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I agree that the Ward cartoons have that not very innocent feeling to them lurking right under the surface. You could see where this could lead to eventually if the artist had less restraints. They are like the old (and maybe greatest of them all) girlie mag cartoon by Harvy Kurtzman in the back of PLAYBOY called Little Annie Fanny. Looking back it is absolutley sexist and degrading to women (the beautiful and endowed blonde bombshell with half a brain) and yet I guess if you are looking at PLAYBOY anyway that is what you are looking for even if you do not accept that as the way women really are. The problem is that it is enjoyable and there is a sense of satire or parody, I feel, to these types of cartoons up to a point. There is this conflict here between how men may want women to be and the way women really are, and really vise versa when you think the female counterpart to porn, romance novels. Men and women are not looking for reality in any of this stuff and I think they are aware of this fact. I hope. The "girlie" or sex cartoons of today are simply viscious and brutal either to women or men and the Torchy cartoons have an almost Archie element to them. Maybe I am just getting older now and do no see the need for all this hostility in things, though I explore it.

I found some interesting propoganda posters from Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany that really made these American posters looks rather mild. Especially the posters the Nazis did of the Jews and the Japanese did of the Chinese. The posters warning of sanctioned child rapes and murder of innocent civilians at random that would happen if the yanks occupied Japan never happened of course after the actual occupation. What permanant occupation under Japan or Germany would have been like is a freaky thought. While the American posters are essentially "racist" (I guess towards the Japanese and not towards the Germans since Germans are anglo as well) I guess they serve the same purpose that the propoganda posters from Germany and Japan did: to dehumanize the enemy and make them easier to kill. It is hard to kill people that seem similar to us.

I was reading something interesting on the net that I never knew even existed. There is so much scathing banter still about the internment of Japanese in WWII (and it was not a good thing although it was one driven by a paranoia that was not 100% unfounded) and that it was racist becuase they are different looking essentially. But nothing ever seems to to get discussed about the internment of German and Italian Americans and how they blended back into society without all the whining we still get from the Japanese (who also interned British and American citizens during the war). In fact The Germans and Italinas were kept interned even after Germany surrendered. They suffered the same hardships as the Japanese in camps mostly in Texas yet it seems you never hear anything about it. Are you aware of this? I found a site listing all the German and Italian camps and some stories from them.

Of course neither the Japanese or Germans were the idiots portrayed here and I do not think anyone really thought they were. Both were capable civilizations that had turned evil and produced great fighting armies with an agenda nothing short of world conquest. Propoganda is actually necessary I guess. If one side did not dehumanze the enemy and make it acceptable to kill them... i.e. what if soldiers are trained to see the enemy as equal human beings... then that is good on a deep philiosophical level, but the enemy will slaughter you unless they are using the same touchy feely approach to war. The enemy within concept I guess that Sam Keen wrote about in a book on propoganda.

I am glad I never had to be brainwashed to kill some other person in another country, but maybe I feel more secure knowing some guys from Alabama or Arkansas don't mind it. War sucks, but until it is abolishd we might as well enjoy the cool art it produced.

Yup, I know what you are saying. I have almost committed suicide becasue of those server monkeys before. Hope to hear something when you ahve some time. Sorry I seem out of touch. I cannot connect to Yahoo messeenger these days. See you. Bill