This anti-pornography film from the 1960s left me with one very obvious, and troubling, conclusion: I am deeply envious of the wordsmithery of morally conservative propagandists. From his terse, esoteric pronunciation of bestiality, to his description of a “flood-tide of filth” — a description that calls to mind great, towering waves of briny genitalia — in terms of oratorical outrage, George Putnam is equal parts Shakespeare and Don King. Listening to his ode to a young, female sex toy, he paints a picture of sleazy, corrupted innocence that far exceeds any photograph. His insights are pointed, “[…]very few blind people join the nudist colonies,” he notes; his logic flawless. It was only when he described the irreversible effects of pornography that I realized why man-on-top missionary style sex did not excite me and why I insisted that my girlfriend participate in elaborate, 80s themed cos-play. Suddenly forcing her to dress like Jem or one of the My Little Ponies made perfect, if horrible, sense.
Yet, Putnam remains humble throughout. “In this ad, the titles of the magazines and their table of contents speak more eloquently than I about the tremendous problem here presented,” he says, before uttering the words “Sexual sadism. Strange flagellation cults” with a gravitas that would drive Morgan Freeman mad with jealousy. Oh George, you sell yourself short. Who else could speak of homosexuals as an evil “species” without coming off as a completely ignorant, hateful bigot? Who else could retain their composure while narrating over scores of photographs of female breasts covered by bars so large that one would think these women were in possession of the most freakishly huge areolas to be found on this planet, Earth? Not I!
Towards the end of the clip he quotes Pitirim A. Sorokin — the famed sociologist and author of, among other works, the hysterical and reactionary The American Sex Revolution — as saying that the newsstands of the time
[…] depict the world as a sort of human zoo, inhabited by raped, mutilated, and murdered females and by he-males, outmatching in bestiality, cavemen and out-lusting the lustiest of animals. Male and female alike are hardened in cynical contempt for human life and values.
Part of me wishes these two gentleman had been able to see some of the more interesting corners of the internet, if only to have been able to see their brains leak out their ears. In fact, Putnam is still alive and has, at the very least, changed his opinion on homosexuals. Someone should sit him down in front of 4chan before it’s too late.
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but we have just made a shocking discovery: Ross Rosenberg, erstwhile Ectomo blogger, is a Jew.
DON’T PANIC. While this is pretty much the worst thing Eliza and I could have possibly imagined when we began the hiring process for part-timers, there is a contingency plan in place. But slathering all planar surfaces in raw bacon takes time. In the meantime, I’m sure you’re all wondering what you can do to prevent Ross from stealing your babies in the night and selling them for a profit on the Hassidic black market… a profit which will undoubtedly be used for the procurement of the most decadent and kosher of snortable nostrums. And I’m sorry to say, the bottom line is we just don’t know.
So we turn to Hamas in our hour of vulnerability. Like a vast army of Buffy the Vampire Slayers, Hamas knows a thing or two about fighting Jews, and through their avatar — an anthropomorphical rabbit named Assud with a jones for Mohammed — we can learn how to beat the Armies of Zion at their own game. After all, Assud’s got a point: Ross can’t eat us if we eat him first.
My father and I have long maintained a correspondence of epic intellectual proportions. Usually these take the form of discussions on science and science fiction, Rick Gauger being an award-winning science fiction author, and all-around life of the party.
Recently I sent him a link to a collection of cartoons on the fashion wars of the early 1800s, which were as vicious as they were short-lived. Men and women abandoned the stiff, straight-laced wardrobes of the 1700s and briefly adopted a more modern, flowy, comfortable look. This was the famous Regency era, in which Jane Austen lived and wrote. Unfortunately for fashion, it was quickly destroyed by the severe repression of the Victorian age’s corsets, high heels, and silly hats. Dad, armchair fashion historian, elaborates [with my notes appended, thusly]:
Yes, I’ve always thought it odd that women went out of, and back into corsets in the early 19th Century. In our own time, the 60s got over in a hurry, as women went back to makeup and hairdos in the early 70s. In my century [Dad is 64], I think that the corporations panicked as they saw hair styles, makeup and tailored clothing apparently becoming obsolete, and they put on a major propaganda offensive. The majority of people (including women) never understood the 60s anyway, so they were ready to buy into it. We had a last hurrah of big cars, just at the moment when we should’ve been changing our ways.
Another reason for the quick loss of those styles was that a woman really has to be very good-looking [such as my mother, 54, who to this day refuses to learn how to use an eyelash curler, probably because she’s too busy beating men away from her door with a stout stick] to be able to go without makeup and tailoring. There were a couple of girls among the grad students of 1965 that made me froth at the mouth; most others, however smart and sweet they might be, just didn’t have what it took. One of them was the girl who welcomed me back from my first tour in Vietnam. She came out in a nightie that made her look like a joke. I would have rather died than hurt her feelings at that moment.
The cover to Ron English: Abject Expressionism, the new coffee table book comprising twenty years of the work of pop art prankster and billboard liberator, Ron English.
Four Red Bulls, twenty hours, and a bag of squid chips later, it is done. The very first Ectoplamosis print broadside is ready for distribution.
But soft, ye say, what in blazes am I talking about? I’ll let Warren Ellis, Big Daddy to Ectomo’s Little Sister, explain:
The broadside has a centuries-long history as a device for disseminating news and ideas. I mean, flyers go up on the web to be printed off, sure. But it’s not quite the same thing. Getting an idea, or a piece of writing, on a single sheet and saying, yes, print this off, copy it and distribute it wherever you like — that’d be interesting.
In short, a single-page guerilla publication, distributed by xerox and zealous reader in coffee shops, cubicle farms, club bathrooms, 24-hour greasy spoon diners, on telephone poles, shoved under windshield wipers, wiped under windshield shovers, safety-pinned on unsuspecting hobos, and fluttering in a comet tail behind us, wherever we may roam.
The first episode of ECTOPLASMOSIS! is offered in three editions:
This broadside is formatted specifically for easy printing and xeroxing, and features original artwork, an updated version of my famous Toxoplasmosis article, vintage illustrations, and an octobee coloring contest! Those of you who wish to curry our excellent favor, print and distribute with zest and enthusiasm! You will be rewarded in this life, and the next.
Stay tuned for more information about the coloring contest, a distribution contest, and other blunt mutterings from Brownlee.
An apple cheeked Russian child docks satellite and space ship in preparation to rain nuclear terror down on the world, ensuring a white Christmas across the globe.
Or so it would appear, however these are actually enormous acoustic locators. Before the advent of radar, armies used devices like these to determine the position of enemy aircraft by listening for the rumble of their engines. This photo is from the 1930s. The gentleman on the right with the saber is Emperor Hirohito.
Boris Artzybasheff was a Russian-born illustrator who moved to the United States in 1919. He illustrated books prior to World War II when he was an adviser to the Psychological Warfare Branch of the U.S. State Department. After WWII he did mostly commercial work, as well as many illustrations for magazines such as Time, Life, and Fortune.
The Wikipedia article on him does a fine job of describing his visual style:
“His graphic style is striking, to put it mildly. In his commercial work he explored grotesque experiments in anthropomorphism, where toiling machines displayed distinctly human personalities. In his personal work, he explored the depiction of vivid and extreme ranges of human psychology and emotion.”
“Striking” is putting it mildly. If I had to describe his work I think I would describe it as being that of a twentieth century Hieronymus Bocsh. There are three separate galleries, and almost every image is a winner, so make sure to look through them all.
In between sock hops and chocolate malts, American everygirl Patsy Walker sticks it to some no-good, dirty commies who arrive in Centerville to confirm their suspicions about the flabby decadence of American life.
Beware! A godless Atheist treads colossally through the polluted industrial dumps of America, scooping up our virginal, big breasted Christian women by the handful and then stretching their skin over his enormous heathen erection, one by one, until he finds one poor girl elastic enough to function as a fleshy prophylactic for a sodomite orgy with a fellow sky-scraper sized homosexual. Luckily, the Christian Air Force is on the case, swooping their bi-plane fighters low to vaporize the beast with anointed bullets. America is safe once more from the Godless Sodomite Threat.
Another fine masterpiece of consecutive non-linear art by the fabled Al Hartley, Christian comics pioneer and author of “The Cross and the Switchblade.” The lesson is stark and simple: ignore your Bible and watch in horror as Hitler rises to power, gets his ass-kicked by gum-chewing American gangster, then leaves you as prey to roving Communist rape gangs.
Like the majority of hip hop culture, I am totally unable to determine if this is supposed to be self-deprecating, or taken at face value.
Regardless, I wish fervently that it were taken seriously. The thing I see most of, living in the ghetto as I do, is idleness. The vast amounts of time spent standing or sitting on sidewalks and porches, doing absolutely nothing, is astonishing. No books, no writing, no drawing, no nothing. Just sitting, staring, maybe talking, more often yelling.
My friend Joel and I were just trying to come up with a scenario where the ethnicities of this scene from T-Man Comics number 3 were reversed, but we couldn’t think of anything that would offend an American as much as would a fistful of greasy bacon slapped in the sputtering face of an orthodox Muslim. I suggested a handful of circumcised clitorises would probably be equally offensive if flung into the face of an American, but then we both immediately disproved it by laughing hysterically at the thought. Not because we think genital mutilation in practice is very funny, mind, it’s just that Americans don’t get this outrageously offended by anything. More the pity: America may very well be losing the War in Iraq, but at least we can be comforted that we’re winning the War on Comedy.
A Japanese propaganda leaflet from World War II, slyly insinuating the delivery of a nude Anglo-Saxon Venus, ready to be debauched, by the peace-loving Allied soldier willing to wave a white flag (or, barring that, an unfurled prophylactic) in pursuit of peace. As opposed to a bayonet ripping through one’s lower intestines, so for God’s sake, don’t lose your ticket. Sneakily, no where in the print — fine or otherwise — is a sexually voracious nymph actually promised. Notice, however, that the surrender ticket does seem to indicate at point 4 that said beauty is up for gang bangs, which is more than can be said for the high school sweetie you left at home, or the foxy WAVE you met at Bob Hope’s last USO show.
This is an ectomo publish service message about the dangers of the homosexual deviant. Always be vigilant! A gay man could be coming for you!
One never knows when a virulent, murderous homosexual is about. Let’s take the case of James Barnes. He’s a kid just like you. Jimmy played baseball all afternoon and he didn’t feel like walking home. Under the harsh summer sun, the sweat had cascaded down Jimmy’s coccyx and running in a slick rivulet between his buttocks, which caused walking to be uncomfortable. So he decided to thumb a ride. He was picked up by Ralph.
What Jimmy didn’t know was Ralph was sick. Not something visible like small pox, but no less dangerous or contagious… a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual, a person who demands intimate encounters with a member of their own sex. And this homosexual predator could smell young Jimmy’s ass sweat from a mile away.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
