September 2010 – Vulgar Army

Democracy and Bolshevism

“Democracy and Bolshevism” by Louis Raemaekers, published June 28th, 1919 in “The Graphic” p875 (London). Borrowed (or if you’d prefer, blantantly stolen) from China Mieville’s rejectamentalist manifesto: “The water’s fine.”

Crime Octopus

A serving of propaganda and popular culture. Here, in terse pictorial form, the panorama of Big Business in Modern Crime is presented in all its unvarnished truth. The adage “Crime does not pay” becomes a dubious slogan in the light of the authentic revelations which trace the growth of the crime octopus from petty larceny […]

“A Horrible Monster”, published in Daily Graphic, July 19th, 1880, New York. (This has been on Vulgar Army previously; this is a clearer, more detailed from Super I.T.C.H.) Cartoon criticising ‘the pollution of New York’s air by the Standard Oil plant at Hunters Point, New York. The caption reads “A Horrible Monster, whose tentacles spread poverty, disease, […]

“The Standard Oil Octopus”, Daily Graphic, Tues 4th Feb 1879, New York. Vol LXVIII, No.1. Octopus constructed of pipes and barrels, and capitalist harpies in a wasteland. Very early (1879) octopus political cartoon. “$10,000,000 Profits in 4 Months.” “Railroad monopolist & stock market manipulator William Vanderbilt is the top right vulture flying overhead. The other two vultures, are brothers William (left) […]

The Washington times. (Washington [D.C.]) January 06, 1918, FINAL EDITION Don’t Allow This Octopus To Get a Strangle Hold Upon the Public Domain. Kill the “Relief” Provisions of Senate Bill No. 2812 “A Bill To Encourage and Promote the Mining of Coal and Phosphate, Oil, Gas, Potassium and Sodium on the Public Domain.” The “Relief” […]

The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.) 1899-1947, November 06, 1905, Night Edition Arm Labels: Electric Power, Suburban Freight Trains, Electric Light, Politics, Real Estate, Street Car Lines, Wood Yards, Renton Coal Mines Octopus: Puget Sound National Bank A CALL TO ARMS Like a Mighty Octopus, Sucking Life-Blood From the City Are the people of Seattle under the […]

“Hints to canvassers at the General Election.”, W.K. Haselden, published in the Daily Mirror 26 Oct 1922 (Source: The British Cartoon Archive) You must not say that Mr. Hustings Pollwell (marked X) once borrowed sixpence and did not pay it back – unless it happens to be true! But you may assert that he is going […]

[C]artoon as text, as a cultural artefact which is neither a passive reflector or reality, nor passively received by readers. In this light a critical historical reading of a cartoon, or a body of cartoons, must look to understand the conditions both of its making and of its reception. […] Reading this source may also […]

On October 28, 1891, the Weekly Missoulian caricaturized Hammond as the “Missoula Octopus, that is undertaking to reach its slimy arms over the county and strangle the life out of it.” The following year, Hammond purchased the newspaper. For more information: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ohq/10a9.4/gordon.html Once again, the “octo” part of octopus is optional. Arms labelled: South Missoula Land Co, Delinquent […]

Cartoon by Pashtanika circa 1919. “Lavoratori! Diamo ancor forza al braccio!” (Arm reference to human arm, not any of the octopuses). Octopus is ‘Capitalism’, its arms are ‘poverty’, prostitution’, ‘war’, ‘child labor’ and ‘wage slavery’. Label on human arm refers to Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W). The note at the bottom says: “Il Proletario, an […]