Tuesday, March 2, 2010

A Different Kind of PSA

It's been said that public service announcements aimed at children are required by law to be annoying and lame. I think I know why that is: Some PSAs from the past were just too awesome for kids.

Behold:

Yes, this is a PSA. The publishers want you to know...

...if you don't buy defense bonds, everyone you know and love will die in a horrible atomic war.

What's truly interesting about this is that this is not the only PSA title of this nature; the same publishers also put out another title. The second, Atomic War, was more subtle in tone...

...by a generous definition of "subtle."

No editor's note on this one.

And yes, I really am sure that these are part of an effort to get people to buy bonds; most of the advertisements inside featured this bit:

Aggressive marketing, no?

Incidentally, both titles are pretty similar, though just different enough to tell them apart. I'll probably do a brief writeup of some of their contents sometime; I know I had fun reading them.

(All images come from CBR files of comics in the public domain, obtained at Golden Age Comics. Be warned, downloading them for free might cause World War III.)

-Signing off.

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