Winsor McCay's son returns home from World War I

 The Library of Congress has introduced a new search feature for their newspaper collection's images - News Navigator.

Times Artist and His Soldier-Son

Washington Times March 11 1919

Winsor McCay, the famous cartoonist, whose drawings often appear on the editorial page of The Times, welcoming his son, Sergt. Robert Winsor McCay, jr., who returned from France recently with the Twenty-seventh New York Division. Sergeant McCay was awarded the British Military Medal for gallantry in action during the attack by the Twenty-seventh on the Hindenburg line last September. 

That one's fairly blurry, so here's a later, better print.

 

 

LITTLE NEMO HOME WITH WAR HONORS

4/26/1919 Yerington times.

Sergt. Robert Winsor McKay. Jr., son of Winsor McKay (sic), the cartoonist and creator of "Little Nemo,” lias returned from France with the British military medal won (luring the smash of the Twenty-seventh division on the Hindenburg line last September. Sergeant McKay, who was the inspiration for his father’s cartoon character some years ago, was a member of the headquarters troops of the Twenty seventh. He returned the other on the...

and finally, here's a War Bonds ad he drew from El Paso Herald, Oct 20, 1917.

 

Library of Congress collection used for wartime comic book research

#22 from Grand Comics Database

Paul Hirsch used the papers of the Writers' War Board held in the Library of Congress, specifically Box 11 of the collection, to look at how a semi-official government body influenced the depiction of the Axis in comic books during the war. DC Comics, Fawcett Comics, and Street & Smith are specifically mentioned.

The WWB also encouraged racial reconciliation in America at the same time, with a 'Race Hatred Committee' which helped with an anti-lynching story in Captain Marvel, Jr. #22.

Here's the citation and the abstract:

"This Is Our Enemy" The Writers' War Board and Representations of Race in Comic Books,1942–1945

Author(s): Paul Hirsch

Source: Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 83, No. 3 (Aug., 2014), pp. 448-486

Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2014.83.3.448

Abstract

During World War II, the U.S. government, through the Writers' War Board (WWB), co-opted comic books as an essential means of disseminating race-based propaganda to adult Americans, including members of the armed forces. Working with comic creators, the WWB crafted narratives supporting two seemingly incompatible wartime policies: racializing America's enemies as a justification for total war and simultaneously emphasizing the need for racial tolerance within American society. Initially, anti-German and anti-Japanese narratives depicted those enemies as racially defective but eminently beatable opponents. By late 1944, however, WWB members demanded increasingly vicious comic-book depictions of America's opponents, portraying them as irredeemably violent. Still, the Board embraced racial and ethnic unity at home as essential to victory, promoting the contributions of Chinese, Jewish, and African Americans.

Superman posters in Crystal City

Tom Spurgeon caught an article in Mother Jones about the use of the Man of Steel Superman movie in National Guard recruitment ads. I should have done something earlier, because I saw one of these posters in Crystal City over a week ago.



Honestly, the themes don't seem to match up.

Comic Strip Hate in Arlington (contains morally-offensive images)

Randy Scott of Michigan State University's Comic Art Collection posts a list of material he's catalogued each week and I usually browse it on Friday evening.

This description caught my eye recently:

Buy Aryan : Boycott Jew Stores. -- Arlington, Va. : National Socialist White People's Party, 1973. -- 1 leaf : ill. ; 28 cm. -- A white supremacy leaflet describing the program of the political party, in comic strip format on one side and text on the verso. -- Call no.: HS2330.N39B8 1973

Yes, Virginia, Arlington had a headquarters for George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi party. Thanks to MSU, we can see this comic strip abuse of Uncle Sam in favor of ridiculous anti-Semitism. Thankfully, these days - 40 years later - Rockwell would be run out of Arlington on a rail. His former headquarters is now a coffee shop. As a corrective to these images, ComicsDC recommends a visit downtown to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, where one can see the consequences of rhetoric such as this. (We do of course recognize and support the First Amendment and Rockwell's right to speech like this, even as we despise his views).

TPM on anti-Michelle Bachman political comic book

TPMDC ran a review on an anti-Michelle Bachman political comic book - the fourth issue of one actually. The comic book is about a politician in Washington, of course, but I think the review is also written by someone in the TPM's DC bureau.

The Bachmann Comic, Issue 4: Michele Talks With God
Eric Kleefeld | October 18, 2010

Another Lynn Brudon cartoon found

A few months ago, I posted on a Lynn Brudon anti-malaria World War 2 cartoon in the National Museum of Health and Medicine. See the comments of that post for more on Brudon. Meanwhile here's one I found today.


REEVE 088546-4

Malaria prevention. Charts. "G.I bedtime story. Control malaria. Shorten the war. Bug heaven, here comes Hiroskito. Damn that d.d.t. [Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane]. Lynn Brudon [artist], 1945."

[Posters. Illustration. Insect pests, Control. Mosquitoes. Sanitation. Preventive medicine.] [Propaganda.]

Cartoon postcard in new Medical Museum collection

Postcard sent by Luther B. Otken, a World War 1 surgeon in the American Expeditionary Forces, stationed in France. This collection of WW1 correspondence was donated to the National Museum of Health & Medicine last month.

Malaria Moe cartoons on Flickr

My colleague at the Medical Museum put up a bunch of scans of World War 2 Malaria Moe propaganda cartoons on Flickr today. The artist, Frank Mack, later went on to work for Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

Pentagon and Marvel propaganda comic books program questioned

"Exclusive: Pentagon Pro-Troop Group Misspent Millions, Report Says," By Noah Shachtman, December 12, 2008. These comics, credited to AAFES, are sometimes available at Walter Reed. They're not good. As I read this article, the comics in particular are not a problem, and it's the whole program instead.

Thanks to Tim for the tip.

Arthur Szyk in NY Times

Szyk was a Jewish cartoonist who fled to New York and did some awesomely hard-hitting propaganda during World War II. He was the subject of a couple of great exhibits in DC about five years ago too. This article discusses a new exhibit of his work in Germany -
"A Caricaturist, but No Funny Stuff Here," By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, New York Times September 8, 2008.

I'll see if I can dig up my reviews of the exhibits for IJoCA and post them here later this week.