BangZoom Posted June 24, 2010 Author Share Posted June 24, 2010 I'm familiar with the use of the swastika as a decorative design through the ages, but it is rather surprising to find it being used by an American publisher as their logo in the 1930's. Magazine Publishers, Inc (Ace Publishers) had the symbol emblazoned on their covers, spines, and table of contents page until mid 1933. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 24, 2010 Author Share Posted June 24, 2010 One of the most prolific authors in the aviation pulps was Donald Keyhoe. In a 1931 he penned a tale about "The War of 1941." It began rather prophetically: "The next war will come without warning; it will strike like a thief in the night." However, there were a few major differences from what eventually came to pass: The surprise attack was in Pearl Harbor and not New York City, but what the hey... it still looks like a good story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 24, 2010 Author Share Posted June 24, 2010 Donald Keyhoe is best remembered today as the author of "The Flying Saucers Are Real." He was very prominent in the field of Ufology in the 1950's and 60's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 24, 2010 Author Share Posted June 24, 2010 Mike Wallace Interview (March 8,1958) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G.A.tor Posted June 25, 2010 Share Posted June 25, 2010 interesting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doohickamabob Posted June 25, 2010 Share Posted June 25, 2010 I'm familiar with the use of the swastika as a decorative design through the ages, but it is rather surprising to find it being used by an American publisher as their logo in the 1930's. Magazine Publishers, Inc (Ace Publishers) had the symbol emblazoned on their covers, spines, and table of contents page until mid 1933. A couple of things worth mentioning: (1) Rather than being surprising, it makes sense that the publisher would have used the swastika up until 1933. That was the year that Hitler gained power. Prior to that, the Nazi Party was one among many competing German political parties, and the Nazi swastika had little meaning or concern to people in the United States. (2) Technically, the symbols on these books are not Nazi swastikas (or "hakenkreuz"). The Nazi symbol is always depicted with the points going clockwise; these are counter-clockwise. I find it unfortunate that the swastika continues to hold such negative/scary power as a symbol. It leads to situations like this one, where the U.S. military ends up budgeting $600,000 to change the satellite-view appearance of a barracks building (See Google Maps image) as of 2008. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 25, 2010 Author Share Posted June 25, 2010 I find it unfortunate that the swastika continues to hold such negative/scary power as a symbol. Really? Casualties Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doohickamabob Posted June 26, 2010 Share Posted June 26, 2010 (edited) I find it unfortunate that the swastika continues to hold such negative/scary power as a symbol. Really? Casualties Yes, I am familiar with this "World War II" of which you speak. The point I was trying to make is that I don't see any benefit to granting equal importance between an arbitrary graphic symbol and the historical events with which it is associated. The symbol itself only has as much psychological power as we collectively choose to invest in it. Imagine if the symbol of the Nazi Party had been a square. Then imagine that Western society deemed all squares to be ugly reminders of a 20th-century nationalist war and a campaign of genocide. It would be rather inconvenient for anybody who wanted to use squares for other graphical purposes, or to reinvest the square with its previous innocuous meanings. The swastika isn't that much more complex than a square. It's a simple set of lines that have 90-degree angles. That linear pattern shows up naturally in a variety of places, such as the tail of certain comets visible to the naked eye (which is a theory for why it shows up in very early cultures), sewing patterns, Escher-like configurations of arrow shapes, etc. It was also in wide use for thousands of years in numerous Eastern cultures, including Hinduism and Buddhism. The evil Nazis didn't invent it, and they don't own it in perpetuity. They co-opted it. The example I linked to shows one possible negative outcome of exaggerating the power of a symbol. Here we have a multi-million-dollar building that was designed in a swastika shape because it was a convenient way to arrange building wings to provide for more windows and shaded external areas. The architects in the 1960s had no idea that there would be something called "Google Maps" and people all over the world would be able to see that the shape was a swastika. (It's still a little dumb that they went ahead with the design.) The result is that, because the symbol is all-important instead of blown off as a historical remnant of a pathetic dictator's B.S. aspirations, the Navy has to budget $600,000 to retrofit the building in ways that conceal its shape. Edited June 27, 2010 by Doohickamabob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 26, 2010 Author Share Posted June 26, 2010 $600,000 is nothing to sneeze at -- theoretically you could buy 300 nice copies each of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27. I'm not interested in getting into a political argument so I'll just limit myself to asking, what dealers do you know who are selling Action Comics #1 and Detective #27 for $1000 each? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doohickamabob Posted June 26, 2010 Share Posted June 26, 2010 (edited) $600,000 is nothing to sneeze at -- theoretically you could buy 300 nice copies each of Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27. I'm not interested in getting into a political argument so I'll just limit myself to asking, what dealers do you know who are selling Action Comics #1 and Detective #27 for $1000 each? Oops, I really messed up the math there, getting more brain-addled the more I tried to correct myself.... (P.S. I'm not sure this is so much a political argument as a socio-cultural-linguistic-something-or-other argument.) Edited June 27, 2010 by Doohickamabob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 28, 2010 Author Share Posted June 28, 2010 It's 70 years later and I'm still waiting for that world... Tales of Wonder (Summer 1940) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moondog Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 It's 70 years later and I'm still waiting for that world... Tales of Wonder (Summer 1940) (thumbs u Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonwad Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 It's 70 years later and I'm still waiting for that world... Tales of Wonder (Summer 1940) We'll have that world as soon as the guys with big bald heads invade us. Cool book by the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEyeSees Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 It's 70 years later and I'm still waiting for that world... Tales of Wonder (Summer 1940) I LOVE this cover ! In fact, I found one on ebay a few weeks back, should be here soon. Always thought this series was pretty cool. Really nice copy BZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swapto Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 love it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Svord Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 It's 70 years later and I'm still waiting for that world... Tales of Wonder (Summer 1940) We'll have that world as soon as the guys with big bald heads invade us. Cool book by the way. (thumbs u Strangely enough, I think that's supposed to be a chick. Look at the eyes (lashes), the lips, the chest, and the body language. Very cool book BZ! What were the "Startling Forecasts"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEyeSees Posted June 28, 2010 Share Posted June 28, 2010 My copy just walked in the door a half hour ago ... need to find out what these startling forecasts are! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 29, 2010 Author Share Posted June 29, 2010 My copy just walked in the door a half hour ago ... Congrats on the pick-up, Ryan. I love that cover, too. It reminds me of some of the imagery from the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BangZoom Posted June 29, 2010 Author Share Posted June 29, 2010 Very cool book BZ! What were the "Startling Forecasts"? Here are a few pages from the feature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamstrange Posted June 29, 2010 Share Posted June 29, 2010 Arthur Clarke won? Any more from his predictions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
