IS THIS TOMORROW?
The first postwar "Imagine if..." dramatizations of the Russians
conquering and enslaving America, Is This Tomorrow? was published
in 1947 by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society of St. Paul,
Minnesota. At ten cents a copy, this fifty-two page, full-color comic
book was a smashing success. It enjoyed several reprintings, and was used
as a giveaway, presumably distributed to church groups. Some four million
copies were printed.
Feverish Commie-takeover scenarios emerged in the mass media in the years
to come, including Life magazine's "The Reds Have a Standard Plan
for Taking over a New Country" (1948), the M-G-M cartoon "Make Mine
Freedom" (1948), Columbia Pictures' 1952 film Invasion USA, the
1962 TV special Red Nightmare ("presented by the Department of
Defense"), and such comic books as "The Sneak Attack" in the first issue
of Atomic War (1952). But none of them could quite match Is
This Tomorrow? for pure holy terror.
Citation
Go to the American
1950s home page.
Go to Al Filreis's home
page.
Document URL: http://www.writing.upenn.edu//~afilreis/50s/is-this-tomorrow.html
Last modified: Monday, 02-Aug-2004 09:28:47 EDT