TcB!'s Super Giant Color Pinups!

One of the best features of any teen fan magazine was the color posters they included in each issue. The creators of TcB! must have known how important they were because they highlighted them on the front of the magazine:



There are four color posters inside the issue. Right inside the front cover was an adorable poster of Michael.


And inside the back cover was a beautiful poster of Jermaine.

This marked the first time that any individual Jackson brother was featured in a full-color full-page glossy poster. By the end of 1970, many fans like me felt we should have been getting posters like this in the mainstream fan magazines. But it wasn't until TcB! came out that the brothers got their due. Of course, I wanted to see full-page glossy color posters for each of the brothers, but Michael and Jermaine were at least a start. The others would come in time in Right On! (but never in one of the mainstream mags, which only ever gave Michael and Jermaine the full-page color poster treatment reserved for the big stars).

But for me, the best poster in TcB! was the centerfold.

It was the first full-color glossy centerfold poster I ever had to hang on my wall. Its publication in TcB! marked the first time I had ever seen this photo (or the one that's the same pose where they are holding their gold records, which I use as my avatar on this blog).

The back of the magazine was a fourth color poster with a great photo that was obviously taken at the same time as the centerfold. It shows the brothers in a an adorable pyramid-type pose -- I always felt sorry for Tito and Jackie, bearing all that weight! -- with Michael in the middle blowing a bubble. Although the bubblegum covers up most of Michael's mouth, you can still see the edges of a smile around it. It looks like he was pleased with the pose and quite proud of the bubble.