Octopus & Propaganda

[cthulhu77]

cool illo!!!!

 

[WhiteKiboko]

I really like that 50's style type of drawing....

 

[Clem]

Found a few lovelies, recently. Here's the first, an American anti-communist pamphlet cover featuring an octopus with Stalin's likeness. The "1938" pencilled into the upper right might be a date of publication; after 1941, Uncle Joe was America's partner in the war effort, and images like these were quietly mothballed.

Clem

 

[Clem]

 

[joel_ang]

Just did a bit of searching, have any of these been posted before?

 

[cthulhu77]

I haven't seen the last one...the panicked america...quite a nice painting...where did you find it?
Nice poster Clem !

 

[joel_ang]

Just did a image search on altavista

 

[cthulhu77]

guess I need an emoticon of a silly hammer and my head...why didn't I think of that???
Cool stuff...glad you posted it !

 

[Clem]

Hello Joel,

Thanks for posting that selection. The first one is quite interesting; it's actually a knock-off of a WWII poster I've been looking out for for ages. The 1940's original showed a Japanese octopus reaching down from Honshu towards New Guinea and Australia, with a stylized rising sun behind its head. The original was also wordless, relying on graphic imagery to make its point. Wish I could find it.

The second image has been posted before; it's an infamous Nazi cartoon depciting "the Jew" as a vampiric global conspiracy.

That third one is really something, so detailled that the original must be quite large. The ceph-monster has an odd muppet look about it, or is it Seussian fur? I'd love to know more about the artist.



Yours truly,

Clem

 

[tonmo]

This has got to be one of the best threads ever on this site. Great work everyone, keep it coming! It contains all the fodder needed to publish a robust thesis/book on this subject.

 

[Phil]

Here's another example, this one a contemporary view of Americas' foreign policy. (Hey, don't shoot the messenger.....!)

 

[Clem]

(Hey, don't shoot the messenger.....!)

Phil,

I won't shoot you, but I will ask you - and any person following this thread - to please locate a copy of A. J. P. Taylor's The Second World War, because I'm pretty sure it contains a color plate of the old poster that inspired these recent knock-offs. (I owned the book, once, and now regret letting go of it.)

The person who scans and posts the original will get a pony.

Clem

 

[Phil]

Apologies for the small image, but it's the only one I could find. This was 'England and the Octopus' by Clough Williams-Ellis and was written in 1928.

This book was a polemic drawing attention to the destruction of the rural countryside and its inherent aesthetics by the poor management and insidious growth of urban development. The 'Octopus' of the title refers to London. A typical passage describing 'ribbon development': “the disfiguring little buildings that grow up and multiply like nettles along a drain, like lice along a tape-worm”. Apparently the book is as relevant today as when it was first written.

Clough Williams Ellis, who died in 1978, will be a familiar name to anyone who is a fan of Cult TV, for he designed Portmerion, the Italian-style village in Wales which was the setting for the ultra-surreal 1967 TV series 'The Prisoner'. That was the one in which everyone had numbers instead of names and Patrick McGoohan attempted to escape brainwashing each week by the sinister forces in control of 'The Village'. Excellent stuff!

 

[Phil]

This is German poster produced in 1942 by Goebbels' propaganda unit for display in France. It depicts Churchill as a menacing octopus with arms hacked off at sites of Axis victories. The caption translates as:

"Have confidence....the amputations continue methodically".

 

[um...]

12 arms? And what's with the horrible geography? Back to school with you, silly Nazi!