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BOOK ONE
1:1
The 1958-1963 ABC
television program called "The Naked City" began each episode with the narration: "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This is one of them . . ."
1:2-3
1:4
2:2
2:3
"Message: I care!"
3:3
3:5
"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
"Give us 22 minutes; we'll give you the world"
4:1-4
Lyrics from "America, the Beautiful":
Is the "woman in the long gown" Lady Liberty?
4:4 5
6:1
"Herbert! Herbert! Herbert!" was chanted by space-travelling hippies in the TV series "Star Trek". In the 1969 episode "The Way to Eden", they referred to a fictional narrow-minded officer named Herbert.
6:3
6:4
7:1 7:3-4 8:6
9:2
"This is not my beautiful house"
9:5
9:7
10:1
10:4
11:1
11:2
"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
11:3
12:4
12:5
13:1
TB is the abbreviation for tuberculosis, a common ailment of coal miners.
13:3
13:4
13:5
14:3
14:4
14:5
14:6
15:3
Note the man lying in the box.
15:5
16:1
16:2
17:2
Buttons include: Uncle Sam, V for victory?, peace sign, red cross emblem, Alfred E. Neumann character from MAD magazine, smiley face (contributor
Krzysztof Lipka-Chudzik notes that the drop of blood on it makes it a reference to Alan Moore's classic comic book WATCHMEN, in which that button figured prominently), "I Like
Ike" (Eisenhower's presidential campaign). Sam holds a "Another Democrat for Nixon" button. In front of the radio is a button that reads "Vote for Ike". I think that's a harmonica with a wooden box, in front of the clock.
The red booklet is "How to Eat Well Though Rationed: Martha Reynolds' wartime canning and cooking book". Can anyone identify the pamphlet with the car ("????osons for 1954")?
US map (behind the clock) in this panel names only the state of Texas, so we are probably in Texas.
17:3
See someone in the background?
17:4
17:5
Can anyone identify the year of the PPG American Finishes (auto paints) calendar? You can see a bit more of the calendar in panel 20:1.
17:6
20:1
22:1
22:2
22:3
22:4
22:5
The umbrella advertises the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. In part two of this story we'll learn about the original Chicago World's Fair of 1893.
22:6
Among the buttons are "Supersam Get Out of Viet Nam", and a picture of a "DOOM" teapot referring to the "Teapot Dome Scandal" during the 1924 elections. (President Harding had allowed Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall to lease naval oil reserves to a private oil company for a tidy profit.)
"Truman Was Screwy to Build a Porch for Dewey" was a button distributed by Standard Oil for Thomas Dewey's 1948 campaign against Harry S. Truman. Earlier that year, controversy had surrounded President Truman's construction of the balcony on the south side of the White House. Some felt that it was wrong to alter the historical building. The 1948 election was famous for the Chicago Tribune's premature and erroneous printing of the headline "Dewey defeats Truman".
24:1
25:2
25:3
Amos & Andy was an extremely popular radio show from 1928-1958. Today "Amos `n' Andy" signifies an exploitation of racial stereotypes. The mocking approach to black upward mobility, the mangling of the English language ("I'se re-gusted," "splain dat to me"), and the fact that two white men played the Negro characters were all elements of racism.
26
29
30:1
30:4
The third screen shows the game show "Wheel of Fortune", which is referred to by the caption "There is no Y." The phrase is obviously "God bless America". While it's obviously absurd that a contestant would guess that one of the missing letters on the board is "Y", my friend David Branson suggests that they need to ask "why?"
30:6
31:3
33:2
"Next American Century"
33:3
33:4
"My opponent is a drunken syphylitic swindler"
33:6
34:4
35:1
35:5
36:3
36:4
36:5
37:2
39:4
41:3-4
42:2
42:6
43:4
44:4 "the police are not here to create disorder. They're here to preserve disorder."
"The Yankee Doodle Boy", a song by George M. Cohan , well-known for being sung by James
Cagney in the 1942 film "Yankee Doodle Dandy". The lyrics:
"Land of the free...home of the brave"
45:2
45:4
END OF ANNOTATIONS FOR PART ONE.
CLICK ON PART TWO IN THE NAVIGATION BAR ABOVE TO CONTINUE.
"I am not a crook"
"We're number one...don't know that" - ??
2:1
Page 2
"I will never apologize for the United States of America--I don't care what the facts are."
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful.
How true that is."
"Gridlock!"
-- This term was used to excess by candidate Ross Perot in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. (Thanks to my friend David Branson for that info!) In the Federal government, gridlock is the difficulty of getting the President and both Houses of Congress to agree on proposed laws
"There's a bear in the woods"
-- The tagline from President Reagan's infamous 1984 reelection campaign commercial.
"You have President Reagan, Governor Deukmejian, and George Bush. Watch out--overdose of charisma!
That's not too good."
--George Bush, Sr. while campaigning in Los Angeles
- President Reagan joking on live radio, August 1984.
The women by the wall...have their purses stolen by the 2 running men.
And the girl in white shoes has been critically injured.
4:2
The "Empire" poster is from the "Evil Empire" album (1996) by the group "Rage Against the Machine". The term "evil empire" was popularized in a 1982 speech by President Reagan in reference to the Soviet Union.
O beautiful
for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain
"Better things for better
living through chemistry" was the slogan of the DuPont chemical company from 1935 to 1999. Nylon, Lycra, Teflon, Kevlar and Mylar are just a few products invented by DuPont.
Thine alabaster cities gleam
undimmed by human tears.
"I should welcome any war. The country needs one." - Theodore Rossevelt in a letter to Henry Cabot Lodge, 1897
Note: the panels are in the shape of the northwestern US
Pacific coastline: River polluted with
a needle, condom, Butterfinger candy bar wrapper, and a can(?)
Washington: Oil spills kill fish & birds on the shore
Oregon: Anti-homosexual protest
Idaho: Unemployment
Montana: Animal killed
California: Annotations contributor Steven Bergson suggests this could be Rodney King, who was severely beaten by Los Angeles police in 1991. The controverisal event was videotaped yet the cops were acquitted in the trial, triggering several days of race riots.
Nevada: Las Vegas casinos. No place for children. Is the mother a prostitute? It's legal there.
Utah: Pesticide
Arizona: Elementary school children must pass through metal detector and be searched for weapons
"Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries" was a hit song by Rudy Vallee:
Life is just a bowl of cherries;
6:2
Don't make it serious;
Life's too mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so,
But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.
So keep repeating it's the berries;
The strongest oak must fall.
The sweet things in life
To you were just loaned
So how can you lose what you've never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries, So live and laugh at it all.
Hoover was wrong. 1932-1933 were the worst. The Great Depression didn't end until 1939.
In the trash we see a Diet Dr.Pepper can, "Heileman's Old Style"? beer can, and a news headline reference
to "D'amato to head ethics committee". Sen. Alfonse D'Amato led a Senate ethics investigation into First Lady Hillary Clinton's involvment in the
"Whitewater Affair." This is ironic because D'Amato was himself investigated by a Senate ethics committee in 1996 on wrongdoing for special treatment
he may have received from a brokerage firm that earned him a quick and hefty profit on a stock trade. He was cleared of charges.
"Shoo, Charlie!" May be a reference to 1950s' ventriloquist Edgar Bergan's dummy, Charlie McCarthy, and his nemesis, the comedian W.C.Fields.
In 1775, during the American Revolution (which began before the official Declaration of Independence),
Dorchester Heights was the target of the British forces, who attacked via Breed's Hill. This is renowned as the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Page 8
The French and Indian Wars were waged in the late 1750's and early 1760's. England secured much North American land from the French. The war increased the boldness of both the English leaders and the American colonists.
Is she initiating a night of sex with Sam?
We see the ragged condition of the thief's own shoes.
"Going to Berlin"
-
A threat voiced by George C. Scott, playing George Patton in "Patton" (1970).
Nixon's "Checkers" speech
"Republican cloth coat"
The "INRI" on the car's license plate is from the sign atop the traditional crucifix. It stands for IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDAEORVM, which is old Latin for "Jesus of Nazareth, King of Jews".
"This is not my beautiful wife"
Sam is experiencing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 1963.
Controversy surrounds the conflicting reports conflict about the number of shots and bullets and assassins.
Note Sam's reflection in the car's rear-view mirror is that of Kennedy.
Kennedy's brains were indeed splattered on his wife.
President Kennedy and Jackie on that fateful day
"...called him Checkers"
"I got no shoes..."
- Annotations contributor Steven Bergson says "That's a phrase in many poems and songs. The one I think is most appropriate is 'Monkey River', if only because it's sung by a band called Presidents of the United States of America."
"...Liberty and justice for all"
"Point of order.."
The famous Smokey Bear ad campaign says "ONLY YOU can prevent forest fires."
"Duck and cover" was the procedure taught to school children to hide from a nuclear explosion
in the 1950's.
When Lee Iacocca sat down with President Richard Nixon in 1971 to discuss safety equipment in
American cars, he said that "the shoulder harness, the headrests are complete
wastes of money. ... You can see that safety has really killed all
of our business. "
"Our efforts to save the environment should not erode fundamental constitutional rights nor pollute our free enterprise economy"
- the formal organizing principle of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO). The
ECO worked closely with the Libertarian Party in the United States in the 1990's.
"Truth telling usually has to be kept within narrow limits if trouble is to be avoided." - Steven Bergson tells me that this quote is from a famous article by Albert Z. Carr in the Harvard Business Review Jan.-Feb. 1968 "Is Business Bluffing?"
Wall Street stock baron Ivan Boesky at the University of California Berkeley Business
School Commencement exercises May 1986: "Greed is healthy! You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself!" Boesky, who was the model for Michael Douglas' fictional character "Gordon Gekko" in the film "Wall Street," was months later convicted of insider trading securities fraud, sent to jail and slapped with a $100 million fine, which he paid in cash.
President Coolidge was indeed nicknamed "Silent Cal".
"how many roads can a man walk down"
Page 16
The store sign is done in the style of the 1940's All-American Comics logo. (Thanks to my friend David Branson for that info!)
The picture of Superman on the sign is how he originally appeared in comics.
"If I owned Texas and hell, I'd rent out Texas and live in hell."
-Philip Sheridan.
As head of post-Civil War Reconstruction he was relieved after much controversy and was ordered to take command of the Department of the Missouri in Sept. 1867. Here he was ordered to subdue the Indians and place them on reservations.
Reddy Kilowatt
and Big Boy
Davy Crockett coonskin cap, Quaker Oatmeal box (in back), Howdy Doody doll, monkey?? Doll (in front), Raggedy Ann doll (mostly covered by monkey), Curious George and Big Boy dolls (in back), Aunt Jemima & Uncle Mose salt/pepper shakers, crystal mouse??, Buster Brown shoe store mask, a 1950s? Barbie doll, Reddy Kilowatt (used by electric utility companies),
picture of Superman as he originally appeared (in back), Linus doll (from "Peanuts" comic strip), toy ray gun.
More about Aunt Jemima
on page 25
Curious George
Buster Brown 
"The Ballad of Davy Crockett" from Disney's 1950's TV show "Davy Crockett," lyrics by Tom Blackburn.
"with his faithful Indian companion" is part of the introduction narration to the "Lone Ranger" radio and TV programs from the 1930s to 1960s.
The Lone Ranger is a fictional character. Davy Crockett was a real person.
"Father Knows Best" was a popular American saying and also the title of a 1960's television program.
Page 19 - Chief Black Hawk
The Black Hawk War began soon after the Sauk Indians, led by Chief Black Hawk, faring poorly in Iowa where the government had moved them, recrossed the Mississippi River and moved back to their former. As tensions mounted, panicky settlers killed two Indians seeking a parley and bearing a white flag. Black Hawk, enraged, began killing white settlers. Sauk followers of Black Hawk were massacred at the mouth of the Bad Axe River in Wisconsin (not Illinois, as the graphic novel says) by Illinois militia led by General Henry Atkinson. Old men, women, and children were all killed without regard for pleas of mercy or white flags. Black Hawk, deserted by his Winnebago allies, surrendered, thus ending the Black Hawk War.
(Carruth, Gorton. The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates. 10th Ed. New York:
Harper Collins Publishers. ©1997. )
Speedy
Alka-Seltzer
Mr.Clean cleanser
trademark
Jell-O's
Mr.Wiggle
Black Hawk was not executed at the massacre site, as this scene might suggest.
Peters (an old manufacturer of shotgun shell boxes and ammunition) Target, "Speedy Alka-Seltzer" figurine, Mr.Wiggle (Jell-O character, not Mr.Bubble bubble bath, which looks very similar but has no hat), Oscar-Meyer; Weinermobile, Mr.Clean figurine, Tony the Tiger (from Frosted Flakes breakfast cereal) head. For pics of lots of old trademark characters, visit the Advertising Icons museum.
Popular songs in the United States during WWII:
"Remember Pearl Harbor" by Eddy Howard and "Der Fuehrer's Face" by Spike Jones and his City Slickers
"We're Gonna Have to Slap That Dirty Little Jap (And Unsle Sam's the Guy Who Can Do It)" WWII
song by Bob Miller., c1941.
From the 1970's
Seen in 22:6
"The oriental doesn't put..."
-- infamous quote by General William Westmoreland, who served as the commander of American forces in the Vietnam War, during which he made this comment.
Ad for 7-Up soda pop (very back), ad for Kool cigarettes, "Darkie" toothpaste?, (ad for "L.P."???) and the sheet music cover for "The Uncle Sammy March and Two-Step" by Abe Holzmann, 1904. Also we see the backside of toy figurine? (probably originally served as a container?), "Dr. Steel" doll (from the "Big Jim" collection of action toys from the 1970's), the green plastic soldiers have been commonly seen toys in the U.S. for decades (and seen in the animated film "Toy Story"), and the doll lying face down may be a classic "G.I. Joe".
Amede Ardoin was a pioneer of the French-based music we now call zydeco. Ardoin's early 1930's 78rpm recordings with fiddler Dennis McGee are among the first racially integrated folk recordings. After the beating, Ardoin reportedly never recovered 100% of his faculties, and died some years later (in 1941) in a mental institution.
"Thank God almighty! We are free at last!"
The 54th Regiment of the Union army in the American Civil War, the 9th and 10th Cavalries
and 24th and 25th Infantries of the Spanish-American war, 366th Infantry Regiment's 92nd Infantry Division of WWI, and the Tuskegee Airmen of WWII are just a few of the highly decorated all-black military units to serve the US.
Amos and Andy 
The old Aunt
Jemima trademark
"Aunt Jemima" lived 1901-1969. Born as either Rosa Washington Riles or Nancy Green (I've heard different stories), the cheerful black woman travelled the country doing pancake demonstrations and promoting
Quaker cake mixes and Log Cabin Syrup and Ball's Milk. Rosa's image became the trademark for the pancake mix and Aunt Jemima Syrup. She supposedly served up over a million pancakes at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Her husband is said to be the model for the popular Aunt Jemima & Uncle Mose salt & pepper shakers.
Amidst complaints that her image perpetuated a subservient, racial stereotype, her image was replaced with that of a contemporary black woman by the 1990's.
Andersonville was an infamous Civil War p.o.w. camp in the South.
Montana: Was there an incident of labor union related shooting?
South Dakota: A homosexual man being beaten?
Wyoming: Farm foreclosure
Colorado: Just a guess, but this refinery picture may refer to Colorado Refining Company and TPI Petroleum, Inc. In the 1990's, the U.S. Department of Justice and the EPA finally cited them for violations of the Clean Air Act.
Nebraska: A visual reference to paramilitary militia groups; I don't know of any significant militia activity in Nebraska.
Kansas: Home of the famous U. S. Maximum Security Penitentiary in Leavenworth.
Is this a reference to a specific case of prisoner abuse?
The Oklahoma City bombing
Oklahoma: April 19, 1995, a bomb exploded, killing 168 people, wounding hundreds others and destroying the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
New Mexico: Many Mexican familes are constantly trying to sneak into the U.S. to escape poverty.
Texas: The 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian cult compound near Waco, Texas by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms.
"Common Sense" was a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine, crucial to the 1776 American Revolution. (For an interesting comic story connected to Thomas Paine, read Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN#29.) The actual quote is Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively
by restraining our vices.
30:2
Paine's 1780 pamphlet
"American Crisis" opens with the famous line, "These are the times that try men's souls.''
TV screen far left shows a 1990's talk show similar to "Jerry Springer".
Another quote from Paine's "Common Sense":
Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary
by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes
may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice
of nature and of reason will say, it is right.
31:2
In December 1958 TV Guide magazine, respected TV journalist Edward R. Murrow writes
that viewers must recognize "television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us."
"I invite you ... observe a vast wasteland."
- Newton Minow, Chairman of the FCC in remarks to the National Association of Broadcasters on
May 9, 1961
"We are the first nation in the history of the world to go to the poorhouse in an automobile".
-- Will Rogers
- Sen. John Ashcroft, Missouri Republican, published a 45-page pamphlet titled "A New Beginning:
An Economic Plan for the Next American Century." September 22, 1998
The only Newfoundland Hotel I know of is in Canada.
"Corporations have been enthroned ....."
--Abraham Lincoln
Annotations contributor Steven Bergson notes that Samuel J. Tilden was called this while campaigning against Rutherford B. Hayes in the heated 1887 presidential election.
"The boy who stubbed his toe..."
- Abraham Lincoln,
after losing the Senator's election to Democratic opponent Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois in 1858.
"Where's my pa?..."
Page 35
Contributor Krzysztof Lipka-Chudzik points out that the cover of the collected trade paperback edition of Kurt Busiek's MARVELS (which established Alex Ross as a master of comic book art) depicts the hero Giant-Man in exactly the same pose as is seen here.
In 1917, the US entered the first world war, as President Wilson asked Congress to declare
war against Germany, saying, "The world must be made safe for democracy.''
The man on the far left bears a strong resemblence to British comedian Rowan Atkinson, most famous for his roles on the tv shows "Blackadder" and "Mr. Bean."
"Crack a window" is a popular phrase meaning that there is a terrible odor present.
The name "Louis Cannon" sounds like "loose cannon", a phrase meaning dangerously uncontrolled. Origin: improperly secured cannons were likely to roll about on old ships' decks and cause damage.
Rush Limbaugh ditto
Cannon bears a strong resemblence to 1990's sarcastic right-wing radio/TV talk show host, Rush
Limbaugh.
In 1954, during Senator Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt, Joseph Nye Welch was a Boston lawyer who represented the secretary of the Army during the hearings. On one occasion, after McCarthy lambasted one of the allegedly "Red" assistants, Welch responded:
Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or recklessness... Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no
sense of decency?
40:4
"Is life so dear..."
"He has abdicated government..."
March 1931 (author Darnall got the date wrong) Three thousand unemployed workers marched on the Ford Motor Company's plant in River Rouge, Michigan. Police from Ford's nearby hometown of Dearborn and Ford's company guards killed four workers and injured many more.
The quote is from the patriotic song "My Country, Tis of Thee" by Samuel Francis Smith, 1832.
"The Persian Gulf" is a reference to the Gulf War of 1991, codenamed "Desert Shield" and "Desert Storm." The US led an attack on Iraq following Saddam
Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
- Former Chicago Mayor Daley during the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention.
I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,
A Yankee Doodle, do or die;
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam's
Born on the Fourth of July.
I've got a Yankee Doodle Sweetheart,
She's my Yankee Doodle joy.
Yankee Doodle came to London,
Just to ride the ponies.
I am that Yankee Doodle boy.
45:1
Page 46
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Thomas Jefferson,
in a letter to William Smith, Nov. 13, 1787
During the Korean War, Gen. MacAthur closed his farewell address to Congress with a famous line from an old army ballad: "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."
"I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
- Nathan Hale, before being hanged by the British as a spy, Long Island, 22 September 1776
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