In modern times, comic book superheroes tend to view armed conflict with a healthy dose of skepticism regardless of which side they’re on. But that wasn’t the case during World War II, when costumed do-gooders from Superman all the way down to the lowliest nobody of a crime fighter eagerly signed up to wallop the Axis powers on behalf of Uncle Sam. And hey, if they had to deal in period racism to get the job done, who were we to question that?

So just in time for Memorial Day, here’s a gallery of vintage WWII-era Golden Age comic book covers showing our heroes fighting the Nazis and the Japanese on behalf of Uncle Sam. Many of these images were sourced from the excellent Digital Comic Museum — check ‘em out!

Action Comics #63, August 1943

Captain Marvel Adventures #10, May 1942

The Black Terror #12, August 1945

Human Torch (1940) #5, Summer 1941

Captain Midnight #2, November 1942

Captain Marvel Jr. #12, October 1943

Batman #30, August/September 1945

Fighting Yank #4, June 1943

Captain America #1, March 1941

America’s Best Comics #10, July 1944

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I came across this photo of the Who that I haven’t seen a ton in the past. I’m not a superfan so I’m not certain when this was shot, but I’m guessing it was 1965 or ’66. I’d love to know what those kids were thinking watching them pretend to play. At least they could’ve given Roger Daltrey a microphone.

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Gene Ball’s Restaurant – Point Pleasant, West Virginia

A stranger is a friend we haven’t met.

Located in historic Point Pleasant, West Va. on Intersection of Rts. 2 & 35.

(original)

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Sometimes the coolest photos from Life magazine were crammed into incidental articles in the back of an issue. Take, for instance, an article on coin-operated machines — “Brave New Machines” — from the March 17, 1947 edition. The original images, taken by staff photographer Wallace Kirkland, showcase beautifully designed machines that would now probably fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars on the antiques market. But in ’47 they warranted little more than small pictures tucked into the very back of the magazine.

Here they are in their original splendor. Click on any image for the full-size version.

Coin-operated coffee machine with 4 possible mixtures, each selling for five cents.

Pinball champion George Schnabel (right) trying out coin-operated pinball machine, supporting his court action that pinball is a game of skills.

Coin-operated shoeshine machine is for men not afraid of modern contraptions. The charge is five cents for each shoe unless use is exceptionally parsimonious and agile.

Customer using a coin-operated book machine ($175), which has 50 different selections with titles visible for browsing.

Customer using a coin-operated popcorn machine, which charges ten cents per bag, with customer waiting 90 seconds for the operation.

Customer using a coin-operated quiz machine, which asks 5 questions for five cents, then registers an IQ square ranging from “genius” to “poor.” It holds 32,000 questions on eight topics.

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Credit for introducing me to this fantastic cover goes to one of my favorite record shops, Princeton Record Exchange, which recently posted it on their Facebook page. It’s a joint effort between legendary jazz fusion drummer Billy Cobham and multi-instrument star George Duke, 1976′s “Live” On Tour in Europe (Atlantic Records, SD 18194). And boy is it ever strange.

If you weren’t too skeeved out to keep reading, that’s Billy Cobham on the left and George Duke on the right. Credit for this illustration goes to Jim Warren, who is no stranger to freaky cover art involving hands.

That all said, this is a pretty damn good album, so check it out if you can. Just keep your eyes closed.

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Recently a visitor to my View-Master gallery wrote in and asked how I scan my reels and get them ready for publication. So as a public service I’ll go through the steps I take to get an image from a reel to you. Note that I don’t profess to be an expert in this area, and by no means do I claim to have the best technique. I also tend to make things much more complicated than necessary, so keep that in mind.

So here is my humble guide to scanning View-Master reels and getting them cleaned up.

The Hardware

For my reel scanning I use an Epson Perfection 1660 Photo Scanner. It’s a rather old model — at least a decade — but does the job. If memory serves it came with plastic photo scan adapters, but they have long since been lost.

See that opaque strip in the middle of the lid’s underside? That’s the reflective section that enables scanning of the View-Master reel images. I’m sure there are dozens of models that have the same thing and that don’t cost a lot of money.

The Software

I use Photoshop for scanning and post-processing, just because that’s what I’ve used for years and that’s what I’m comfortable with. But as with the scanner itself, there are a ton of choices out there. For this how-to I’m using screenshots of Photoshop CS4.

Let’s go through a scan using one of my New York City reels, a project that’s still in progress as of this posting.

The Steps

1. Place the reel on the scanner bed, so that some of the pictures are lined up under the opaque filmstrip adapter. Unless you have a larger adapter you won’t be able to fit all of them. It shouldn’t matter if the reel is facing up or down, but I always have mine print side down out of habit.

2. In Photoshop initiate a scan/import process. Here’s what it looks like in CS4 (selecting the installed Epson software):

3. From the Epson scanner interface, I use the following settings:

• Document source: TPU: Pos. Film
• Image Type: Color Photo
• Destination: Screen/Web
• Resolution: 1200 dpi

Remember that View-Master images are not film negatives, but transparent film prints. As for the resolution, I find that 1200 dpi allows me to get a large enough image to be useful. Anything more and the file size becomes a bit unwieldy. But if you want to blow up an image you’ll want to go higher.

Note in this preview window that I only got three distinct pictures (remember that a View-Master picture is made up of two separate pieces of film). So to capture all seven on a reel you’ll need to repeat this process.

4. Now into post-processing! Align and crop the scanned images to your liking. I’m not going to tell you how to use your image processing software, but I will note that you may want to apply some curve leveling to account for your scanner. Also watch out for proper alignment. It’s easy to work on a slide only to discover it’s backwards — this can happen in slides without lettering in the picture — so remember to compare to the original reel as seen through a viewer.

Here are two scans from a New York slide (Coney Island beach). The first has no processing applied, and the second had adjustments made in the levels and shadow/highlights. I also added a sharpening filter. Remember that this is half-century old picture less than an inch wide, so don’t expect to be wowed.

Before

After

And that’s pretty much it!

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Has it already been a year since my last gallery of vintage Mother’s Day ads ran? Where does the time go? Well, I’m back with another 10 classic advertisements to commemorate that most special lady in our lives — mom.

Of course, the usual suspects are here — flowers and chocolates — but I think this year’s gallery manages to mix things up a bit. I think this is the first time I’ve seen a Mother’s Day champagne ad after all.

Lady Buxton, 1939

Lejon Champagne, 1970

Bell & Howell, 1957

Whitman’s Chocolates, 1946

FTD, 1970

Kentucky Fried Chicken, 1968

AT&T, 1967

General Electric dishwasher, 1969

Pyrex, 1955

Playtex pillow, 1952

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Long before the days when handy housekeeping tips were just a click or an app away, the housewives of America and Canada had to make do with decidedly more crude technology. But man was some of it ever spiffy. Case in point: the Super Homemakers’ Guide volvelle (aka wheel chart), published by Super Publications in 1954.

What do I do if my volvelle gets stained?

The idea is simple — just dial up whatever you need to mend or wash, and the wheel tells all. For instance, thanks to the guide you know that when you cook cabbage you should place a dish of vinegar on the stove to remove the cabbage odor. Not sure how you get rid of the vinegar odor, as there’s no slot on the volvelle for that.

This was made with the intent of business buying in bulk to advertise themselves, as on this eBay listing specimen.

Pretty neat, no? Now you know how to get booze stains out of your rugs!

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Shortly before he became one of the top heartland rock acts of the 1970s and ’80s, and a few decades before “Like a Rock” guaranteed that he would never have to work again, Bob Seger released a pretty great and eclectic debut LP in April 1969. Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man was issued by Capitol Records (ST 172) under the group name The Bob Seger System, one of three records that group recorded for the label.

You might be wondering what that lovely portrait of a young lady in blue standing on an ice shelf has to do with the album title. Fortunately Seger explains on the back cover:

The title of this album up until three days ago was “Tales Of Lucy Blue”. At that time I realized that Lucy Blue is Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man. Thank you Doctor Fine!

I have no idea what he’s talking about either, but it’s still a really beautiful album cover. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any credits for the painting on the front or the rather funky, psychedelic-inspired illustration on the back cover.

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Today is the 139th running of racing’s most prestigious event, the Kentucky Derby. So here’s three vintage liquor ads featuring mint juleps to get you in the mood for watching. I’ll let you decide which one finishes, shows, or places.

Four Roses, 1948

Old Taylor Bourbon, 1959

Kentucky Tavern Whiskey, 1951

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