I've been reading way, way too many, public domain comic books from the 1940s, using online tools such as these, and I can say with certainty:
- Japanese people are bad news, alright man, I mean they look and talk different from us and their favorite hobby is apparently sabotage, so, just, like, stay away
- Buy war bonds and stamps!
- The Jitterbug will never die
- I'm also suspicious of black people come to think of it
...It strayed into "dude, not funny" territory somewhere there. Sorry. (And would it be alright to make a joke about how it started getting offensive at the mention of the Jitterbug? I'm really not sure if that crosses the line again, or makes the actual linecrossing alright due to some mysterious confluence of comedic forces.)
If you find such lack of self-awareness funny, the cheerfully offensive racial stereotypes are really some of the funniest parts of these funny books. Probably more than partially because their taste of humor back then was so corny that you can't help but feel that you're reading just a parody of 1940s comic books rather than the real deal, of course... but on the other hand, you'd figure they'd be more racist if they really were parodies of 1940s comic books- the apparent racism in them generally just sticks to character design. You saw Bumbazine, right? Protagonist, well-written as a person, but I don't think anyone would be able to get away with a character quite so full-lipped or anything anymore outside of parody.
I remember reading (and reading about) some of the more blatant, un-self-aware casual racism at Comics Should be Good at CBR, but CBR's like updated their site and whole layout since last I've been, which makes navigating through their old blogs remarkably confusing. They've got the old version on the Wayback Machine, of course, which was crucial into my rediscovery of some Japanese horror comics I discovered on CSBG a while back, so I could try there, but right now just going from memory?: there was something like, fun fact black people don't actually have whiter teeth, they've just got darker skin which makes their teeth appear whiter!
See, what did I tell you, that's just so cheerfully un-self-aware that it's funny.
So if you follow my pretzelizemecapn.wordpress.com blog you'd know, or actually just read Monday's entry on this blog, but I'm trying to track down shoes made in each state, and I'm having a honey of a go at it because it looks like, not every state has at least one shoe manufacturing company.
But at least Alabama has this pair of shoes written about here:
I have not the time to summarize that article, so just click on it. It's the most amazing thing I've read all day, including the, public domain comic books and everything.
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