CSotD: Comics Go To War
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I started to do a roundup of July 4 cartoons from 25, 50, 75, 100 years ago, but they were pretty bland, so I decided instead to look at Independence Day as seen at a particularly fraught moment: 1942, when we were well into the war but the outcome was still in the balance.
To set the scene, we were a little over a year and a half into the war ourselves, though it had been going on since September, 1939.
In the weeks leading up to July 4, 1942, Guadalcanal had fallen to the Japanese and Germany had taken Tobruk in North Africa with the capture of 35,000 British POWs, while the loss of Sevastopol had put an end to Soviet resistance in the Crimea.
However, there were bits of encouraging news by July 4: US and British bombers had hit Bremen, but with massive losses, though the fact of bombing Germany at all was an encouraging development, while, in North Africa, Montgomery had begun the push back against Rommel at El Alamein.
And the bulk of the comics were very much a part of the war effort. (As always, click on the image to embiggen it)
(Red Ryder's time setting made war tie-ins problematic, but he did make a pitch for giving blood)
"Going to the bank" carried a reminder beyond merely saving for your future:
Even Freckles and Lard are involved in defense work.
(A little off-topic, but note that Walt gets credit for a strip he didn't draw, but Seigel and Shuster, poster boys for cheated creators, got a byline)
(and as long as we're drifting, here's a different war, as the King Features archivist explains the remarkable similarities between the popular "Our Boarding House" and "Judge Puffle." Fap! indeed.
Tiny caption reads: "His curve ain't so hot, but we always let him pitch — his dad's a bomber captain in Australia!"
And it should be noted that First Aid training was part of the war effort on the Home Front.
Not sure what Annie or Pam are involved in, but it sure seems war-related. Cookie and Daisy's pups are oblivious, however.
And it's a little hard to pick up either thread in these arcs, but I like the way the first and second panel in Brick Bradford are combined.
You probably didn't know Martians were part of the Japanese war effort. The gummint is still keeping it a secret.
Like Walt and Avery, Joe Palooka's pals are doing their part at home while he's off at the war, carpooling to work at a defense plant!
And a few odds and ends:
Apparently, the purpose of the Elks contest was to come up with a cartoon reminding people to write to GIs, which is an admirable goal, though I hope letters from home weren't quite this much of a distraction at the Front. The prize of $300 was pretty significant back then. Note that second prize went to some dogface named Mauldin.
We could have been more united than we were: Mainstream newspapers had "colored news" just as they had "ladies news," reported separately and hardly equally. Some papers featured entire "Negro News" pages, but only as often as they could be sponsored by businesses, which were generally black-owned. No ads, no news.
As the war unfolded, the Black Press was pushing the "Double V" campaign: Win the war and then come home and win the other war.
Black GI's had come home from WWI aware of how out-of-place Jim Crow was, compared to life in France, but ran into a strong backlash of lynchings and a reinforcement of the existing power structure. They were determined not to let that happen again.
Meanwhile, despite the segregation of armed forces that was also a target of the Double V campaign, a lot of white GIs got to know black GIs in the course of things, and it opened their eyes in ways that eased the path for the Civil Rights Movement that began as soon as that other war ended.
And continues to be fought 74 years later.
Now here's your moment of wartime zen:
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