EXCITING WAR #6 * CGC 3.0 * Flamethrower cover * Battlefield Barbarity

Author:
Title: EXCITING WAR No. 6
Place Published:
Publisher:Standard Comics [Indicia: Better Publications Inc.]
Date Published: November, 1952
Description: CGC certified: G/VG (3.0). Off-white pages. Grader notes: Staple detached bottom of front cover; tape spine; moderate creasing to cover; moderate spine stress lines to cover; spine splits to cover; wear all corners of cover. Note: Some marks and scuffs to slab.

GPAnalysis: A 3.0 sold for $504 in 7/23.

Credits: Cover: John Celardo. Art: Jack Katz, Aldo Rubano, Witmer Williams, Rocco Mastroserio, George Tuska, John Celardo. Overstreet: "Flame thrower/burning body cover." Pulp Paper Propaganda: John Celardo's flamethrower cover depicts an American soldier casually roasting a Red. According to Dave Grossman's landmark book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, there's strong psychological resistance on the part of soldiers to kill, especially with weapons like flamethrowers that mutilate and disfigure. According to Grossman, "armies have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion." Grossman says nothing about the possible role of comic books in this process – as usual, funnybooks fly under the academic radar – but one can't help wondering if there was strategic value to the spate of violent flamethower covers that flourished during the Korean War. After all, if recruits were proving reluctant to roast Reds alive, how better to normalize flamethrowers as acceptable weapons of war than to splash 'em all over the covers of millions of comics geared towards soldiers and schoolboys?

There's anecdotal evidence that Uncle Sam exerted editorial influence over Cold War era comic books. According to Stan Lee, publishers who were lukewarm in their support for the Korean conflict lost shelf space at military PXs, which motivated them to push a pro-war perspective. "The downbeat portrayal of war in Timely's 1950s war comics, though hardly radical in their politics, had resulted in a Timely ban at the PXs on army bases, a notable source of revenue for the company." – Sean Howe, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. Harper: 2013, p. 94.

It's said that during WWII, comic publishers who didn't push propaganda could find their pulp-paper supply cut off. According to researcher Mark Seifert, "The Office of War Information, in cooperation with the Writers' War Board (and in the case of comics, a committee called 'The Magazine Section'), issued specific, regular directives to the periodical industry that were meant to support our war effort with propaganda. Compliance could be tied to paper quota."

Don't be surprised if future scholars assert that the unprecedented funnybook boom of the 1940s and '50s was helped along by hidden hand of Uncle Sam, and it was all part of an attempt to desensitize soldiers and youngsters to the horrors of war. Some comics historians are already leaning in that direction, and it's no nuttier than most of the other nonsense that folks believe in these days. "Propagandists believed that comic books, with their minimal text and accompanying pictures, were uniquely comprehensible to consumers, regardless of age or level of education... Essentially, images made propaganda more palatable." – Paul S. Hirsch, Pulp Empire: The Secret History of Comic Book Imperialism. University of Chicago: 2021, p. 221.
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