"Carriers of the New Black Plague"

Subject: World, World War II
Period: 1938 (published)
Publication: Ken Magazine
Color: Printed Color
Size: 11.8 x 20.7

This pictorial map is color-coded to show the extent of the "black plague" across the world. A key at bottom shows three categories of free speech: dictatorial control (black), varying degrees of control (gray), and relative freedom (tan). The map reveals that slightly more than half of the globe is in "Totalitarian Eclipse." Within the map image are ten of these dictators "whose ten totaled brains wouldn't counterbalance that of one Einstein in the measurement of man's distance from the anthropoid ape" including Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and Stalin (by himself). Drawn by William Cotton and issued in the very first edition of Ken Magazine (April 7, 1938), a controversial anti-fascist magazine. The verso contains a satirical portrait of Hermann Goring, a powerful military figure in the Nazi Party who eventually became Hitler's second in command, and a wartime illustration based upon a painting by George Grosz.

An excellent description of this map and additional background on Ken Magazine can be found at the PJ Mode Persuasive Map Collection (Cornell University) - click here to view their example.

References: PJ Mode Collection #1268.
Condition: A
Clean and colorful with small staple holes along the centerfold, as issued. The bottom corners of the sheet are slightly creased, but far from map image.