Sorry Bat-fans, I don’t have a witty recap of this week’s installment of the 1943 Batman serial. See, I’m actually on vacation. So let’s just watch and enjoy the ninth chapter in our saga, “The Sign of the Sphinx.”
Well isn’t this just delightfully creepy! The copywriter for this undated ad for Hormel SPAM Spread was apparently into smearing “deviled luncheon meat” on children.
More like “luncheon meat from the devil” if you ask me.
(thanks to Vintage Ads)
This is the first of what I hope will be a long-running feature on the site. Each Wednesday I’ll post a handful of vintage photographs that strike my fancy. Some weeks there will be a theme, others not so much. If you have any subjects you’d like me to look for, or have photos you’d like to share, let me know!
This week’s collection is drawn from the Photochrom Print Collection on the Library of Congress website. From the site:
The Photochrom Print Collection has almost 6,000 views of Europe and the Middle East and 500 views of North America. Published primarily from the 1890s to 1910s, these prints were created by the Photoglob Company in Zürich, Switzerland, and the Detroit Publishing Company in Michigan. The richly colored images look like photographs but are actually ink-based photolithographs, usually 6.5 x 9 inches.
Like postcards, the photochroms feature subjects that appeal to travelers, including landscapes, architecture, street scenes, and daily life and culture. The prints were sold as souvenirs and often collected in albums or framed for display.
Arab school of embroidery – Algiers, Algeria (c. 1899)
Arrowmaker, an Ojibwa brave (c. 1903)
Opening of the Kiel Canal, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany (1895)
Str. “City of Erie,” Cleveland and Buffalo Line (c. 1900)
Market Street – Goslar, Hartz, Germany (c. 1890s)
Mostar (Turkish quarter), Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary (c. 1890s)
Windsor, Boulter’s Lock, London and suburbs, England (c. 1890s)
Russian types of Tartar, (i.e., Tatar), women of the Caucasus, Russia (c. 1890s)
I don’t think I need to offer much commentary on this gallery. It was taken by Life magazine photographer N.R. Farbman on the 4th of July, 1954, in an unknown town in America. All the classic Independence Day scenes are here — a family picnic, a parade complete with fire trucks, kids buying fireworks and holding sparklers, and smiles all around.
Click on any thumbnail for a larger image.
(“How Do I Know It’s Love” — 1957 marriage pamphlet for teens.)
(Klompen Kloggen pipe tobacco, 1965)
What happens in Vegas… DIES in Vegas.
(Thrilling Comics #57, December 1946)
“Making the Marines happy is service enough for me!”
(Canteen Kate, St. John Comics, 1952)
According to my calculations we’ve now passed the midway point on our journey through 1943’s Batman serial. It’s been a wild ride so far, hasn’t it? Well, no, it hasn’t really. But it has been a fascinating glimpse into a part of Batman history many fans don’t even know about.
So anyway, chapter 8 is here and it’s called “Lured by Radium.” If you’ve been watching up until now you know that radium is a key element in Dr. Daka’s quest to pave the way for a Japanese conquest of America in World War II. But every time he gets close, the Caped Crusader gets in his way once again.
Well that and colossal ineptitude. How else to explain the wise decision to send men wearing nothing but suits into a mine to gather a radioactive element? For the answer to this, and some other excellent decision-making, watch “Lured by Radium”!
