Uncovering a stash of religious propaganda is a rush for the weekend. Pages and pages of marketing and design with the aim of needling its contents into your brain. Information? Hoodwinking? Indoctrination? The charm comes in a stunning cache of artwork.
Using the style and design of movie posters, comic books and pulp magazines (the kinds with dames walking into smoke-filled offices or a glorious mystery hidden at the bottom of the cellar), Vintage Values is a look into an era and information industry that knew being staid was not the way.
The pamphlets, uncovered from the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland archives, were meant to help push up the winning virtues of moral purity and other benefits of belonging to the Irish Catholic culture. The liner notes say it was a success over its runs.
The pop art lays back on a full square page, only remarking on the year it was first printed (or reprinted) along with the artist responsible for wrangling the expectations. The scans are clean and of the actual covers, not redone or retouched replications. You can see the original tatters and warping from water damage hit against a few.
Sample titles such as, "Nobody Loves a Tease" (Late 1950s), "What Kevin Was Doing / The Girl Who Was Frightened of Cows" (1953) and "He Kept It White" (1945) just cry out for more information, more background. What kind of cows are we talking about here? What was Kevin doing exactly? (Obviously not suspecting Sam was possessed by some tortured, fallen angel. Damn it, Dean!)
Well, we can at least guess what, "The Jehovah Witnesses: A Warning to Catholics" (1957) is all about. Another title, "Portrait of a Communist / Does Communism Threaten Christianity?" (1957) is quite the snapshot for the times in which these were distributed.
And that is what's really missing here. In a book full of covers, some kind of individual context or background is the stuff to chew on. Even a hint of what they were shilling behind the pulp dress. A snippet or maybe a synopsis on the cover story would have been great to get a better sense of time and action in the handing out of these materials. It's lacking this massive hunk of meat in an otherwise well packaged collection.
You can clearly see the staples in the pamphlets, and judging by the size of the shadow, each book was about 32 printed pages. Such a tease.
Review copy provided by Veritas Publications.
Reviewed on Sunday, 2 March 2014