Times were hard; they had to save some colors purely for war production. Why, if a fellow so much as suggested a light yellow or a dar k green for an ad campaign, he’d draw hisses from everyone in the room. What, should we print the thing on nylon, too, Joones? And folks would also start to wonder why he wasn’t overseas, too. End of his career.

Just kidding. But these were very cheap volumes – gossamer-thin paper that nearly evaporated from the light of the scanner. The artists were a mixed bath – some volumes had famous cartoonists of the day, while others had odd strange doodlers never heard from again. A few manuals manage to be both boring and alarming – dry analyses of the results of chemical warfare, for example. (The example given in the book I have? Minneapolis. Long story short: heaps o' dead.) Others were aimed at Mr. And Mrs. John Q. Public, keeping their eyes on the task. It’s a little unnerving to modern eyes to see this:




Not that it wasn't true, in some sense - but that the sentiment, and the one below, have a tenor we've come to regard as almost antithetical to American culture. To speak in martial terms of Complete Victory According to the Will of the American People! sounds like dialogue from a mediocre Twilight Zone about a futuristic brownshirt United States. But I'm probably reading too much into it. Let's explore YOU - and the WAR.