federation in 1964. Keehan also co-promoted the first martial arts tournament to feature full-contact style fighting in the U.S. He was among the first American sensei that accepted minorities as students.
Growing disillusioned with the teaching techniques associated with traditional martial arts, Keehan developed his own system. Called “Dan-te’, or “Dance of Death’, one could supposedly become a fighting master by learning the steps associated with the Dance.
Keehan legally changed his name to Count Juan Raphael Dante in 1967. He began a heavy blitz of advertisements in comic books that entered the popular culture. Ads offered an instruction booklet called “World-s Deadliest Fighting Secrets’ which revealed the forbidden secrets of the Dim Mak (‘Death Touch.-) A free membership card for the Black Dragon Fighting Society was also included.
Dante ran afoul of the law in 1970 when he led a group of his students to a rival dojo and assaulted those within. He received a citation for the ‘Dojo Wars- incident but was acquitted. Count Dante died in his sleep in 1975. His Black Dragon Fighting Society can be found online. The secrets of Dim Mak are still forbidden.
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