A rather strange but visually-striking - sometimes beautiful - set of cards with its theme about bloodshed through the ages. Some of the images do not even fit the theme - e.g. Cards 9 and 10; others seem little more than propaganda - e.g. Cards 24 and 71. We find Bible stories and outer space plus a few cards not about violence at all. And where did Card 26 about an airliner come from? The subjects of some cards - e.g. Cards 70 and 71 - look like they came from Bush's America after 9/11. I guess some things just do not change. Bowman here displays, as in their Red Menace set, extremely right-wing attitudes, promotion of fear, fascination with violence and misery, embrace of Biblical myths - an odd mix for trading cards, but if you want to understand the official American mindset of the early 1950s, this set of cards brings it back vividly.
Monday, October 20, 2008
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