octoprop – Page 8 – Vulgar Army

Valoroso Marinaio Uccidi il Monstro E libera l’Adriatico (Rico, ~1915) This postcard from circa 1915 by Rico shows a sailor preparing to spear an octopus with a trident. The octopus bears a black two-headed eagle with crown and red-white-gold shield on its head: the coat of arms for the Austrian Empire/Austro-Hungarian. The dreadnoughts in the background bear […]

A metaphor is used to link two seemingly disparate concepts together and implies a comparison between them. For example most illustrations where an organisation is equated with an octopus (i.e. United Fruit is an octopus). It implies those traits associated with an octopus are also those of the organisation: multi-limbed, interfering, alien and (possibly) malevolent. […]

Octopus as an anti-semitic symbol? In April 20071 there was a furore over the depiction of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg as an octopus on cover of America’s 1st Freedom: a National Rifle Association (NRA) magazine. The octopus was seen an antisemitic symbol, and as an attack on the mayors Jewish heritage. The NRA cartoon […]

An article from Seychelles Weekly (June 13th 2008) that takes the octopus metaphor and expands on it to describe the Seychelles People’s Progressive Front (SPPF). ‘Used as a metaphor to describe the current state of affairs that is ‘engulfing’ our small nation today. This octopus is a special one as it has outgrown itself and now has […]

Andhra Pradesh O.C.T.O.

The Andhra Pradesh cabinet (Southern India) have agreed to form OCTOPUS (Organisation to Counter Terrorist Operations). Octopus will ‘monitor websites, help train a proposed anti-terror force and analyse data and documents that could be of relevance in the battle against terror’ (The Telegraph, 2007). My experience is that authority groups (either government or industry) do not name themselves […]

This is a fairly standard take on octoprop by the UK Independent Party (UKIP) for the 2005 General Elections in the UK. The UKIP is a right-wing party, and was originally a single issue party. That issue was UK independence from the EU. Hence the following ad. In summary: monologue at the start in the […]

School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) have a poster featuring ‘the people’ cutting of the limbs of a skulltopus (Illustration by Haik Hoisington, 2006). The text roughly translates as: “The School Closure Of Murderers! Never More! Enough already!” (Google Translate, Accessed: 29th Nov 2008). To give this image context SOAW decribe themselves on their homepage (http://www.soaw.org) as: “SOA […]

I have a problem with generic by-numbers-octopus-propaganda and political cartoons: Not that I object to octopuses being used in propaganda/political cartoons. There have been some very imaginitive ones such as: L. D. Bradley, “Before the Trojan Horse is admitted, The Puzzled Citizen will have to be shown a little more fully, . .”Chicago Daily News, […]