Background images in HTML email have long been acknowledged as inconsistent in their rendering across email clients. For this reason, I've avoided them within our our own emails, as well as those we offer to our customers. However, this past year has witnessed a flood of premium, designer templates from our competitors that liberally use background images. Moreover, these competitors claim to have tested them in all major email clients. So, I began to wonder. Had support for background images improved? Had I missed an announcement for a reliable solution or hack? These questions persuaded my own little investigation into the current state of background image support in HTML emails.