While searching for pictures of Pogo to draw (stealing being the sincerest form of theft), I came across the University of Nebraska-Lincoln website, which has a large collection of government-sponsored comic books. This page is from a book on parenting by Walt Kelly. The best description for it is: A children’s book for parents.
Other highlights:
- A book on how to avoid malaria, with illustrations by Dr. Seuss.
- A badly-drawn 2001 comic called “Dignity & Respect” (the moral of which seems to be: make sure you are very respectful of homosexuals as you discharge them from the army due to their sexual orientation. It also specifies that you can not be discharged for being a homosexual, only for homosexual conduct. So you can be gay, just don’t, you know…be gay.)
- A comic from 1960 called “Are You Looking Into Your Future?” which predicts the end of unskilled labor. Beyond that, I have no idea what was going on. At one point a kid crushes some ice cream in his hands and yells “ECH! I’m going into the REFRIGERATION field!”
- A 1957 book called “Don’t Be A Sugar Daddy to Moonshiners!” which advises shopkeeps against selling sugar to shady-looking characters.
- A book called “McGruff’s Surprise Party” which I actually remember reading as a kid. I carefully copied a picture of McGruff for a large anti-drug poster we made. The moral of the comic is: You don’t need to do drugs, because there’s something more fun going on. A surprise party for a trench-coat-wearing dog you’ve made friends with. If you’re not friends with a talking dog…I guess go ahead and do drugs?
- “Spiderman: The Trial of Venom,” which was originally given to those who donated $5 to UNICEF. Eddie Brock uses his constitutional right to a fair trial (with the help of public defender Matt Murdock) and cons his way free using a plea of insanity. Until Spiderman figures out the truth.
- A “Stop Accidents” poster by Frank King (creator of Gasoline Alley). I badly wish this poster were for sale somewhere.
- A 1968 booklet (of what appears to be normal daily Peanuts strips) called “Security is an Eye Patch,” detailing Sally’s diagnosis (by Charlie Brown) of lazy-eye, aka amblyopia ex anopsia. The strips seem like fairly good Peanuts strips: Not too heavy-handed, but clearly designed to get across a message. Did Schulz just happen to create a storyline about lazy-eye that was picked up by the CDC and printed as an educational pamphlet?
- A 1996 Superman comic about the dangers of land-mines. I actually have copies of this one. It was printed in several languages-Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and others, to reach kids during the Bosnian war. It’s one of those sad comics in which the superhero arrives, imparts a bit of knowledge, but can’t directly save anyone. People still regularly die in Bosnia from landmines, 16 years after the end of the war.
- A book from 1918 called, simply, “The Cartoon Book.” It consists solely of single-panel editorial cartoons aimed to get the public to buy bonds.
- A comic featuring Captain America, called “The Battle of the Energy Drainers.” The first third is a long lecture from Cap about America’s dependence on foreign oil (even though “power from oil, coal, and nuclear fission will be with us for a long time”), then there is a strange battle with The Thermal Thief, then it turns into a prediction of the world in 2001 (when our electricity will be provided almost entirely by nuclear fission and solar energy), then it turns into a lecture from Cap about why you shouldn’t let energy wasters (appliances & electronics) sap energy. Then there’s another long battle…and it just keeps going and going. Did I mention it was narrated by the Campbell Kids, two horrifying, Precious Moments-reject children who appear in this comic for no reason other than, I suppose, to sell soup (somehow?) Well, it is. Created by the Department of Energy.
- The Life of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States of America, apparently made during his life-time. Propaganda/hagiography.
- “The Future is Now,” a comic that explains why Social Security cards are so important. It refers to the Social Security record-keeping repository in Maryland as “The World’s Largest Autograph Collection,” because everyone, famous or not, has signed a Social Security card and sent it in. (Even Bob Dylan!)
So…I’ve been productive.
