Vietnam Propaganda

Military 'psy-ops' leaflets have always fascinated me. These are the small printed flyers that militaries drop out of planes, basically telling the enemy to give up, or else. Some were diplomatic and tried to make the case for surrender, while others warned of severe consequences. Some of the ones below are from Vietnam. At this point, we're trying to convince the South that the North Vietnamese are the invading force, not us:

Alternative Cover

 Left: The cover of X-Men #56 by Neal Adams as published. Right: Adams' original version of the same cover, rejected because "the figures obscure the logo."

Minit Photo

1987, first printed artwork. Big deal at the time:

And Yet Another Great Piece!

Rollerball

Classic James Caan (post Godfather) sci-fi movie from the early 70's with a strangley prophetic story. Basically companies have replaced governments , and compete in a blood sport known as Rollerball. It's also an excellent critique of professional sports!:

"The game was created to illustrate the futility of individual effort."

It also boasts a soundtrack by Andre Previn which is a must have for soundtrack fans.

I've always been somewhat fascinated by the type face as these were the days when studios would design a unique typeface for a particular project. I wasnt able to track this one down, but someone  came up with a similar type face based closely on the 'Scorpions' logo type face called 'Lady Starlight':

"Cause I'm The Illa Fiend..."

The History Of The World

In one beautiful, concise map:

The Amen Break

If you've never heard of it, take a look at this short documentary about it.

Slow Death Funnies

A couple of copies of this were lying around the office, and I never knew the story behind this title. Apparently, this was the first official publication from Last Gasp, who ended up being one of the larger underground publishers in the states. This book was started as a promo for one of the first enviromental centers up in Berkeley back in 1970. When the publisher, Ron Turner, had 20,000 copies left over that he couldn't give away, he decided to sell them in stores, and thus, the Last Gasp story began.

A slew of artists and writes made there way through the series, the likes of Gilbert Shelton, Jack Jackson and Ben Dicaprio (yeah, THAT DiCaprio). The series petered out in the late 70's, early 80's, the company would go on the publish some of the best underground titles since and remain on of the biggest independent publishers around.