It’s Great To Be Alive! An unintentionally funny safety booklet from the 1950s
2 min read
According to this 1950s Police Safety League booklet there is life threatening danger at every corner for the teen and pre-teen! Looking at these scanned images from the guide It’s Great To Be Alive!, two things are absolut obvious: kids from the 1950s were terrible bicycle riders and they also did a lot of stupid, dangerous things.
So, just in the 1950s, was created a comic book to tell kids what hideous fates could befall them if they took risks and failed to spot danger signs.
This little booklet didn’t measured words: there’s maiming, crippling, and death sprinkled throughout its sometimes disturbing and unintentionally funny illustrations.
The power of images. A little bit like the illustrations that summed up the trauma of divorce, or the illustrated guide of the ’30s that explained how not to die electrocuted….
In this scene the motorist has run over the armed delinquent on a shooting spree.
Says yes to evergreens!
The new kite makes this problem go away.
Caught red-handed drinking dad’s aftershave.
Also take care at the BBC Television Centre.
What happened to Bob?
Elmer.
This is how the dinosaurs died out.
Don’t read books!
Which is worse?
If Bill and Joe lost an eye and a leg in their crash, why isn’t this kid more badly injured?
Nominative determinism.
Allegedly.
Bloody cyclists coming though the windscreen smacked straight into poor Tommy.
And then she caught MRSA at the hospital and that nice man off the telly say on her bed.