Religion In The Comics - 018

[Cartoonist]

I came upon this site while doing research for RITC. You can design your own pulp cover using their templates. They have a limited assortment of images, but you can type your own copy in several fields.

The story I was going to post this week is still under restoration. Here's an ad that was on the back cover of a religious comic book called Stories From The Great Book. It appeared on the first issue, but not on the subsequent three.



Here is the sticker:


As this was in 1955, I suppose many of us are too young to ever have seen this, but I would be interested if anyone has seen this on a car.

[Binkie The Clown]

1. So let me get this straight.

God creates man with a defective "soul" and then takes credit for fixing it. Isn't there a psychiatric term for someone who manufactures a problem just so that they can swoop in and get credit for solving the problem?

[Brainstormy]

4. Or as Hitch used to say

"Made sick, commanded to be well."

[Gore1FL]

5. Munchausen, or Munchausen by proxy maybe?

I'm not sure if there is a better category than that or not.

[mountain grammy]

2. All I know is,

we didn't have one on our car in 1955.

[Hissyspit]

3. I remember seeing that faded image on some car in the 1960s.

I think. It looks very familiar.

[Lordquinton]

6. I like the intro graphic

What did they make those old stickers out of?

[Cartoonist]

7. Decal?

I know the ad says stcker, but maybe that's what they called decals back then. A 1955 paper sticker wouldn't last long.

[onager]

8. There's some fascinating history behind that sticker.

Especially the timing of the sticker giveaway - 1954-55, around the same time the Pledge Of Allegiance added "under God" and the National Motto was changed to "In WTF We Trust."

The "Religion In American Life" campaign was created by The Advertising Council, IOW the PR wing of 1950s corporate America.

The RIAL campaign is mentioned in a book that sounds really interesting: One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin Kruse (Amazon link below).

According to the Amazon description, Kruse traces all this corporate holiness back to the 1930s - when Corporate America first enlisted Xian America to help fight FDR's "communistic" New Deal programs.

I went looking for examples of the 1950s sticker giveaway, and found one mention - an advertisement from an Alton, Illinois newspaper dated 1954. Unfortunately the text was ancient OCR and therefore garbled. And viewing the full-size newsprint required a subscription.

http://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate/dp/0465049494