Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Business is Booming!

The power of the atom certainly created a wealth of opportunities for the private sector. These days companies in the radiation business tend to focus on how their products and services benefit the consumer -- with nuclear medicine or nuclear energy for instance.


But back in the 50's many corporations were enthusiastically extolling the virtues of their atom bomb-making abilities...


...or using the "atomic wallop" of a guided missile that "thinks for itself" as a desirable comparison for the quality of their product. I'm thinking most PR firms today would recommend against that particular strategy!


Yes, nothing made the 50's consumer sigh with contentment quite like the sight of a beautifully lit landscape... with a nuclear warhead streaking through the sky on its way to obliterate some godless Commie stronghold.

Tomorrow: Meet the Enemy.

* All these images can be seen at full size in my Atomic Age Flickr set.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:18 PM

    i've just recently found out about this blog on the illustration art blog, and im glad i did. im quite fond of pretty much every picture posted here, we seem to have a pretty similar taste. i have a reader's digest collection with issues that go from the 30s to the 70s, its not entirely complete, but its enough to fill several book racks. anyway, im writing you to see if, by chance you had the jfk colouring book by mort drucker, since its really hard to get it here (im writing you from argentina, those reader's digest are all translated in spanish actually, it seems we desperately need all that anticommunist propaganda or else we'd turn populist and disobident). thanks!

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  2. Thanks for your comment, space bambino! I'm very happy to hear we share tastes in illustration and that you're enjoying the blog. I have heard of the Mort Drucker colouring book you mentioned (apparently he did the art with help from Neal Adams) but I've never seen more than a scan or two from it. Have you tried ebay? Also, I'd suggest Stuart Ng books, or Bud Plant. Both those guys deal in rare art and illustration publications. Good luck! :-)

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