I am old enough to remember the Cold War, and I don’t remember that it was much worse in the 1980s than it was in the 1950s. Read “Foster, You’re Dead” by Philip K. Dick (Star Science Fiction Stories No. 3. January 1955), or “On the Beach” by Nevil Shute (1957; movie 1959). I laughed at Canales’ & Guarnido’s anthropomorphic Blacksad #3, Red Soul (2005), set during the Red Scare 1950s, which shows the Hollywood millionaire Gotfield frantically digging a nuclear shelter in his estate. I remember the wealthy Los Angelinos in the 1950s putting in nuclear shelters, and they certainly didn’t dig them personally; they hired professional construction companies. (I think that the one on the estate of “The Amazing Criswell” is still there.) Briggs’ “When the Wind Blows” (1982) was one of the last of the genre.
It’s a brilliant picture book (and movie), but, as you note, extremely depressing. I am glad that it is out of date today. “The Snowman” will long outlive it.
I am old enough to remember the Cold War, and I don’t remember that it was much worse in the 1980s than it was in the 1950s. Read “Foster, You’re Dead” by Philip K. Dick (Star Science Fiction Stories No. 3. January 1955), or “On the Beach” by Nevil Shute (1957; movie 1959). I laughed at Canales’ & Guarnido’s anthropomorphic Blacksad #3, Red Soul (2005), set during the Red Scare 1950s, which shows the Hollywood millionaire Gotfield frantically digging a nuclear shelter in his estate. I remember the wealthy Los Angelinos in the 1950s putting in nuclear shelters, and they certainly didn’t dig them personally; they hired professional construction companies. (I think that the one on the estate of “The Amazing Criswell” is still there.) Briggs’ “When the Wind Blows” (1982) was one of the last of the genre.
It’s a brilliant picture book (and movie), but, as you note, extremely depressing. I am glad that it is out of date today. “The Snowman” will long outlive it.
Fred Patten