Politically incorrect covers!

[AtlasFan]

take your pick:

 

 

I dont get it...what's the problem with these?

[the blob]

why is WW smiling and winking? is she into that sort of stuff?

[goldust40]

take your pick:

 

 

I dont get it...what's the problem with these?

 

Absurdly antiquated sexism would be a guess. That and the fact that one of the characters is called "Moronica", just in case you weren't aware of how stupid the lady was meant to be.

[Hepcat]

Walter Lantz eventually dropped Li'l Eight Ball from his line of characters. What a Philistine!

 

 

 

 

[the blob]

is l'il 8 ball supposed to be human? i would never have guessed as that characature makes no sense even versus stereotypes of the day (big lips, etc.)

 

i had a submariner that had racist black and japanese charactcatures all in one, big lips/fangs/claws...seriously, what were people thinking?

 

will eisner must have been ashamed of himself in later life (i think i read somewhere that he had deep regrets about that character)

[Hepcat]

take your pick:

 

 

Do I have to? Can't I just take them all?

 

 

 

[generic user]

I dont get it...what's the problem with these?

 

you can read one and find out...

 

Dizzy Dames Scans

 

Moronica is "Miss Nitwit of 1953" plus there's a character named Knothead Nancy

[Silver Surfer]

I guess this could be consider politically incorrect with the fangs and all.

[thehumantorch]

This thread would be shorter if it were titled 'Post your Politically Correct Covers'.

[PowderedH2O]

I think it all has to do with the times. We had just been bombed at Pearl Harbor. I'd imagine that 95% of the population of the US had never even met a person of Asian origin. So, the image of them as these horrible savages was perfectly acceptable to most Americans. A similar situation probably existed with African-Americans. There were a lot of white Americans that had probably never met an educated, well-spoken African-American. Of course, when people have to attend lesser schools and have no resources, this sort of perpetuates the stereotype. These days, most people in the US are in constant contact with people of many origins, so things like this are unlikely to occur again. But, I don't look down upon the people of the past for feeling the way they did. They based their opinions on what knowledge was available to them, which in many cases was insufficient.

 

There was a post in the 1939 photo post that showed four young Asian boys reading some vintage Timely comics. I couldn't see exactly which issues they had in their hands, but I was wondering what they thought if they saw things like the issue shown above.

 

 

Sam

[Tatterdamillion]

[Scrooge]

IIRC, the photo you are thinking of does show some folks of Asian heritage being mowed down or steam-rolled on the cover ... but I thought it might have been an issue of Boy Comics, rather than a Timely.

[the blob]

There were a lot of white Americans that had probably never met an educated, well-spoken African-American. Of course, when people have to attend lesser schools and have no resources, this sort of perpetuates the stereotype.

---------

In the 1940's most white people had not met an educated white person other than the family doctor, their clergy or perhaps a school teacher. These stereotypes were meant to appeal to folks who themselves could barely read and likely had one or two illiterate parents. Kids reading these had likely been born in the depression.

[PowderedH2O]

Good point. Which made it easier to sell these stereotypes.

[sfcityduck]

I think it all has to do with the times. We had just been bombed at Pearl Harbor. I'd imagine that 95% of the population of the US had never even met a person of Asian origin. So, the image of them as these horrible savages was perfectly acceptable to most Americans.

 

 

Nah. There were lots of Asian-Americans in the western U.S. So many, in fact, that many states had adopted laws, much like the Jim Crow laws of the South, designed to discriminate against them. Ironically, in the teens and twenties a wave of fascination and admiration of Japanese art and culture had swept the U.S. That was still going on into the 1930s. Time magazine, for example, had this to say about an artist whose works I collect in its April 25, 1938 edition:

 

"The imperfections of Japanese military strategy have made more news lately than the perfections of Japanese art (see p. 14). But one day fortnight ago a demonstration of brush drawing by a 53-year-old Japanese artist drew the unprecedented number of 1.900 visitors to the old Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento. Calif., and his atmospheric, formalized landscapes, on view last week, made critics remember him as one of the most accomplished artists in the West. Chiura Obata's father was one of the Japanese artists who did their best 60 years ago to imitate Leonardo da Vinci. Little Obata was apprenticed at seven to a traditional master, spent two years learning to draw a circle and two straight lines. For seven years he was allowed no color. One result of this discipline was a skill which his Sacramento audience found as exciting as a circus. Another result, possibly, was that Obata took ship for California at 18. A good friend of the late great Botanist Luther Burbank, he still gives as much time to his garden in Berkeley as to his teaching at the University of California."

 

Of course, four years later Obata was thrown into one of America's concentration camps along with almost all Japanese-Americans in the west.

 

There was a post in the 1939 photo post that showed four young Asian boys reading some vintage Timely comics. I couldn't see exactly which issues they had in their hands, but I was wondering what they thought if they saw things like the issue shown above.

 

Actually, and to me quite ironically, the photo you are talking about was of Japanese-American boys, probably patriots all, enjoying Timely's WWII era comics in the Manzanar internment camp.

 

Personally, I think you offer way too many excuses for the bigotry of the past, and are a little more hopeful than I supposing that such bigotry couldn't happen again. In fact, I think American Muslims might have cause to be concerned right now.

[the blob]

the WW II era stuff differentiates between chinese and japanese. in the "how to spot a jap" comic/instruction pamphlet given out by the u.s. military, japanese are portrayed as something slightly above a chimp and chinese are depicted as lovely exotic bronze skinned valiant folk. by 1950 I'm sure the comics had changed with the korean war.

 

while it is good for demonizing/dehumanizing one's enemies (and I have seen some fanged germans portrayed, but not nearly as much as japanese), presumably making it easier for young soldiers to pull the trigger (or drop bombs on civilians) without thinking too hard about it, this sort of propoganda also may result in those same young men way underestimating their adversaries. afterall, the typical japanese soldier was way less afraid of being on the receiving end of a bullet than the typical american soldier.

 

i'm not sure how americans were portrayed on the japanese end. presumably as some sort of savage hairy barbarians.

[nearmint]

There was a post in the 1939 photo post that showed four young Asian boys reading some vintage Timely comics. I couldn't see exactly which issues they had in their hands, but I was wondering what they thought if they saw things like the issue shown above.

Sam

 

Especially considering that they were reading those comics while living at a Japanese internment camp during the war.

[spillred]

Does a woman being spanked with a hairbrush by (what looks like) a dwarf in front of several applauding babies qualify as "politically correct," or just "utterly messed up"? From Sensation Comics #31:

 

 

You overlooked the bondage angle! ...

 

And the fact that WW is apparently enjoying it (and winking)

 

[whomerjay]

I think it all has to do with the times. We had just been bombed at Pearl Harbor. I'd imagine that 95% of the population of the US had never even met a person of Asian origin. So, the image of them as these horrible savages was perfectly acceptable to most Americans.

 

 

Nah. There were lots of Asian-Americans in the western U.S. So many, in fact, that many states had adopted laws, much like the Jim Crow laws of the South, designed to discriminate against them. Ironically, in the teens and twenties a wave of fascination and admiration of Japanese art and culture had swept the U.S. That was still going on into the 1930s. Time magazine, for example, had this to say about an artist whose works I collect in its April 25, 1938 edition:

 

"The imperfections of Japanese military strategy have made more news lately than the perfections of Japanese art (see p. 14). But one day fortnight ago a demonstration of brush drawing by a 53-year-old Japanese artist drew the unprecedented number of 1.900 visitors to the old Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento. Calif., and his atmospheric, formalized landscapes, on view last week, made critics remember him as one of the most accomplished artists in the West. Chiura Obata's father was one of the Japanese artists who did their best 60 years ago to imitate Leonardo da Vinci. Little Obata was apprenticed at seven to a traditional master, spent two years learning to draw a circle and two straight lines. For seven years he was allowed no color. One result of this discipline was a skill which his Sacramento audience found as exciting as a circus. Another result, possibly, was that Obata took ship for California at 18. A good friend of the late great Botanist Luther Burbank, he still gives as much time to his garden in Berkeley as to his teaching at the University of California."

 

Of course, four years later Obata was thrown into one of America's concentration camps along with almost all Japanese-Americans in the west.

 

There was a post in the 1939 photo post that showed four young Asian boys reading some vintage Timely comics. I couldn't see exactly which issues they had in their hands, but I was wondering what they thought if they saw things like the issue shown above.

 

Actually, and to me quite ironically, the photo you are talking about was of Japanese-American boys, probably patriots all, enjoying Timely's WWII era comics in the Manzanar internment camp.

 

Personally, I think you offer way too many excuses for the bigotry of the past, and are a little more hopeful than I supposing that such bigotry couldn't happen again. In fact, I think American Muslims might have cause to be concerned right now.

 

Well, bigotry on that scale seems highly unlikely these days, at least in our country, but it seems rather foolish to think it doesn't exist to a significant degree today unless you pay no attention to the news or only interact with a handful of people.

 

The understanding we have today of what constiutes bigotry/racism and why it is wrong is much more engrained in our social consciousness than it was in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. Should people have been expected to rise above the common acceptance of such racism in their time? Perhaps, to some degree. But when your primary concerns are whether you and your family are going to live or die, or whether you'll have enough food tomorrow, these ethical issues tend to take a back seat. Patriot act anyone?

[Speedy-D]

I think it all has to do with the times. We had just been bombed at Pearl Harbor. I'd imagine that 95% of the population of the US had never even met a person of Asian origin. So, the image of them as these horrible savages was perfectly acceptable to most Americans.

 

 

Nah. There were lots of Asian-Americans in the western U.S. So many, in fact, that many states had adopted laws, much like the Jim Crow laws of the South, designed to discriminate against them. Ironically, in the teens and twenties a wave of fascination and admiration of Japanese art and culture had swept the U.S. That was still going on into the 1930s. Time magazine, for example, had this to say about an artist whose works I collect in its April 25, 1938 edition:

 

"The imperfections of Japanese military strategy have made more news lately than the perfections of Japanese art (see p. 14). But one day fortnight ago a demonstration of brush drawing by a 53-year-old Japanese artist drew the unprecedented number of 1.900 visitors to the old Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento. Calif., and his atmospheric, formalized landscapes, on view last week, made critics remember him as one of the most accomplished artists in the West. Chiura Obata's father was one of the Japanese artists who did their best 60 years ago to imitate Leonardo da Vinci. Little Obata was apprenticed at seven to a traditional master, spent two years learning to draw a circle and two straight lines. For seven years he was allowed no color. One result of this discipline was a skill which his Sacramento audience found as exciting as a circus. Another result, possibly, was that Obata took ship for California at 18. A good friend of the late great Botanist Luther Burbank, he still gives as much time to his garden in Berkeley as to his teaching at the University of California."

 

Of course, four years later Obata was thrown into one of America's concentration camps along with almost all Japanese-Americans in the west.

 

There was a post in the 1939 photo post that showed four young Asian boys reading some vintage Timely comics. I couldn't see exactly which issues they had in their hands, but I was wondering what they thought if they saw things like the issue shown above.

 

Actually, and to me quite ironically, the photo you are talking about was of Japanese-American boys, probably patriots all, enjoying Timely's WWII era comics in the Manzanar internment camp.

 

Personally, I think you offer way too many excuses for the bigotry of the past, and are a little more hopeful than I supposing that such bigotry couldn't happen again. In fact, I think American Muslims might have cause to be concerned right now.

Well said sir, I couldn't agree more.