17 June 1959 Afterburner

In this issue of Yokota's Afterburner there are two lame pieces and two really good ones. I'll explain in the captions below.

This is an old-fashioned cartoon style by Jack Lebo from AFPS, and it's excellent in terms of art and content. A message about the problems associated with a less-than-honorable discharge are conveyed clearly here. 

This strip is awful as usual. I continue to show these for their very awfulness.

Another AFPS SNAFU strip by Johnson. His art is terrific, and his sense of humor has a definite dark edge to it. This joke makes more sense to a military audience, but even a civilian can probably figure it out.

The WAVEs were the US Navy's female-only corps, so the joke is that this guy is sneaking into the women's barracks by pretending to be female by sticking a mop on his head. Yuk yuk. This is obviously a distro rather than locally produced.

10 June 1959 Afterburner

A nice selection today of AFPS and local graphics from the 10 June 1959 Afterburner. Enjoy!

Simple, engaging, and to the point -- score one for AFPS.

This art, and the following two images, accompanied a feature article about a tourist place called "UNESCO Village" located fairly close to Yokota (about 30 minutes in 1959) at a Seibu Line station named Sayamako. According to the article in the newspaper it consisted of architecture and attractions from around the world, perhaps a bit like Epcot. I'm pretty sure that UNESCO Village doesn't exist anymore, and it probably wouldn't be necessary since world travel is now so simple. The artist for these pieces is unknown.

A new banner for this regular photo feature.

This little banner was for a local column on cooking cheap and easy meals. Believe me, the recipes look truly horrible.

Art with accompanying article from AFPS.

Another Yokota bio-comic from the sports page. Fantastic stuff!

3 June 1959 Afterburner

The 3 June 1959 issue of Yokota's base paper was almost completely devoid of graphics -- banners, cartoon, space fillers. However, the paper did change its flag with this issue, so that's noteworthy.

New flag. The move to this Germanic font seems strange and incongruous to me, like it's the Christmas issue. But this was 1959 so I have to be careful not to project my sensibilities onto a different era and mindset. 

Ah, Rhymes of the Times. So boring, so lame. Note the Navy Dixie Cup hat on the owl.

27 May 1959 Afterburner

Alright, we finally have a good selection of art and graphics after a number of issues that didn't have much of anything. All but one of these pieces are from AFPS, but that's ok.

This first one by Ortega is pretty good that makes its point. It accompanied an article on being careful when getting advanced pay.

People to People was a US military program in the 1950s encouraging Americans abroad to get to know the locals. Nice art by Jack Lebo.

Here's another Lebo cartoon as part of the SOP series. Everything here is wrong of course, which makes it's so interesting. As I've noted before, this is off-color and "humorous" in that 1950s/1960s Playboy kind of way.

Jack Lebo was a busy man.

Huh?

The only local piece in the 27 May issue. A variation of a banner for an on-going photo series. 

Operation Blonde was a recurring strip in US military papers that was low-brow with some occasional yucks. A kind of Sad Sack for the Playboy era.

20 May 1959 Afterburner

Three graphics in this issue: Two from AFPS, and one locally generated.

This is a pretty interesting AFPS piece, and it looks like it's by Jack Lebo although the signature was cut off during the layout process. I would guess that retention was an issue in 1959, hence attempts to get active duty members to turn the service into a career through retirement. Much different from today where RIFs are common.

My research of old Air Force newspapers shows clearly that the Air Force was perfectly happy to use sex to get messages out to its Airmen. One would never, ever see this today in an Air Force publication. 

John Boyle's new banner for a weekly article about little league and other local sports. Apparently a dangling cigarette was a prerequisite for journalists in the old days.

13 May 1959 Afterburner

Thanks to my 24-inch iMac monitor all but dying this blog's been on a one-month hiatus. So, now that I'm back here are the graphics I found in the 13 May 1959 Afterburner.

Pretty self-explanatory.

Here we see a hand-drawn graphic. Looks like high school level stuff.

A military cartoon borrowed from another paper out in San Diego. Very nice art that reminds me of some of the characters that used to appear in Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Another biographical sketch cartoon by John Boyle. First class, as usual.

6 May 1959 Afterburner

There was a lot more material in the 6 May 1959 edition than the previous week's paper, some of which was quite interesting.  

Back before there word processors that could handle Japanese one way of getting Japanese into a American paper was to print handwritten text as an image. I haven't seen a lot of this in Afterburner. Translation? "For your future buy US government savings bonds."

This piece by the tireless Jack Lebo accompanied a very dated article about knowing one's drinking ability.

A new banner for the paper's regular legal advice column.

I guess this was the image of "Mom" for Americans back in 1959. This AFPS piece is also by Jack Lebo, and once again we see his range of artistic ability. Check out the broach. 

Nothing exciting -- just a space filler. But things like this were a key part of the structure of the paper.

This is a clever, pre-digital mind you, mix of a real photo with hand-drawn art.

Once again, the sports editor John Boyle gives a fantastic bio-comic (my term).

Another space filler graphic.

29 April 1959 Afterburner

There were only two new graphics in this issue of Yokota's base paper. Hopefully the upcoming newspapers won't all be so empty of material!

Fantastic art by Jack Lebo. The rhyme, well, no comment.

Here is where we can see high school yearbook-caliber work creeping in, which doesn't surprise me since that's really all these kids probably knew before they joined the service. This art accompanied a 2-page spread of various photos taken around base. 

22 April 1959 Afterburner

There were three new graphics in the 22 April 1959 Afterburner: Two from AFPS by Jack Lebo, and one locally drawn but unsigned portrait. Enjoy!

Sketch of the outgoing 6102d Air Base Wing commander from Yokota Air Base, Col James E. Johnston. Too bad it wasn't signed, though I would guess it was by the newspaper's staff artist Mr. Manabe Hideo.

The AFPS SOPs by Jack Lebo just keep coming. This one's good, but really dated since USO dances no longer occur, but were apparently still a part of military life in 1959. Also, do people still ask for dances (that's the joke of course -- instead of saying "May I have the next dance?", he's asking for the intermssion for some unspecified reason that we're supposed to guess). 

Now this is new. Here we have AFPS' Jack Lebo doing a sports-page portrait of an athlete from Alaska that was distributed to US military papers around the world. Very nice, and it shows Lebo's depth of ability. 

15 April 1959 Afterburner

Two pieces to show today: One from AFPS by "Sebo," and one local from John Boyle. I am happy to report that I have discovered who the artist "Sebo" is. If you have read my previous blogs you'll see that not only didn't I know who he was, but I obviously I didn't even know to spell his name. Well, his full name is Jack Lebo (the L in his signature looks like an S to me), and as of 2009 he was still alive and living in Levittown, Pennsylvania. Amazing. 

Another AFPS SOP. Kind of a dumb joke, but done with a sincere enthusiasm.

Another awesome piece by sports editor John Boyle. The ball caps are accurate by the way, and the Y was for Yokota.

8 Apr 59 Afterburner

Just one graphic to report from the 8 April 1959 Afterburner: A really nice little piece from page 8 in the sports section. Self-explanatory.

1 April 1959 Afterburner

The 1 April edition had a lot of graphics, most of which were ads for the Red Cross that probably came as a package from the US. Well, see what you think.

I like this one. It really says "1959."

I like this one too.

An SOP by the mysterious SEBO, sent from AFPS. Good art, pretty good joke.

I like the 3-D feel of this one.

There was a feature story on doing karate at Yokota with nice local lettering and terrific art by the talented Japanese artist Mr. Manabe Hideo. 

 

The last piece was another Red Cross ad.