From Jan.27, 2017 on Facebook -
Few stories have been adapted so often or lend themselves to parody as much as “Alice in Wonderland.”
Lewis Carroll's (or Charles Lutwidge Dodgson for you sticklers) tale of a young girl trapped in a bizarre world with equally bizarre inhabitants, has been the subject matter for numerous movies, books and of course, comic books. Few, though, have been as strange as ALICE IN BLUNDERLAND (1952).
This “Alice” take-off had a very definite purpose: to poke fun at government waste, over-regulation and taxes.
Alice enters “Blunderland” through a televisions screen and is escorted through the land by the Mad Hatter. They meet various characters from the original story—Humpty Dumpty, Dormouse, Tweedledee and Tweedledum—as they go along, and with each meeting, a point is made to show ridiculous examples of squandered money and red tape. Indeed, red tape grows wild in this world.
If you happen to miss the point of the parody, appearing in many panels are blue boxes labeled, “Fantastic Fact!,” followed by a factoid illustrating the waste or tax or regulation being satirized.
Many of these facts come from the Hoover Commission, which was formed by President Harry S Truman in 1947 to investigate and recommend ways for the federal government to cut waste and increase efficiency. The bi-partisan commission, which took its name from its chairman, former President Herbert Hoover, came back in 1949 with 273 suggestions. This led to several reorganization plans that were implemented over a number of years.
The creators of this comic used the Hoover Commission's report as a basis for many of the targets of its satire. But who published this book and why?
The 1952 copyright notice on the second page doesn't help much. It only provides “Industrial Services” as the name of the copyright holder, and an address of 295 Madison Ave. in New York.
I haven't found a company bearing just the name “Industrial Services” from that time period, but I have found an Industrial Press Services (IPS).
Industrial Press Services was formed in the 1930s by a man named James Selvage, at the behest of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). The NAM is the largest manufacturing industrial trade association in the United States and acts as an advocacy group, a lobbyist, for its members. During the 1930s, one of the biggest problems manufacturers were facing came from the burgeoning union movement. To combat the negative publicity it was receiving during its fight with the unions, the NAM contacted Selvage to form the IPS.
Over time, the mission of the IPS expanded to other matters concerning the NAM. In order to help mold public opinion, the IPS acted as a clipping which would send out editorials, cartoons and columns, created in-house, which would be plugged in by its subscribing newspapers. At its peak, reportedly the IPS had some 6,000 subscribing papers. [A UNION AGAINST UNIONS, by William Millikan, pg. 332]
A syndicated article appearing September 21, 1952, lends further credence to my speculation and identifies the actual publisher. In the piece, which concerns the growing popularity of the comic book format among politicians, various groups and companies, several paragraphs are devoted to ALICE IN BLUNDERLAND.
“One booklet nearing the 1,000,000 mark is entitled “Alice in Blunderland,” writes its author, James Haswell, “It is a satire on government bureaucracy and features “fantastic facts” principally culled from the Hoover Commission reports.”
“The National Association of Manufacturers is a principal circulator of the book. The publishers, Hall Associates, New York, report that other customers for them are the National Foreman's Institute and General Motors Corporation.” [“Comic Books New Weapons of Politicians,” by James Haswell, Sept. 21, 1952]
The “Hall Associates” credited as publisher in this article was likely Benn Hall Associates, a large public relations firm. Armed with this information, my guess is that Benn Hall, acting as the PR firm for the NAM, employed Industrial Press Services to actually create the book, which they in turn distributed to their clients.
I've scanned all 16 pages of the comic below so that it can be read in full.
-Ken Quattro
