Reminders of the war were everywhere, even in the comics. Superman failed his army physical because his X-ray vision penetrated the wall with the result that he read the eye chart in the next room. Children in Al Capp's "Li'l Abner" collected scrap metal and kitchen fat for the war effort.
Canadian comic books became a wartime phenomenon. Usually in black and white, most of them were published by Cy and Gene Bell in Toronto. A fifteen-year-old student at Danforth Technical School in Toronto, Leo Bachle, created the distinctively Canadian comic book hero "Johnny Canuck." Some other artists who worked on the wartime Canadian comics went on to become recognized painters. Two are Harold Town and Adrian Dingle.
Johnny Canuck, who fought the Germans and Japanese in all parts of the globe, happened to have Leo Bachle's face. His teachers, however, sometimes found themselves in less flattering roles. In this illustration, Johnny is rescuing a girlfriend from a Japanese soldier.
Unfortunately, wartime comics and posters often fostered racial animosity by showing bestial Japanese or Germans menacing white women.
