Mail Art or is it just Art?

BATTLE CARDS A&BC Chewing Gum Cards

World War II cards known as ‘Battle’ trading cards 1965 were incredibly graphic: full of blood, gore, and sadistic acts. With our second millennium disposition and political correctness they seem strange, from another world, unacceptable, shocking – they are also tiny works of popular art (pop art) graphic art / illustration – but above all outrageous. Even during the 1960s they were classed as subversive, perverse and dangerous for children to look at, so dangerous in fact that A&BC Ltd. were charged under the Obscene Publications Act in 1968 for publishing theses images.

Early Post War Britain was a very different place than it is now, the victory over Germany and Japan was still fresh in Britain’s consciousness – I can remember seeing a former Japanese prisoner of war walking around my town, he had white hair, dark sunken eyes and the haunted look of a condemned man. Horror and the reality of war was still evident so the images of war on these cards were not so shocking to a 10 year old – but aren’t todays video games more shocking?

The Battle cards were painted by Norman Saunders, Maurice Blumenfeld, Ed Valigurski, and Bob Powell.

(Land Of) Hope

The bells ring out for obedience,

Like a chorus of funeral bells.

The drugged out hippy cries for peace,
And then tries to find his head.

Bloody whores whip them,
Watch them bob and dance.

On the end of a rope,
On the end of a joke.