Time is on my side

While I am tempted to respond in length to the insidious Dr. Smith and his unverifiable claims that I am maintaining a religious cult under the guise of being a fan of Actress Supreme Hayley Mills, I believe these excerpts from the February 2007 issue of the much-respected Time magazine will shine a light on the various players, their precarious mental state and fitness to serve America and put those vile rumors to a much deserved rest.


POLITICS
Why Won't Dr. Zachary Smith Put His Compassion Where His Mouth Is?

"All politicians seek out photo opportunities in order to ingratiate themselves with the voters and appear as if they are 'one of them' and not some wealthy, arrogant Royal with no connection to the people they are eager to govern. Dr. Smith, possible Presidential candidate, has been out and about with his crew of spin-warlocks and photographers building support. But unlike other politicians Dr. Smith isn't exactly pressing the flesh. He appears in public only in controlled, sanitized environments and is terrified by coming into contact with the common man.

In those rare occurrences when he actually must appear on the same stage as an American patriot he shakes visibly, sweats profusely and cries. He refuses to remove his macro-biotic re-breathing air filter until all "Non-Me's" are removed from the vicinity. When asked about his odd, psychotic, weird and Un-American behavior Dr. Smith had only this to say, "People stink. The average American makes me physically ill. Oh, my God! They smell...and they come in so many different colors and shapes! When I'm President I will take steps to ensure I correct that little flaw in the genome. They will suffer! Oh, they will feel the pain! The pain! I mean...no comment!"

MEDIA
Dr. Monkerstein and Bill O: Mutual Admiration Society

"Not even the Teamsters will go in the studio after a rehearsal." Says one The O Show staffer on the condition of anonymity. "Dr. Monkerstein shows up at least once a week and Bill just tears up the script and bumps whoever was going to appear in favor of Monkerstein. We were scheduled to have Osama Bin Laden on once back in 2000 to explain Middle Eastern politics and then Monkerstein shows up and bam! out goes old Beard-O, who was so pissed about that. The odd thing is that Bill orders the set closed and everybody has to wait outside so they can "rehearse" the segment. All I know is we don't get any filming done that day and the interns always quit in fear after hearing all the monkey howling, screams and the sounds of a Tesla coil arcing that come out of the studio."

BUSINESS
Dr. Zaius To Buy South America
"I love bananas. I mean, people can say they like bananas and even that they love bananas. They have no idea what that term means. But I do. I really, really love bananas. OH, GOD! I LOVE BANANAS! I could be in my tenth year of addiction to heroin and going through my second day of withdrawal and if you showed me a banana I would drop the needle in a second. If Zira herself rolled around in fresh dung and presented her engorged haunches to me and you waved a banana in my face you can guess what I would be sinking my teeth into! That's right, the banana! Hot monkey love always loses to a warm banana! Banana-fanna-fo-fanna...BAH-NAN-UH! I guess you have to be an ape to understand the joy in eating a banana. Bananas. Bananas. Bananas. Bananas. Bananas. Ba-NAN-as. BAN plus ANAS equals AWESOME! You can say the 'bananas' a million times and the word doesn't lose any meaning or power. I wish I had more mouths so I could just cram them all full of bananas. If I had another orifice that I could fill with bananas I would...hum...could you excuse me for a while? Thanks."

ENTERTAINMENT
There Are Advantages To Time Travel

In this rare publicity photo from 1961 recently made available to the public, young actress Hayley Mills is taking a break from her hectic schedule and can be seen clowning around with a fan on the set of The Parent Trap.

Photo courtesy the Sleestak Collection.

Tags: Sleestak for President

Breaking news from the Hayley Mills Celebratory Complex

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dr. Smith Outed As Liar, Campaign Suffers

San Diego, Ca. - (HMCC News Service) - Fully bi-partisan, American and patriotic Red Cross inspectors backed by the United Nations recently completed a 5-Day tour of the Hayley Mills Celebratory Complex in San Diego, California. The honest, duty-bound Red Cross agents announced that contrary to charges by political hack Dr. Smith, that Miss Germaine Gregarious is probably not on the grounds of the center nor is she likely held against her will. She is definitely not working in the Hayley Mills Gift Emporium, either. An investigation by UN officials has reported that "Since it is Sunday, Miss Gregarious is very likely in a rehab center somewhere. Again."

The Red Cross also found no evidence of "brainwashing" or "cult-like practices" during their private, sequestered three-night stay in the luxurious HMCC Meditation and Cultural Correction Center stating for the record, "How can one be "brainwashed" by what is glorious truth?"

Tags: Sleestak for President

More Meddlesome Girls

From the story The Corpse in the Bedroom, in Calling All Girls #64 (October 1960).

Story by Peg Tyndal Jackson. Art by John J. Floherty.

Tags: Illustration Mystery Meddlesome Girls

Going to the Candidate's debate

While I had intended to wait until the news broke that Dr. Smith's personal cellphone number appears on the DC Madam's telephone logs, the recent scurrilous claims that I have kidnapped Miss Gregarious and forced her to undergo radical surgery to resemble a much-admired English actress has forced me to prematurely throw my matrix table into the ring and announce my candidacy for President of the United States.

Firstly, I feel I must answer the allegations about the disappearance of the lovely Germaine Gregarious leveled against myself by the muck-raking Dr. Smith. That Miss Gregarious has been abducted and forced to act out all the scenes from the Hayley Mills opus, The Chalk Garden, in my exclusive and private underground arena the HAYLEYDOME, I must assert that such a claim is positively, absolutely, 100 per cent, probably not true.

Moving right along I would like to address real, American issues that Americans care about. Unlike the others who rely on prevarication to confuse the American people, I trust that anyone smart enough to be patriotic and American will not fall for their lies and back the right candidate.
Some have questioned my qualifications to be President. As usual, lies and spin are deployed in order to attempt to fool people into forgetting I am master of a dimensional world, have several advanced doctorates in arcane science and along with being able to journey between dimensions at will I have also mastered time travel! Let me ask you, where has Samurai Frog gone? What has he done? Other than frequent visits to Communist Vietnam I would propose he has not accomplished much at all.

Many pundits claim that the current administration exists within a bubble separate from reality. Now, the liberal media says this like it is a bad thing. I myself have lived within a pocket universe quite distant from this reality for decades and in spite of being cut off from the world at large have had little difficulty in maintaining a healthy, productive society.

As for Evil Mr. Spock...well, we all know about him.
My realm, colloquially known as the Land of the Lost, or as I prefer to call it, The Land of Opportunity, has many parallels to American society. Yes, we in the LoO have all the ills of modern society that any patriotic country has. Unemployment, health care, illegal immigration are all concerns (particularly those pesky white people that keep jumping the pylons and squatting in our public parks and camping in our protected, historically valuable national temples). But we also have advantages which far outweigh the occasional T-Rex rampage. Free energy in the form of easily mined power crystals, tens of square miles of beautiful pristine jungle that bears giant fruit and our technological base is second to none.

Monkerstein presents itself as the last, best hope for progress and America. That is ridiculous! In ruling my own pocket universe successfully I am uniquely qualified to govern and guide America into the future, a future that does not end with devolved, savage humans scrabbling for the last rodent to eat for dinner. Monkerstein's well-documented sick personal habits and addiction to stalking B-List celebrities is the sort of threat that America can not tolerate. Monkerstein has no real qualifications for leadership other than the dubious distinction of one of the scavenged body parts used to create his current form once initiated a round of poop-flinging at some orphans visiting the zoo with their sick puppies.
Unlike "Doctors" Monkerstein, Zaius and Smith , I am not beholden to special interests. To date not one of the candidates has disclosed their campaign financial records as required by law and patriotic American duty. Why so silent on the subject Dr. Zaius? Afraid that patriotic, good, wholesome Americans will discover just how many Big Pharma pies you have your damn, dirty paws sunk to the elbows into?

THERE IS ONLY ONE CHOICE

VOTE SLEESTAK

Tags: Sleestak for President

Heat Death

Before time existed there was NOTHING.

Then, billions of years ago existence exploded into being, energy rushing out from the primal atom, creating space and time.

The UNIVERSE was BORN!

After time unknown the ever-expanding energy cooled. Matter was created.

Matter, being self-organizing, began to draw together as random collisions between particles occurred. Deep gravity wells formed, drawing in more and more elements in increasingly growing mass.

Eventually, galaxies formed as nuclear furnaces ignited, illuminating the darkness with billions upon billions of stars.


Around some of those stars planetary systems formed.

Around one particular yellow sun a planetary disk bulged out from a young star.
From that spiraling torrent of gas and debris our solar system was created.

Many of the planetary bodies were inhospitable, but on the third planet from the sun conditions were such that a form of life began and a great civilization arose on the planet we called Earth.


The solar system was a hostile, dangerous place.
Fortunately, giant planets and a nearby moon divert or catch most interstellar bodies that could damage our fragile world. Magnetic fields buffer our fragile ecosystem against cosmic radiations.

200 million years ago two asteroids deep in space collided in a terrible impact.
Stony debris flew out into space in all directions.
Some pieces were captured in the gravity of a large planet.
Other pieces settled into new, strange orbits.

Several small fragments drifted through space out of their ancient path.
Over time, the pieces moved into positions that took them to various destinations.
One rock, imparted with more energy than the others, continued out into space above the planetary ecliptic, on a leisurely path to the interplanetary void.
Another piece was eventually captured by the gravity of Mars.
One fragment had an orbit that would eventually return it to the asteroid belt.
Two remaining pieces drew close to the planet Earth.

One of the stones impacted into the dark side of the Earth's moon, unobserved.

The remaining stony wanderer continued on towards the Earth.


Falling into our atmosphere, the meteor glowed, shedding more fragments and losing substantial mass as it melted and vaporized from the intense heat caused by friction against the protective blanket of air.


After a random journey of 200 million years, against incalculable odds, the remaining small fragment of meteor plummeted down from the sky and then slammed into my car, denting the rear fender and disabling the vehicle.


My wife then turned to me and said, "This is your fault. You are such a loser."

And that, my friends, is what is like to be married.

Tags: Marriage Relationships

Seven Thirteen Oh Seven

I am heartened by the observation that every year there is less and less hysterical commentary on not only Halloween but also what is the traditional bad luck day, Friday the Thirteenth.

Once upon a time, the news stations used to devote multiple segments to this day by getting an opinion/warning from a Church spokesman, some smelly hippie in a crystal shop selling protective amulets and interviewing a few foot soldiers from the Legion of Stupids about what they were going to do to survive this deadly day. Thankfully, the most I heard today about this awful, evilly magical period is some news anchors laughing about the myth and poking fun as they play a clip from Stevie Wonder's Superstition in the background.

I've known people who re-arrange their lives based on Friday the Thirteenth, as if the universe itself was mean-spirited and was out to get them. Makes me wonder how effective they really believe their God is if breaking a mirror can defeat His Plan. One person I was a friend with refused to leave the house on Friday the Thirteenth out of worry that something bad would happen to them if they ventured outside. Being me, I had to set this person straight. While my usual weapons of choice against a soldier of the Legion of Stupids is scorn, humiliation, logic and disgust, I was surprised to see that friendship kind of got in the way and I was far kinder than I usually am in practice. Our conversation went something like this:

Hot Chick: Ohhhhhhhmigawwwwwwwwd. I am so totally not going anywhere today. It's Friday the Thirteenth. I just know something awful will totally do it to me if I leave.

Me: Really. Well, let me play Reality's Advocate here. For the sake of argument, let's say that you are having your bad luck moment right this second.

Hot Chick: Huh?

Me: Let's suppose that you really are fated by the Universe to have a bad, horrible unlucky day full of tragedy. But...what if...Just imagine, if you will...That by going to the mall today on Friday the Thirteenth you were destined to meet the Man of Your Dreams and fall in love. Then right after that you find a dollar on the sidewalk and use it to buy a lottery ticket and win 150 million dollars.

Hot Chick: How is that unlucky? I don't get it.

Me: I know you don't. That is so cute, by the way. See, by staying home out of fear of Friday the Thirteenth, you missed out on all those great opportunities. Because you are scared and staying home, you may be having the unluckiest moment of your life right now, this very second.

Hot Chick: Wow! I have been remarkably stupid. I'm so ashamed! You must despise the ground I stain by walking on it.

Me: Yes, I do. But don't worry your pretty little head about it. Now, go shopping and hit on strange men as God intended for you to do!

That's how I remember it, anyway.

Tags: Reality Gullible Skeptic Superstition Friday the 13th

Good Girl photo credit: Bad Luck from The Official Jeanne Carmen Website.

Friday Catblogging: Queen of the LOLPANTHER World

Nice pulp illustrations from Queen of the Panther World, from Fantastic Adventures (July 1948).

Art by Rod Ruth. LOL by Sleestak.

Science has made that which "might be" into "can't possibly" but it hasn't removed all the magic. The old stories of the pulps and comic books are still enjoyable, though the modern reader does not experience them with the same naivety of eyes past. Pulps and even the comic books of a few scant decades ago have to be read through a filter of nostalgia in order to see them in the proper light or else they run the risk of being dismissed. The pulps have not vanished, though and still persist in another form to this day. Almost without exception comic books are pulps. It is rare that any comic book story can be read that doesn't have sitting on a collector's shelf somewhere a yellowed, brittle magazine that is a direct ancestor.

The old pulp stories can be considered quaint and even silly, but who wouldn't enjoy discovering an ancient tribe of Panther Women in an unexplored jungle?

Whether exploring a new continent or strange planet, the pulps were all about adventure, exploration and discovery and were thematically a direct reflection of the American and British psyche in the modern industrial era. Regardless of the risk or danger something was always learned in the pulp stories that added to the collective knowledge of mankind. No matter if the protagonist battled a tentacled god or fended off the knife of a power hungry Vizier there was always some illumination, some insight either into the nature of man or the universe to be gained.

Often the tales were simply parables of Modern Good versus Ancient Evil. New ways replacing the old. Science replacing superstition. Methodology proving to be more effective than spells.

Possibly the only drawback to increased general knowledge among the populace is that it made the suspension of disbelief that much more difficult to enjoy. It is Science that filled the vast caverns of Pellucidar with molten iron, made Mars into an arid, lifeless wasteland and transformed the lush jungles of Venus into an acidic cauldron. Force fields no longer emanate from the careless flecks of paint on a jar lid to trap a city, old gods do not perch hungrily at the edge of the atmosphere waiting impatiently for the opportunity to access our sphere, aliens no longer abduct women to repopulate their planet. Knowing that there are no lost continents left to discover or no multi-generational world-ships hidden in orbit makes some dismiss the old tales as fare for children or the intellectually challenged. I say not so. They have value beyond only the nostalgic and historical. Some 80 years after being in print the pulps are still fun, even if I know they are utterly impossible, something as a young child I was not aware of. The stories were from a time when people believed that a galaxy could be conquered with ships of steam and steel by brave men bearing iron while wearing leather and wool. The impossible was a fantasy.

Science may have destroyed more worlds than we will ever realize, but it made the ones that remain and those that are yet to be created a lot more exciting and fun. It is fictional evolution. Modern creators have to reach further, work harder to fool us into enjoying the impossible or embracing the fantastic.

Tags: Pulp Catblogging

Grocery Store Artifact: Subliminal packaging

For some undefined reason, I wanted to purchase the entire shelf stock of these gloves. The packaging just caught my eye and viscerally tugged at me in some way that urged me to buy it. I guess I was pretty appreciative of the prospect of being able to firmly grip and repeatedly wring a taper of rag in order to get rid of excess filth while at the same time keeping mine or someone else' hands perfectly clean and unsoiled.

However, I eventually departed the store store without purchasing any of the gloves. Oddly enough, my wife had a sudden headache and didn't want to do any more shopping.

Tags: Grocery Store Artifact Subliminal Advertising

Laura the Ball Erina

Cheap Barbie knock-off found at a store in San Diego. In that costume Laura the Ball Erina resembles less a highly-skilled dancer and more a Trailer Trash Honeymoon Barbie.

Don't third-world sweat-shop factories using children, criminals and political prisoners as forced labor have spell-check and formatting plug-ins in their toy design dungeons?

I don't know if that label is a description or an instruction.

Tags: Toys

Sleestak Reviews: Transformers

I despise everything about the marketing infomercials of the 80s cartoons that so many people seem to be enamored of. He-Man, G.I. Joe and the Transformers are on my never-watch list. I found the stories idiotic, the animation poor and the mandated moralizing annoying. The Turtles, while fully in that classification, get a pass because they were a comic magazine first, long before characters were created for the sole purpose of licensing deals.

So I was surprised to discover I had a lot of fun at the movie. Michael Bay has received a lot of criticism as a director and rightly so. But if you want someone to do little more than film chase scenes and blow crap up then he is your guy.

Transformers started out great with an assault on a military base that you knew was coming, but was still awesome. Giant robots blowing crap up is what I wanted to see and it is what I got. My main problem with the film is that Bay didn't stick with the one concept. The first part of the film was exciting, hard core alien invasion science fiction but it then quickly changed into much more of a children's movie. The Spielbergian gremlin-bot didn't help matters any and as the comic relief the homicidal jester-droid was derivative.

The old cliche of the primary witnesses or initial-contact combat squad being involved because they may have "unique insight" into the threat was in full play here. Understandable for Sam because of his connection with one of the aliens, not so much for the soldiers. Once they give their report to the brass they would really be folded into another unit and would not be leading a 6-man assault against an invasion. There were some genuinely funny moments and others that made you roll your eyes and wish you had a fast-forward button to get past those parts.

One of the bonuses was that the presence of the Transformers on Earth was not a secret for long. One of my main peeves with some science fiction, particularly of some cartoon series, is that the general public is never aware of a war going on in their streets and always just happen to avoid seeing an alien ship or giant humanoid robots warring with the other.

The film was pretty fun. And yes, Jazz. The black guy always dies in the movies.

Tags: Transformers

Monkey vs. Tiger

Cool Golden Age story from Calling All Kids #19 (June 1948) of a sadistic monkey ridding the jungle of an equally sadistic tiger. From the publishers of Parent's Magazines, this is another late-Golden Age strip that appears to have had the ending sanitized for the sake of the kiddies. According to the classic tales this short comic story is derived from the tiger meets a horrible death through drowning. Even in the comic the scene is basically unchanged from the original tale and the fate of the big cat isn't really in doubt.

Click the picture for some serious Monkey Business!

Tags: Monkeypocalypse Monkey vs. Tiger Golden Age

Gibson Girls

What are Gibson Girls made of? Sugar and spice and a dash of Rowr!

Kodachrome photography by William Ward from Calling All Girls #69, v8 (January 1948).

Tags: Advertisment Retro

Julie, embrace your destiny, whatever it is

So...

Little Julie Power, the feisty girl who makes up one fourth of the kiddie super-team the Power Pack, the girl who can fly and leaves a pretty, sparkling trail of light in her wake that resembles a rainbow...
Grows up to be...you know...

So I wonder how accepted the current all-ages Power Pack books would be to parents if they knew that Julie is predestined to become...you know...

Hey, if Marvel isn't willing to say it then I'm not, either.

I wonder if Marvel is tip-toeing around the subject of...you know...so they have a different sort of "out" for Julie later on if the editors decide to go the other way, so to speak.

"You thought I was what? Whatever gave you the idea I was..you know..that way?"

Images from The Avengers & Power Pack Assemble! #1 (June 2006) and The Loners #4(September 2007).

Tags: Seduction of the Innocent Gay Homophobia

Time is a raging something, that's for sure

In issue #13 of The All-New Atom #13 (September 2007) Gail Simone and the gang gives the readers an image for the girls (and some guys) that will undoubtedly be posted and dissected for meaning on some sort of out-of-context comic book website forty years from now.

Subliminal? Not so much. Subtle? Nope. Chronos gets creepy when Gail & Team slaps the reader right across the face with the idea that heroes and villains do what they do not for the nebulous concepts of right or wrong, but because it helps them scratch an itch. Why else would someone who can bend time, warp space or control the weather rob a jewelry store?

Limitless Power = Eternal Erection?

It isn't a new idea. Moore, Ellis and others have explored the concept. Even Mike Grell hinted that the Black Canary only wore her fishnet togs* because it helped Ollie in the bedroom after a battle. Thankfully, the creative team didn't have the bad guy doing pelvic thrusts and humping legs like they do with the evil Doctor Light whenever he shows up.

Note: Gail Simone is made of gold Awesomite.

Tags: Seduction of the Innocent Gail Simone All-New Atom

* If you don't get goosebumps from that reference, you have no comic book geek cred and are a comic book poser. The worst of all possible posers.

Thursday Night Thinking: Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out

Diamondrock knows the feeling of a brain vibrating and pulsing against the hard shell-like interior of his skull.

From Terror Tales #35 (1976).

Tags: Thursday Night Thinking

When comic books were not for girls! Part 5

Millie was a professional woman pursuing a career in the fashion business that was often derailed by her zany adventures with lots and lots and lots and lots of men. Millie went through men fast, often several in an issue. Rich, poor, powerful, average, handsome or ugly, Millie dated them all with no thought to keeping them separate from her career. Millie often lost or ruined modeling assignments due to her wacky adventures with a beau. Sometimes her personal relationship with a man would "just happen" to get her a good fashion gig, and you know what that means.

In 1956 date rape was funny and even comic books written for girls were not for girls!

Millie the Model #56 (October 1956).

Tags: When comic books were not for girls! Seduction of the Innocent

It's out of context, but not by much

From Jeep Comics #2 (Spring 1945).

Tags: Seduction of the Innocent

Happy July 4th!

I'm celebrating the real Independence Day for America about a year and a half early. Soon, we will rebuild.

Tags: Independence Day

And the beavers shall bow down before me

When I saw this post on the Modern Mechanix blog about the attempts to make forcibly relocated beavers feel more at home by painting a wildlife scene on the walls of their enclosure I immediately thought of this scene from X-Men & Alpha Flight #1 (December 1985):

I kind of like the idea that the beavers held at the zoo for the gawking amusement of humans may have worshiped the viewing public that mysteriously hovered high in their "sky" as mighty Gods and trembled before them.

Tags: Animals

And thank God I'm only watching the game, controlling it ...

Decider Boi just gets dumber and dumber, doesn't he? But then, all the Cheynanigans over the last few weeks has just confirmed my long-held opinion that Junior is just a not-so-clever simulation of a leader controlled by others.


Tags: President Bush & Scooter Libby

Calling All Meddlesome Girls!

I love the illustration styles that were common in the children's books and magazines of the 40s, 50s and 60s. They were imaginative and stylized. I particularly enjoy this two page title art for the story The Puzzle of Picture Point.

Pages from Calling All Girls (April 1960).
Art by Leonard Slonevsky.

It is just so Nancy Drew. Plucky ingenues investigating a mystery confronted by an anonymous, menacing figure. The layout is great and many artists of today could learn something about composition from it. The background of the lake shore assists in setting the scene and promoting a sense of danger. The reeds and rushes makes it appear the wet-suited visitor is radiating menace at the curious girls. In fact, the aura of danger is the strongest element of the entire scene and is in high contrast to and overwhelms the three other figures.

There is something fun to be said for the art of magazines and books aimed at the suburban kid market of a few decades past. It was naive and innocent. There were no 'issues' to be dealt with. No temptation, no war and draft-dodging or corrupt officials and people didn't recycle. Those things may as well have been in another universe. Kids got involved, didn't poop where they slept and did the right thing out of respect for what was right. Those were the days that never were and I miss them. Who wouldn't want to live on Pine Street over Peyton Place or for that matter, in the town of Deery?

The idealized suburban world depicted in magazines like Calling All Girls and Boy's Life was pretty exciting. Crime was everywhere, even in the smallest town, but it was crime without any real physical danger, it was crime in the abstract. The villains often surrendered without a fight when confronted by the truthful words of children. The entire modern cliche' of the 'meddlesome kids' solving mysteries can be traced through to these stories (which goes even back further to comics, pulps and the children's novels of the 1900s). They were fun. Imagine if when the Beav got stuck in the giant coffee cup he discovered a cache of stolen plastics molds hidden there by an industrial espionage ring* instead of merely suffering embarrassment.

In many of these stories though, the menace was actually revealed to be benign. The mysteries were often resolved to be in truth a case of misunderstood intentions as the protagonists stumbled upon some honest, hard-working college professor who was working in secret unearthing a pirate treasure or something else that would enhance the standing of the community and enrich the local history.

Tags: Illustration Mystery Meddlesome Girls

* A Leave it to Beaver and a Hardy Boys reference!

Comic Book Propaganda: War makes you pretty!

Way back in World War 2 when Russia was an American ally this two-page story about the career of Russia's celebrated sniper, Ludmilla Pavlichenko, appeared in War Heroes #3 (January-March 1943).

It is interesting to note how many times Ludmilla's attractiveness was mentioned, as if war was the secret of eternal youth and being smeared with the mud of the European trenches was better than a day at the spa. A WW2 era photo of Ludmilla reveals that the reality does not quite match the beauty queen image perpetuated by her handlers and related propaganda, but then all things being relative she may have been considered quite easy on Russian eyes of the time, as she does have a sort of a sweaty, gritty Ingrid Bergman look about her from the film For Whom the Bell Tolls.

It is a bit chilling how matter-of-factly her exploits are described to the young children who would be reading this title. The story points out that her actual body-count is much higher than the 309 Germans she is credited for because any Romanians that Ludmilla ambushed is not part of her official total. The Romanian soldiers were coldly declared to be mere practice targets.

The story stresses how important it was to diminish the number of German soldiers through attrition. As the comic books of the Golden Age enthusiastically perpetuated, the German military was the bogeyman legion, the big public face of pure evil. With the exception of the Japanese military, the soldiers of other armies were not as important as the Germans even though they were also armed and trained in warfare. In reality, to any allied soldier in the European theater any member of an opposing army was a deadly threat. But for propaganda purposes, the soldiers of other armies were incidental objects on the field of battle that were marginalized and relegated to the status of paper bulls-eyes tacked to a bale of hay.

Whatever the truth is behind Ludmilla's career as a sniper she seems to have been quickly removed from the battle field and used as a propaganda tool, going on tours and getting lots of face time with various leaders as an example of how egalitarian Communism could be. Ludmilla Pavlichenko also seems to be the inspiration for the character of sniper Tania Chernova, played by Rachel Weisz in the film Enemy at the Gates.

Tags: Propaganda