THIS GODLESS COMMUNISM!

Sure, we all know communism is probably the stupidest political idea ever minted, but...at the same time, it's also one of the funniest! Now, there's nothing humorous about Leninism or Stalinism, and the history of communism in eastern Europe is probably one of the most ludicrous and oftimes depressing chapters in world history--but what is funny is how paranoid some people in the United States (mainly Christians of various denominations and pinheaded governmental flunkies like Jedgar Hoover) were about communism during the 1950s and 1960s!

One of the funniest documents of this period I've ever found is This Godless Communism, a comic-book lecture on how awful communism is (or, rather, how awful many Americans' understanding of communism is), originally printed in a monthly comic called Treasure Chest, which was published from 1946 through 1972 by the Catholic Guild. I thought that American Protestants had cornered the market on silly communist paranoia, but the Catholic Guild gots 'em ALL beat!

Take the time to read the stories, laugh at all the historical and philosophical innacuracies and misconceptions, the bad art, and the HYSTERICAL hysteria! And remember...THE COMMUNISTS ARE OUT TO DESTROY YOUR FAMILY!

Beware of pinkos.

Quoth HPL....

"I am so beastly tired of mankind and the world that nothing can interest me unless it contains a couple of murders on each page or deals with horrors unnameable and unaccountable that leer down from the external universes."

I've felt like that since I was thirteen, if you can believe it--which is when I first began reading great deals of sci-fi, horror, and other forms of "weird literature." Even today, the "realistic" novels (those dealing with "real-world" events) that I tend to enjoy, most notably Cormac McCarthy's work (except for All the Pretty Horses and the other two volumes of the "Border Trilogy," all of which are limpwristed and puerile) and a lot of Dickens, are so steeped in strangeness and linguistic tricks that they transcend their own mundane subject matter and, through the power of language and imagination, transform even the most everyday phenomena into pure Awesomeness(tm). Ohyeah, and they're usually full of a lotta killin'. Killin' always makes for a good read.

Glory be to weird atmospherics!