From Tip Top Comics #151 Feb 1949

[Cartoonist]

[MineralMan]

1. "Jap" brides?

Just for that, I would not have posted that comic. Just saying...

[Cartoonist]

2. That's why I included the date

[MineralMan]

3. Yes, I understand. It is still shockingly offensive, I think.

That's why I commented on it.

[Cartoonist]

5. There's worse

I love old comics, but there's a downside. You won't find a black character that isn't drawn as an ugly stereotype. The depictions of Japanese characters during the war are just as bad.

[MineralMan]

6. You're right, of course.

Bigotry shows its face in lots of old material in many genres. My attitude toward that stuff is that it should be consigned to the dustbin of history, really. It can still be examined and its impact considered, but I wouldn't post any of it here on DU, unless the topic was specifically about historical bigotry.

That's just me, of course. When such things are part of a different topic, they tend to distract from whatever point is being made. In your page of comics, that reference struck me immediately and completely overrode the reason you posted that page in the first place.

Such references were strikingly offensive then, and they remain offensive. It's up to you, of course.

[Cartoonist]

7. How do you feel about Huck Finn?

Context and historical perspective are often needed when dealing with the past. I wouldn't toss out the baby with the bathwater. There are two comic art masterpieces that unfortunately feature such stereotypes. I would keep them out of the dustbin.

[MineralMan]

8. It's the context, really.

The context of your comic page is simply that there are unusual things out there. "Strange but True." The context of Huckleberry Finn is 19th Century Missouri. One is a work of literature. The other is a collection of oddities.

There is a major difference between the two examples.

[Cartoonist]

9. You miss the perspective

The artist who drew that page was merely using the language of the time and place. Knowing nothing else, it would be wrong to accuse the artist of racism.

It also works both ways. The word gay used to mean something else. There is a thread in GD now in which someone infers that the hand signal for OK 👌 can now only be used by white supremacists.

[MineralMan]

10. No, I don't miss the perspective at all.

I know the perspective. I simply choose not to present objectionable content on this website, regardless of that perspective.

I'm old enough to have seen that perspective in daily life. I'm glad that it is no longer acceptable to people.

[edhopper]

4. But the probable comet the Chinese saw

was 5 BCE which changes the whole nativity narrative.

Which is itself historically problematic.