Comments

  3. says

    Hmm… I think we’re supposed to be rooting for the Young Allies (who presumably include that ghastly golliwog). But the gremlins’ robes are emblazoned with a mighty ‘pod — PZ might have difficulty figuring out which lot are the good guys.

  4. Dustin says

    but then I saw the stereotype on the right

    His name is Whitewash. No shit. The goblin-looking dudes are probably supposed to be Japanese.

  8. Laura says

    Looks like a stereotypical “Mick” there next to Whitewash.

    Sarcastro, thanks for that link. I had no idea that Bolling’s Godman had a WWII predecessor.

  9. MikeM says

    Weird, weird cover.

    And here’s my off-topic interruption for the morning: The Japanese, under pressure from the Australian government, have decided to not hunt humpback whales.

    http://voanews.com/english/2007-12-21-voa17.cfm

    I would call on the Japanese to now (ideally) stop the hunt, or at least reduce the size of the hunt.

    The website that shows this cover thinks the guys in white robes might be KKK members. I just can’t tell. It just doesn’t look like the kind of thing I’d have bought when I was 10; not enough sports cars in the picture.

  11. Rey Fox says

    “THIS is a little more out of the ordinary.”

    You suppose that God is giving an eyeful to whoever is outside that window? Damn!

  12. says

    You can tell who the bad guys are: they’re ugly!

    Yes, this is a sure-fire method for enemy detection. It always works in Ayn Rand novels.

  13. DominEditrix says

    Good old Freddy Wertham made my childhood a living hell. I had to hide my comics in my father’s office, on top of his Victorian porn, lest my mother find them and shred them in order to protect me from naked ducks.

    Couldn’t the Young Allies be prosecuted for animal cruelty? Blasphemy?

  16. Pyre says

    I have to wonder: had the cover artist ever actually seen either black or Japanese faces? These look like what happened when lions and tigers were depicted by medieval artists who’d never seen those mythical animals.

  18. cm says

    For at least 30 seconds I saw the black man with the hammer as a lady cow’s head on a dandy man’s body and just assumed that was one of the Young Allies.

  19. MBL says

    Wait, is that Bucky Barnes in the corner, with the bow and arrow? And the Human Torch? What the hell’s going on here?

  20. Sarcastro says

    It’s certainly Bucky in the corner, but the dude on fire is Toro the original android Human Torch’s sidekick.

  21. Shem says

    The “stereotypical Mick” in the flat cap is actually a stereotypical Brooklynite. I think one of those was a requirement for every comics team back in those days. The Young Allies also had a stereotypical fat kid and a stereotypical brainiac. Something for everyone!

  23. foldedpath says

    #16: I have to wonder: had the cover artist ever actually seen either black or Japanese faces? These look like what happened when lions and tigers were depicted by medieval artists who’d never seen those mythical animals.

    There was a standard stereotype for representing the Japanese during the war: yellow skin, thick glasses, protruding buck teeth. Even Walt Disney Studios got in on the act (this from a propaganda poster):

    http://bp1.blogger.com/_XOjDUIzHDXw/Rmxhp9LkmyI/AAAAAAAAAfo/tqXuoq1sX4U/s1600-h/ulead+hp+page+4+detail+11.JPG

    Here are some more Young Allies covers, several with the “Jap” stereotype:

    http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/young-allies

  24. Kseniya says

    FYI. The Hitler/Stalin fight dialogue goes something like this:

    Adolf (as he absorbs a hit from Stalin): Is that all you’re capable of?

    Josef: I proposed friendship to you, but you preferred to start a war. Now, I have come to destroy you.

    Adolf: Caucasian untermensh! Now I am at peak power!

  25. steve james says

    Here are some more Young Allies covers, several with the “Jap” stereotype:

    What I noticed was that in 11 of the 15 covers on which he appeared, Whitewash is tied up by the bad guys. In only one, do they give him a gun.

    Steve “The Fat white kid does about as badly.” James

  27. Kseniya says

    Do what you must, but I suggest you avoid prefacing that exclamation with “Caucasian unterwench!”

  30. says

    Posted by: Kseniya (caucasian unterwench)

    Kseniya, no one who’s familiar with your writing would ever mistake you for an ‘unterwench’, Caucasian or otherwise.

  33. says

    Bol’shoye spasibo, tovarishch!

    Uh, you’re welcome, I think.

    (Boy, I’m glad I went with what I did in #30 and not the other, racier comment that came to mind.)

  35. says

    Present day Mexican comics often have covers like that. But since they’re not white…

    Believe me, the civil rights movement in the 60s changed a lot of things. Now a character type like Whitewash, which came from Black culture BTW, is seen as obvious white racism. The true situation was not a simple as you might think.

  36. Arnaud says

    Well, they are following an old and established tradition, so I suppose it’s all right…

    During the Napoleonic wars, the French were often represented as monkeys in the allies’ (and especially British) press. With the result that, when at that time a boat sank off the English coast and the only survivor, a small pet monkey, was found wandering the beaches near Hartlepool, the locals assumed it was a French spy and organised a trial.

    To this day Hartlepudlians are nicknamed “monkey hangers”…