Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
I'm a simple man, Hobbes.
You?? Yesterday you wanted a nuclear powered car that could turn into a jet with laser-guided heat-seeking missiles!
I'm a simple man with complex tastes.
Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.
« Young whippersnapper seeks birthday wishes | Main | Evolution of vertebrate eyes »
Category: Weirdness
Posted on: December 21, 2007 10:23 AM, by PZ Myers
Initially, I was horrified at what was being done to the hapless cephalopod, but then I saw the stereotype on the right, and realized the real crime was against the kids reading this tripe. (No, my name isn't Fredric Wertham.)
(TrackBack URL for this entry: )
YES! Send me a free issue of Seed.
If I like what I see, I'll receive 5 more issues (6 in all) for just $19.95. If I'm not completely satisfied, I'll simply write "cancel" on the invoice and owe nothing. The free issue is mine to keep.
(Non-U.S. subscribers, click here.)
Comments
Look...
http://gizmodo.com/336635/tentacle-chandeliers-to-class-up-the-place
tentacle chandaliers.
Posted by: Steve_C | December 21, 2007 10:35 AM
If memory serves, the white-robed gremlins are supposed to be "dirty Japs," too.
Posted by: Djur | December 21, 2007 11:27 AM
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.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton | December 21, 2007 11:34 AM
Posted by: Dustin | December 21, 2007 11:37 AM
Pretty typical for wartime stuff.
THIS is a little more out of the ordinary.
Posted by: Sarcastro | December 21, 2007 11:45 AM
If you look closely, James Watson is in there.
Posted by: danley | December 21, 2007 11:51 AM
If you look closely, James Watson is in there.
Damn. I hate getting beaten to a joke.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 21, 2007 12:00 PM
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.
Posted by: Laura | December 21, 2007 12:15 PM
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.
Posted by: MikeM | December 21, 2007 12:19 PM
Another WWII comic: Exciting Comics, featuring The Black Terror
http://www.samuelsdesign.com/comics/pages/super-war/exciting35.htm
If it weren't for the racism, the cover of Exciting Comics #35 would be pretty awesome.
Perhaps the most iconic wartime dehumanization of the enemy: the WWI 'Destroy This Mad Brute' poster featuring a Hun so brutishly atavistic that he's an ape.
Posted by: Colugo | December 21, 2007 12:35 PM
"THIS is a little more out of the ordinary."
You suppose that God is giving an eyeful to whoever is outside that window? Damn!
Posted by: Rey Fox | December 21, 2007 12:39 PM
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.
Posted by: Zeno | December 21, 2007 12:39 PM
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?
Posted by: DominEditrix | December 21, 2007 12:46 PM
How weird is this?
Stalin and Hitler fighting? But they're both atheists, aren't they? How can they be fighting?
It's a Festivus Miracle!
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 21, 2007 12:55 PM
Wanna see something more amazing? Check out what the value was last year.
Sarcastro, you win for funny but here's one that is a contender.
Posted by: Mena | December 21, 2007 12:59 PM
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.
Posted by: Pyre | December 21, 2007 1:14 PM
Ouch, a shot right to the crop!
Posted by: Mirella | December 21, 2007 1:40 PM
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.
Posted by: cm | December 21, 2007 1:45 PM
Wait, is that Bucky Barnes in the corner, with the bow and arrow? And the Human Torch? What the hell's going on here?
Posted by: MBL | December 21, 2007 2:18 PM
It's certainly Bucky in the corner, but the dude on fire is Toro the original android Human Torch's sidekick.
Posted by: Sarcastro | December 21, 2007 2:30 PM
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!
Posted by: Shem | December 21, 2007 2:53 PM
As Golden Age war comics go, this cover is tame. There was an absolutely brutal 'Yellow Peril' racism in the covers of Timely (later Marvel) comics during the War. Check out this gallery of covers from St. Louis Comics for multiple examples!
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | December 21, 2007 3:24 PM
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
Posted by: foldedpath | December 21, 2007 3:50 PM
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!
Posted by: Kseniya | December 21, 2007 3:53 PM
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
Posted by: steve james | December 21, 2007 4:40 PM
Thanks Kseniya!
I am dying to use the line "Now I am at peak power!" next time (and probably the last time) I have sex.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 21, 2007 4:46 PM
Do what you must, but I suggest you avoid prefacing that exclamation with "Caucasian unterwench!"
Posted by: Kseniya | December 21, 2007 4:59 PM
Humph. You're no fun.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 21, 2007 5:01 PM
:-D
It's just a suggestion!
Posted by: Kseniya (caucasian unterwench) | December 21, 2007 5:05 PM
Posted by: Kseniya (caucasian unterwench)
Kseniya, no one who's familiar with your writing would ever mistake you for an 'unterwench', Caucasian or otherwise.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 21, 2007 5:13 PM
Bol'shoye spasibo, tovarishch!
Posted by: Kseniya, OM, UW | December 21, 2007 5:20 PM
Dr. Strange could take both of those atheist clowns.
Posted by: Sven DiMIlo | December 21, 2007 5:22 PM
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.)
Posted by: Brownian, OM | December 21, 2007 5:35 PM
Racier comment? Uh-oh. (I imagine it had something to do with "unterwear".)
Hey, look! It's Bucky! Toro! Knuckles! Whitewash! Jeff! And Tubby!
Posted by: Kseniya | December 21, 2007 5:49 PM
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.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | December 21, 2007 11:21 PM
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"...
Posted by: Arnaud | December 22, 2007 4:49 AM