^{Common Errors in English Usage and More} _{November 2016}

Nuclear Texts and Contexts

November 30, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

Nuclear Texts & Contexts

In 1988 a small number of scholars who met at the Modern Language Association national meeting organized a group called the International Society for the Study of Nuclear Texts & Contexts (ISSNTC). Besides small annual meetings of members thereafter and the maintenance of a mailing list for interested scholars, its main activity was the publication of a newsletter called Nuclear Texts & Contexts. Between 1988 and 1995, 12 issues of the newsletter appeared. At its height this newsletter had a circulation of over a hundred scholars in ten different countries who were interested in nuclear themes as reflected in fiction and the arts, and in the relationship of English and literary studies to nuclear issues generally. Provided here in Adobe Acrobat format (.pdf) are copies of the first 8 issues, which were published at Washington State University.

Besides providing a snapshot of scholarly activity during the period at the end of the Cold War, some of the articles may still be of interest to researchers. Much of this material was later published elsewhere (notably much of the bibliographic material on fiction which appeared in each issue being incorporated into Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction). Every issue also included a running bibliography of new scholarship in the field. Some of the articles which appeared here have never been reprinted elsewhere. Many of the articles cited are brief notes, but they may be useful for some researchers.

To read these files you will need Acrobat Reader or Adobe Reader, which comes preinstalled on most computers.

Download issue no. 1, Fall 1988
Introduction to the newsletter, announcement of relevant sessions at scholarly meetings, report on an Irish nuclear discourse conference, article on Russian scholar Vladimir Gakov, review of Spencer Weart: Nuclear Fear, a History of Images, “Nuclear War Games,” “Short Story Anthologies,” “Readers and Textbooks,” “Nuclear War and Comic Books,” “Nuclear War Plays,” & “Nuclear War in Film.”

Download issue no. 2, Spring 1989
Announcement of the formation of ISSNTC, Report on the session of MLA devoted to “Nuclear Texts & Contexts” and a panel called “Nuclear Bombs in the Classroom?” at the Midwest Modern Language Association meeting, announcements of forthcoming meetings, news of Gakov’s forthcoming lecture tour, relevant books on tape, drama, Atomic Attack on videotape, Reviews of Valerie Andrews, Robert Bosnak & Karen Walter Goodwin, eds.: Facing Apocalypse, of Mick Broderick: Nuclear Movies: A Filmography, of H. Bruce Franklin: War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination, Teaching English in a Nuclear Age, J. Fisher Solomon: Discourse and Reference in the Nuclear Age, Corrections to issue 1, Letters from Gregory Benford, Michael Nagler, Bylaws of ISSNTC.

Download issue no. 3, Fall 1989
Announcement of ISSNTC monograph series, proposal for new scholarly anthology, meeting announcements, Reviews of Ira Chernus & Edward Tabor Linenthal: A Shuddering Dawn: Religious Studies and the Nuclear Age, of John Wittier Treat: Pools of Water, Pillars of Fire: The Literature of Ibuse Masuji, of Edward Linenthal: Symbolic Defense: The Cultural Significance of the Strategic Defence Initiative, bibliography of selected writings on “Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Bomb,” report on Gakov lecture tour, Ion Hobana: “Nuclear War Fiction in Eastern Europe,” films, trivia.

Download issue no. 4, Spring 1990
Reviews of Martha Bartter: The Way to Ground Zero: The Atomic Bomb in American Science Fiction, of Joseph Dewey: In a Dark Time: The Apocalyptic Temper in the American Novel of the Nuclear Age, Jeff Smith: Unthinking the Unthinkable: Nuclear Weapons and Western Culture, correction to Ion Hobana’s article in Issue no. 3.

Download issue no. 5, Fall 1990
Report on the “Facing Apocalypse II” Russian-American conference, reviews of a special issue of Papers on Language and Literature devoted to nuclear war fiction criticism by ISSNTC members (a few copies of this special issue are still available by writing to Paul Brians), of Vladimir Gakov’s Ultimatum, of Richard H. Minear, ed.: Hiroshima: Three Witnesses, of Robert Jay Lifton & Erik Markusen: The Genocidal Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat, recent films, comics, and a computer game, announcement of the resignation of Jean Kittrell, founding President of ISSNTC.

Download issue no. 6, Spring 1991
Daniel Zins: “No Time to Stop Worrying, Even If We Don’t Love the Bomb,” reviews of Ira Chernus: Nuclear Madness: Religion and the Psychology of the Nuclear Age, of Millicent Lenz: Nuclear Age Literature for Youth: The Quest for a Life-Affirming Ethic, of James Der Derian & Michael J. Shapiro, eds.: International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics, of Martin Medhurst, Robert L. Ivie, Philip Wander & Robert L. Scott: Cold War Rhetoric: Strategy, Metaphor and Ideology, comics, films, meetings, surivalist postholocaust adventure stories.

Download issue no. 7, Fall 1991
Article by the editor on the future of the newsletter, reviews of Nancy Anisfield, ed.: The Nightmare Considered: Critical Essays on Nuclear War Literature, call for contributions to a book on Indians and the bomb, and another on nuclear bomb films, Daniel Zins: “Seventeen Minutes Till Midnight,” letter from Ian F. Clarke, correction to no. 6.

Download issue no. 8, Fall 1992
Farewell from departing editor Paul Brians and announcement of new editor Daniel Zins, “A Poet from Chernobyl,” “Nuclear Music,” reviews of Mick Broderick: Nuclear Movies: A Critical Analysis and Filmography of International Feature Length Films Dealing with Experimentation, Aliens, Terrorism, Holocaust and Other Disaster Scenarios, 1914-1898, of William Chaloupka: Knowing Nukes: The Politics and Culture of the Atom, letter from Melissa Walker, letter from Millicent Lenz.

Paul Brians’ home page

Credits

November 28, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

Nuke Pop

This project was created by Paul Brians, Professor of English, Washington State University, using images from his personal collection.

Leonard Rifas, comic book artist and noted publisher of Educomics, Seattle, supplied a number of slides of comic book covers, especially of early comics. Craig Barnett of The Comic Book Shop in Spokane helped identify and secure many of the comics in this project. Ken Robe and Larry Jonas of the Washington State University student bookstore helped me identify and secure novels. Others who helped identify and procure images include Ann Wierum (Holland Library, WSU), Walter Simonson, Nat Gertler, J. W. Rider, and Dan Mishkin (via the Comics and Gamers Forums on CompuServe).

Picture and information about the atomic bomb ring thanks to Tom Tumbusch, author of the Illustrated Radio Premium Catalog and Price Guide (Dayton, Ohio: Tomart Publications, 1989).

In its earlier incarnation as a slide show, this project was supported with a grant from the Washington Commission for the Humanities.

Slide scanning performed by Julie Frank of the Washington State University Humanities Research Center.

Special thanks to Marc Lindsey for copyright advice.

This project represents a small selection from a much larger collection, and it is not anticipated that I will be adding substantially to it. However, there are two images that I would particularly like to find: the Hiroshima/Nagasaki board game, and a photo of the original bikini which publicized its invention by Louis Réard. If you have access to either of these images, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Paul Brians is the author of Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction 1894-1985 (Kent State University Press, 1987, currently out of print). A revised and expanded version of this book is available online here. He has also published the following articles:

Articles:

“Americans Learn to Love the Bomb,” New York Times, July 17, 1985 (reprinted in the U.S. and abroad through the Times News Service and the International Herald Tribune. This article plus two interviews provided the basis for Konrad Ege’s article, “La culture populaire flirte avec la bombe,” Le Monde diplomatique, June 1986.

“And That Was the Future . . . The World Will End Tomorrow,” Futures, August 1988, pp. 424-433.

“Atomic Bomb Day” (pp. 32-33) and “Hiroshima Day (pp. 309-311) in Read More About It: An Encyclopedia of Information Sources on Historical Figures and Events. Vol. 3. Ann Arbor: The Pierian Press, 1989.

“Nuclear Family/Nuclear War,” in Nancy Anisfield, ed. The Nightmare Considered: Critical Essays on Nuclear War Literature. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Press, 1991. (A slightly revised version of the paper originally published in Essays in Language and Literature (Spring 1990).

“Nuclear War Fiction Collection at Washington State University, The,” College & Research Libraries News, 48 (March, 1987), pp.115-18.

“Nuclear War in Science Fiction, 1945-1959,” Science-Fiction Studies, vol. 11, part 3 (1984), pp. 253-263.

Resources for the Study of Nuclear War in Fiction,” Science-Fiction Studies, July 1986, 5 pp.

“Nuclear War Fiction for Young Readers: A Commentary and Annotated Bibliography,” in Philip John Davies, ed. Science Fiction, Social Conflict and War. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990. [An earlier, abridged version of this article, without most of the notes and without any of the annotated bibliography, was published as “Nuclear Fiction for Children” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1988; but I consider this the definitive version of the article.

“Nuclear War/Post-Nuclear Fiction,” Columbiana (Winter 1987), pp. 31-33

“Red Holocaust: The Atomic Conquest of the West,” Extrapolation, 28 (1987), pp. 319-329.

“Revival of Learning: Science After the Nuclear Holocaust in Science Fiction,” Phoenix from the Ashes: The Literature of the Remade World, ed. Carl Yoke. Greenwood Press, 1987.

“SF Summit in Moscow.” Locus, October, 1987.

with Vladimir Gakov: “Nuclear-War Themes in Soviet Science Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography.” Science-Fiction Studies 16 (1989): 67-84.

Other Recommended Resources:

Overlapping my book but containing discussions of some American fiction excluded by my study is Martha A. Bartter: The Way to Ground Zero: The Atomic Bomb in American Science Fiction.New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Thomas M. Disch’s The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World (New York: Free Press, 1998) includes a chapter sharply critical of SF’s treatment of nuclear war themes: “How Science Fiction Defused the Bomb” (Chapter 4, pp. 78-96).

Neo-barbarian fiction is discussed by Paul Carter: “By the Waters of Babylon: Our Barbarous Descendants,” The Creation of Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Magazine Science Fiction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977).

Researchers interested in pursuing the subject of nuclear war as it has been depicted in the movies will want to consult Jack G. Shaheen’s Nuclear War Films (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978) and Mick Broderick’s comprehensive Nuclear Movies: A Critical Analysis and Filmography of International Feature Length Films Dealing with Experimentation, Aliens, Terrorism, Holocaust, and Other Disaster Scenarios, 1914-1989 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1991).

For the period immediately after World War II, I drew on Paul Boyer’s outstanding study, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon, 1985).

The indispensible source on nuclear imagery generally is Spencer Weart: Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Harvard University Press, 1988.

Created September 26, 1999.

Last revised October 10, 2001.

Recommended by .

Back to Nuke Pop home page.

The Last American

November 28, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

last

Like the well-known documentary film, The Atomic Cafe, it mocks the absurd civil defense campaign of the 1950s which urged schoolchildren to survive a nuclear attack by imitating a cartoon turtle: "Duck and cover!" — Like the well-known documentary film, The Atomic Cafe, it mocks the absurd civil defense campaign of the 1950s which urged schoolchildren to survive a nuclear attack by imitating a cartoon turtle: “Duck and cover!”

The Last American seems at first to be yet another postholocaust adventure story, featuring a specially-chosen agent who was preserved underground during the nuclear war, emerging to take command of the resistance against America's conquerors like a typical Radioactive Rambo. Yet for the entire series, he searches in vain for other survivors, finding instead only heartbreaking evidence of the extinction of the human race. His robot companions try to conceal the truth from him as long as possible; but in the end he must face the fact that he is not only the last American, but vey likely the last human being alive. The fantasy of the planners who thought they could win a victory in the wake of a nuclear war is shown to be a tragic farce. — The Last American seems at first to be yet another post-holocaust adventure story, featuring a specially-chosen agent who was preserved underground during the nuclear war, emerging to take command of the resistance against America’s conquerors like a typical Radioactive Rambo. Yet for the entire series, he searches in vain for other survivors, finding instead only heartbreaking evidence of the extinction of the human race.
His robot companions try to conceal the truth from him as long as possible; but in the end he must face the fact that he is not only the last American, but vey likely the last human being alive. The fantasy of the planners who thought they could win a victory in the wake of a nuclear war is shown to be a tragic farce.

One particularly effective sequence depicts a robot trying to cheer up his human companion by jauntily singing "New York, New York," while patrolling the ruins of that city, littered with rubble and the skeletons of the former inhabitants. — One particularly effective sequence depicts a robot trying to cheer up his human companion by jauntily singing “New York, New York,” while patrolling the ruins of that city, littered with rubble and the skeletons of the former inhabitants.

The robot's song blends into a fantastic sequence in which Death himself goes on with the lyrics in drawings which underline the irony of the lyrics. — The robot’s song blends into a fantastic sequence in which Death himself goes on with the lyrics in drawings which underline the irony of the lyrics.

The Death-headed robot cavorts through the ruins of the city whose show-business past he ironically celebrates.

When his robot urges The Last American to "Look on the bright side" he imagines a chorus of animated corpses singing the following lyrics: Every cloud has a silver lining! It's just an attitude of mind, Look on the bright side and you'll find-- The Silver lining that's in every cloud. When the Bombs are on their way, At least they give you time to pray And don't forget to file a claim for compensation! When you're flying through the air Think what you'll save on taxi fare. The worst disaster has its brighter side! New York City's tumbling down-- Be thankful you're not out of town, News like this could spoil a good vacation! So what if that Fireball kills? Think how it cuts those heating bills-- And it's not every day you get a free cremation! And when that fallout's raining down, Just pass the tanning lotion round! Who cares about a little radiation? Someone's dropped another bomb, that's okay, You like it warm! It's just a different attitude of mind! There has been no more bitter mockery of Americans' inability to take seriously the prospect of nuclear annihilation. — When his robot urges The Last American to “Look on the bright side” he imagines a chorus of animated corpses singing the following lyrics:
Every cloud has a silver lining!
It’s just an attitude of mind,
Look on the bright side and you’ll find–
The Silver lining that’s in every cloud.
When the Bombs are on their way,
At least they give you time to pray
And don’t forget to file a claim for compensation!
When you’re flying through the air
Think what you’ll save on taxi fare.
The worst disaster has its brighter side!
New York City’s tumbling down–
Be thankful you’re not out of town,
News like this could spoil a good vacation!
So what if that Fireball kills?
Think how it cuts those heating bills–
And it’s not every day you get a free cremation!
And when that fallout’s raining down,
Just pass the tanning lotion round!
Who cares about a little radiation?
Someone’s dropped another bomb, that’s okay,
You like it warm! It’s just a different attitude of mind!
There has been no more bitter mockery of Americans’ inability to take seriously the prospect of nuclear annihilation.

Scout

November 28, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

scout

but the interior sequence of panels depicting the aftermath of the explosion shows striking originality

as we simultaneously pull back and zoom in on the scene

and as the panels divide into ever-thinner segments

symbolizing the disintegration of things by the bomb

finally returning us to the more-than-emblematic skull of the opening panel. The prevalence of nuclear war imagery in recent Western culture is alarming, of course, particularly since so much of it has been fatalistic or belligerent in nature; but I take some comfort in the fact that at least we have allowed ourselves to think about nuclear war. For decades we pretended that it couldn't happen. Then we seemed to be trying to frighten ourselves into believing that it could. Unfortunately, that seemed to be a necessary first step to eliminating these weapons. — finally returning us to the more-than-emblematic skull of the opening panel.
The prevalence of nuclear war imagery in recent Western culture is alarming, of course, particularly since so much of it has been fatalistic or belligerent in nature; but I take some comfort in the fact that at least we have allowed ourselves to think about nuclear war. For decades we pretended that it couldn’t happen. Then we seemed to be trying to frighten ourselves into believing that it could. Unfortunately, that seemed to be a necessary first step to eliminating these weapons.

Previous: The Japanese

Next: The Last American

The Japanese

November 28, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

japan

One of the most important tasks undertaken by writers and artists is the depiction of the actual effects of the only nuclear war the world has so far experienced: the ending of World War II. Note that the conventional depiction of the premier icon of nuclear war-the mushroom cloud-is almost always at a distance. The familiar shape is awesome, but not immediately threatening. It takes a cartoonist from Hiroshima, Keiji Nakazawa, to take us beneath the shadow of the bomb and see directly what it did to the human beings it struck. — One of the most important tasks undertaken by writers and artists is the depiction of the actual effects of the only nuclear war the world has so far experienced: the ending of World War II. Note that the conventional depiction of the premier icon of nuclear war-the mushroom cloud-is almost always at a distance. The familiar shape is awesome, but not immediately threatening.
It takes a cartoonist from Hiroshima, Keiji Nakazawa, to take us beneath the shadow of the bomb and see directly what it did to the human beings it struck.

Barefoot Gen is the story of one family, in Hiroshima.

Whereas most depictions of nuclear war transport us to the far future or view the events from a distance, this comic plunges us into the almost unbearable suffering caused by war. It is remarkable that Nakazawa does not simply blame the Americans, but also criticizes the Japanese for their blind militaristic chauvinism during World War II.

Compare Nakazawa's view of the bomb from beneath the cloud to that of another, more skillful, Japanese comic book artist, Katsuhiro Otomo, whose epic-length post-World War III work, Akira, was turned into a feature film.He chooses an aerial view-the bomb as seen from the perspective of the attacker, similar to the Midnight Oil album cover we just saw, but more striking. — Compare Nakazawa’s view of the bomb from beneath the cloud to that of another, more skillful, Japanese comic book artist, Katsuhiro Otomo, whose epic-length post-World War III work, Akira, was turned into a feature film.He chooses an aerial view-the bomb as seen from the perspective of the attacker, similar to the Midnight Oil album cover we just saw, but more striking.

While the familiar mushroom cloud has lost much of its impact, this ominous black dome and the spreading circles of dust driven by the shockwave remind us forcefully of the terrible power of the bomb. This kind of creative re-imagining of nuclear imagery is rare. I was fascinated to learn from a student who had seen Akira in Tokyo that the incoming missiles were clearly labelled as American in origin. By the time the film reached the U.S. this inflammatory shot had been deleted. — While the familiar mushroom cloud has lost much of its impact, this ominous black dome and the spreading circles of dust driven by the shockwave remind us forcefully of the terrible power of the bomb. This kind of creative re-imagining of nuclear imagery is rare.
I was fascinated to learn from a student who had seen Akira in Tokyo that the incoming missiles were clearly labelled as American in origin. By the time the film reached the U.S. this inflammatory shot had been deleted.

Next: Scout

Getting Serious

November 28, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

serious

As this painting by a Canadian artist indicates, the White House is as vulnerable as any home to nuclear weapons.

Next: The Japanese

Nuclear Records Jackets

November 28, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

records

The earliest record album to feature a mushroom cloud on the cover was not a rock album as you might suppose, but this Count Basie recording. The CD reissue has a more tasteful cover.

The most famous such rock record jacket art is from the Jefferson Airplane's Crown of Creation, whose photo credits claim that this is a picture of the Hiroshima bomb (though it seems actually to be from a September 14, 1957 Nevada test). The title song was inspired by a passage in a well-known postholocaust science fiction novel, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, in which the new, mutant generation is praised as superior to normal humans. A nuclear cloud featured less prominently a year earlier on Grateful Dead. — The most famous such rock record jacket art is from the Jefferson Airplane’s Crown of Creation, whose photo credits claim that this is a picture of the Hiroshima bomb (though it seems actually to be from a September 14, 1957 Nevada test). The title song was inspired by a passage in a well-known postholocaust science fiction novel, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, in which the new, mutant generation is praised as superior to normal humans.
A nuclear cloud featured less prominently a year earlier on Grateful Dead.

Here the theme is strikingly used on the cover of an album featuring anti-nuclear songs, Red Sails in the Sunset, by Midnight Oil.

In the mid-eighties, nuclear war imagery became common in rock music videos. One student doing research for me reported that MTV was showing an average of one nuclear bomb image per hour. This album by the "speed metal" group Nuclear Assault featured several songs dealing with nuclear war. — In the mid-eighties, nuclear war imagery became common in rock music videos. One student doing research for me reported that MTV was showing an average of one nuclear bomb image per hour.
This album by the “speed metal” group Nuclear Assault featured several songs dealing with nuclear war.

Next: Getting serious

Atomic Age Nostalgia

November 28, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

nostalgia

In the early nineties, nuclear war imagery became highly self-conscious and self-referential. One of the more interesting recent trends was the bomb as nostalgia, themes from the forties and fifties combined with atomic bomb imagery. The 1991 series, Atomic Age, archly incorporates period artifacts such as Sputnik and this drive-in movie. — In the early nineties, nuclear war imagery became highly self-conscious and self-referential. One of the more interesting recent trends was the bomb as nostalgia, themes from the forties and fifties combined with atomic bomb imagery.
The 1991 series, Atomic Age, archly incorporates period artifacts such as Sputnik and this drive-in movie.

Look at this frame from Hard Boiled comics.

Now zoom in on the fast-food containers on the front seat. One is labelled with the code name of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima: "Little Boy" and the other bears the name of the Nagasaki bomb: "Fat Man." — Now zoom in on the fast-food containers on the front seat. One is labelled with the code name of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima: “Little Boy” and the other bears the name of the Nagasaki bomb: “Fat Man.”

Consider this ad from a Fall, 1988 J. Crew catalog, featuring "a jacket that might have been worn by J. Rob't Oppenheimer at Los Alamos — Consider this ad from a Fall, 1988 J. Crew catalog, featuring “a jacket that might have been worn by J. Rob’t Oppenheimer at Los Alamos.

In contrast, the Def Jeans company ran an ad campaign on television and in print media contrasting their "def" jeans with nuclear war as "dumb." — In contrast, the Def Jeans company ran an ad campaign on television and in print media contrasting their “def” jeans with nuclear war as “dumb.”

Of the several modern novels about the Manhattan Project and J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jay Cantor's Krazy Kat is both the most unusual and most interesting, using old comic strip characters to develop Oppenheimer's famous quotation--"The scientists have known sin"--to argue that the opening of the atomic age marked a fall from grace into guilty self-knowledge. — Of the several modern novels about the Manhattan Project and J. Robert Oppenheimer, Jay Cantor’s Krazy Kat is both the most unusual and most interesting, using old comic strip characters to develop Oppenheimer’s famous quotation–“The scientists have known sin”–to argue that the opening of the atomic age marked a fall from grace into guilty self-knowledge.

This strip from a very interesting comic book devoted entirely to the theme of nuclear war (itchy Planet) treats nuclear war as a fifties family situation comedy, with father and daughter taking out their frustrations on each other with nuclear missiles.

America's favorite nuclear technician, Homer Simpson, was transformed into a nostalgic atomic hero in Radioactive Man (1993). It bears a phony cover date of "Nov 1952." — America’s favorite nuclear technician, Homer Simpson, was transformed into a nostalgic atomic hero in Radioactive Man (1993). It bears a phony cover date of “Nov 1952.”

But the ultimate in ironic nuclear nostalgia is undoubtedly this comic book cover.

Next: Nuclear record jackets

Fun and Games

November 28, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

games

Nuclear war themes are present even in products aimed at children. Consider this gum wrapper featuring the wildly successful and controversial Garbage Pail Kids.

Students I have talked to had not even considered the implications of the logo for this popular candy whose wrapper has not changed since the fifties.

Atomic war toys and games appeared shortly after World War II, including a board game that let you bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Atomic Bomb Ring, which was sold for 15¢ and a boxtop from Kix cereal. Kids peered into the plastic to "See Genuine Atoms Split to Smithereens!" Over six million were distributed between 1947 and 1957. — Atomic war toys and games appeared shortly after World War II, including a board game that let you bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Atomic Bomb Ring, which was sold for 15¢ and a boxtop from Kix cereal. Kids peered into the plastic to “See Genuine Atoms Split to Smithereens!”
Over six million were distributed between 1947 and 1957.

Nuclear war is also a feature of several popular board and computer games, including one entitled B-1 Bomber, which allowed the player to drop warheads on Moscow and another called simply Nuclear War, which treated the subject with a macabre sense of humor. The antiballistic missile game Missile Command had a considerable vogue some years back and even turned up in fiction. This game combined the original 1945 atomic bomb test, named Trinity, with the bombing of Hiroshima and a future nuclear holocaust. — Nuclear war is also a feature of several popular board and computer games, including one entitled B-1 Bomber, which allowed the player to drop warheads on Moscow and another called simply Nuclear War, which treated the subject with a macabre sense of humor. The anti-ballistic missile game Missile Command had a considerable vogue some years back and even turned up in fiction.
This game combined the original 1945 atomic bomb test, named Trinity, with the bombing of Hiroshima and a future nuclear holocaust.

Such a computer game is the focus of this comic book story in which a strategic planner accidentally becomes enmeshed in his son's game rather than the scenario he was supposed to be testing. — Such a computer game is the focus of this comic book story in which a strategic planner accidentally becomes enmeshed in his son’s game rather than the scenario he was supposed to be testing.

The cartoonist comments on the hazards inherent in playing at apocalypse by having this mishap result not only in the death of the boy's father, but in the launching of a real nuclear war. — The cartoonist comments on the hazards inherent in playing at apocalypse by having this mishap result not only in the death of the boy’s father, but in the launching of a real nuclear war.

In this frame from the AXA strip we see her musing on prewar videogames such as "Desastre Nuclear," visible in the background. — In this frame from the AXA strip we see her musing on prewar video games such as “Desastre Nuclear,” visible in the background.

The popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles become involved in a postholocaust scenario in this game. — The popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles become involved in a post-holocaust scenario in this game.

Next: Atom-age nostalgia

Bomberotica

November 18, 2016 elizabeth.wasson

bomberos

Nuclear weapons, like other weapons, have been linked in the male imagination to sex from very early on. In 1946 Pat Frank, later to become much better known for Alas, Babylon, had a bestseller in a comic novel titled Mr. Adam in which a nuclear accident sterilizes all men on earth except one, and he becomes the object of frenzied pursuit by still-fertile women determined to have babies by him. But it was Dr. Strangelove which fixed the stereotype of the bomb as sex organ — Nuclear weapons, like other weapons, have been linked in the male imagination to sex from very early on. In 1946 Pat Frank, later to become much better known for Alas, Babylon, had a bestseller in a comic novel titled Mr. Adam in which a nuclear accident sterilizes all men on earth except one, and he becomes the object of frenzied pursuit by still-fertile women determined to have babies by him.
But it was Dr. Strangelove which fixed the stereotype of the bomb as sex organ.

as Slim Pickins exhuberantly rode the missile which triggered Armageddon.

The image is here picked up as an antiwar statement on the cover of a Vietnam-era underground comic book.

Note that whereas in Dr. Strangelove the missile was an ironic symbol of male potency, in Wonder Woman comics it symbolizes female impotence and fear.

Howard Chaykin, in his eighties revival of the classic pop character of The Shadow, gave this theme a perverse twist, when his villain, using nuclear blackmail to gain his evil ends, harked back to the film: "This is what America wants-a combination of Dr. Strangelove, The Story of O, and Let's Make a Deal." — Howard Chaykin, in his eighties revival of the classic pop character of The Shadow, gave this theme a perverse twist, when his villain, using nuclear blackmail to gain his evil ends, harked back to the film: “This is what America wants-a combination of Dr. Strangelove, The Story of O, and Let’s Make a Deal.”

A Spanish artist and a British writer collaborated to create AXA, a female adventurer in the radioactive wasteland who appeared in a British newspaper for five years.

The war which created the setting for the strip was paid little attention, having taken place centuries in the past.

Axa was an utterly conventional strip which revived the old fifties stereotype of gigantic insects and other monsters born of nuclear radiation.

Axa is a rebel, but a rebel based on conventional male ideas of a heroine. She rejects the regulated life of the high-tech domed city, trades her sterile jumpsuit for a fur bikini that keeps falling off, and promptly plunges into a series of perils little different in essence from those undergone by the heroine of a nineteenth-century melodrama.

But a modern twist is given her adventures because in a world of warped mutants, AXA's normal and highly appealing genes are even more attractive than her body. — But a modern twist is given her adventures because in a world of warped mutants, AXA’s normal and highly appealing genes are even more attractive than her body.

A favorite theme in postholocaust fiction is the new Adam and Eve story, as the last woman and man must mate to recreate the human race, often featuring the favorite male fantasy of the assertively sexual female.

As this cover makes clear, sexuality can be associated even with a holocaust of global proportions.

Next: Fun and games