| Cartoons
Go To War |
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There's
nothing funny about war. The ideals and issues
and the lives at stake are no joking matter.
And for soldier
and sailor, for whom the fortunes of war promised
equally death or glory-to say nothing of those
they left behind at home and to whom many would
never return - the pronouncement of General
William Tecumseh Sherman that 'War is hell!' rang
with a solemnity that cast a chill over the life
of the nation.
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 'If I couldn't laugh, I
would cry,' President Lincoln had remarked to
those who had been critical of what they called
his frivolity. In the homely stories, and in his
quaint ability to see the ludicrous as well as
the tragic in the course of events, the president
found relief from the burdens of office and the
tensions of war, and found a perspective that
restored his sense of proportion and his faith in
the country's destiny.And so, in fact, did the
nation: in prints and paintings and sketches, and
most of all in the cartoons that had begun to
appear in the pictorial weeklies of the day.
Little by little, people and artists and
journalists evolved an often humorous shorthand
by which they, like their president, reduced
their hopes, their anxieties, and their grief to
manageable proportions.
Then, as now,
cartoons and caricatures served these ends in a
variety of ways. During times of war, the burden
of anxiety often hung heavy over the life of the
nation. Reverses at  the front, and
frustration with bureaucratic venality and
inefficiency, could easily give way to
discouragement, cynicism, and despair. It was at
just such moments that the cartoonist's droll
commentary on politics, on military life and
discipline, and on the social scene brought a
chuckle that relieved tension and afforded what a
later writer would call 'a momentary stay against
confusion.'
Much of cartoon
humor has a far more pointed objective and an
underlying seriousness of purpose beneath its
humorous veneer. There is nothing gentle or
gentlemanly about the satire and parody with
which journalists and cartoon artists pilloried
their subjects. But if cartoon humor was used in
order to pillory, it was also used to praise.
Satire, praise, relief from tension: all these
themes run through the cartoons. But as the art
of journalistic cartooning advanced with the war
itself, a fourth function came to dominate: the
cartoon as editorial, proposing or critiquing
political and social policy.
The political writer must exercise a certain
dignity and restraint. But the cartoonist is a
privileged character who may tell the plain,
homely truth as people see it and feel it . . .
Albert Shaw
Part of a successful cartoon's appeal is often
its play upon the events of its day. With the
passage of time and changes in language and
social customs, many time-tied allusions lose
their force, as new concerns capture the public's
attention and old ones are forgotten.
 Cartoons were an
established feature of newspapers by the time of
the First World War. The larger papers often
contained separate pullout sections known as the
"Funny Pages." This began to change as
cartoon technique developed in response to the
demands of both the public and the propaganda
bureaus. Cartoons were becoming an increasingly
popular type of humour, their succinctness and
the combination of visual and linguistic joke
appealing to a large audience. As the war drew
on, propaganda posters drawn by cartoonists began
to appear, as the government began to realize the
immediate impact cartoon images had on the entire
population. However, although this type of art
had its roots in the Great War, it was not until
World War Two that propaganda posters became
heavily based around the images of cartoonists
and caricaturists.
On the eve of
the Second World War, as patriotic men and women
across the nation were lining up to do their part
in the fight against fascism, the U.S. Signal
Corps inducted some unlikely civilians: a rabbit
and two ducks. America's most beloved animated
characters--including the biggest stars from
Disney and Warner Bros.--put on the uniform in
propaganda films designed to boost morale.
Cartoon maestro
Chuck Jones, film directing legend Frank Capra
and the Walt Disney Studios were all recruited by
the armed forces to produce shorts and training
films for the war effort. Their creations, from
Private Snafu to Mr. Hook to the Academy Award
winning Der Fuehrer's Face, offer a funny and
fascinating look at the politics, goals and
culture of the times.
And there is no
doubt that a serious political issue, when
presented in the form of a telling cartoon, will
be borne home to the minds of a far larger circle
of average every-day men and women than it could
ever be when discussed in the cold black and
white of the editorial column.
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| Milton
Caniff's 'Male Call,' which premiered in 1942,
was something different altogether — a pinup
strip whose main character, the sexy and sublime
Miss Lace, constantly reminded its readers what
they were fighting for. A dark-haired beauty
with Bettie Page bangs who dressed as seductively
as Caniff could get away with, Miss Lace was
every servicemember's pal, and the readers adored
her.
'Male Call'
came to an end in 1946, but Caniff continued to
draw Miss Lace for military reunion programs.
It was just one
of the many ways the artist demonstrated his love
of country and those who fought for it.
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'I
didn't base Lace on any movie stars,' Caniff
notes in a collection of 'Male Call' strips. 'She
was the visualization of an idea, a point of
view.'
'It
was as if she was a genie, a waif, who appeared
in your dreams. When she turned the tables on
some hot-pants GI, or the hot-pants colonel, ...
it was fun. It was wish fulfillment for the
readers.'
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| Sgt. George
Baker's 'The Sad Sack,' which premiered in YANK
magazine in May 1942, was also popular. A former
animator for Walt Disney, Baker conceived the
weekly humor strip based on his experiences and
those of his fellow soldiers. 'The underlying
story of the Sad Sack,' noted Baker during the
strip's heyday, 'was his struggle with the Army
in which I tried to symbolize the sum total of
the difficulties and frustrations of all enlisted
men.' Baker succeeded well. |
In one infamous
strip, Sad Sack watches a military hygiene film
so graphic that he dons rubber gloves before
shaking hands with another servicemember's
girlfriend.
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 One day in 1942,
when new Navy torpedo boats were being launched,
Lieutenant E. S. Caldwell, then of the Naval
Operations office in Washington, wrote a letter
to Walt Disney in Hollywood. He asked Disney to
design an emblem appropriate for this new fleet
of "mosquito boats." A few days later,
back to the fleet came an emblem. It was a little
mosquito, streaking through the water with a
tar's hat on his head and a shiny torpedo held
between his many legs. The insignia was such a
hit that every torpedo boat in the fleet soon had
a Disney mosquito.
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 As soon as word got
around in the Army and Navy as to what Disney had
done, the Disney office was bombarded with
requests to design insignia for tanks,
minesweepers, bombers, and fighter planes. Disney
did his best to comply. Swamped in World War II
with requests from the military to use the
world-famous Disney characters in creating
distinctive unit insignia, the Disney Studio had
to set up a special five-man crew of artists to
meet the demand for designs. "They meant a
lot to the men who were fighting," said Walt
Disney. "How could you turn them down?" |
| According to the late WW II
aviation enthusiast and author Jeffrey Ethell,
"the Disney industry was pervasive in
American culture and it influenced nose art in a
number of different ways. Combat crews copied
Disney cartoon characters because they were
suitable subjects for humorous and patriotic
themes. Disney's influence also included studio
artists, who joined the military and then
contributed their talents to the creation of nose
art. Disney Studios and the U.S. government had a
history of cooperation. At the beginning of the
war in 1939, Walt Disney and his artists designed
and painted squadron and unit insignia. Disney
raised the spirit of the troops when he
transformed the 'once staid military heraldry
format created during World War I' into inspired
designs. |
Pluto on the poster for the short
film "The Army Mascot." |
The "Beechcraft Busy
Bee." |
Cover of July 1943 magazine
"The Leatherneck." |
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Dr. Seuss
(Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991) was a life-long
cartoonist. Because of the fame of his children's
books and because his political cartoons have
remained largely unknown, we do not think of Dr.
Seuss as a political cartoonist. Dr. Seuss was
haunted by the war in Europe, and one evening in
Manhattan he showed an editorial cartoon he had
drawn to his friend Zinny Vanderlip Schoales, the
brilliant, hard-drinking intellectual. Zinny had
joined the patrician liberal Ralph Ingersoll when
he launched the tabloid newspaper PM in
New York with the backing of Marshall Field III.
Zinny took Ted's cartoon to Ingersoll and PM
published it on January 30, 1941. During the
years 1941-1943, he was the chief editorial
cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM
(1940-1948), and for that journal he drew over
400 editorial cartoons.
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