We've all heard the phrase "Loose lips sink ships." It was created by the War Advertising Council for American propaganda posters in World War II. The British equivalent, according to Wikipedia, is "Careless talk costs lives." The English version is clunkier and less memorable.
In 1942, the British and American Ambulance Corps published a poster with the words "Loose talk can cost lives," a hybrid of the Anglo and American slogans. The illustrator was New Yorker cartoonist William Stieg. A copy was sold this past Saturday in Cleveland. Just don't breathe a word of this to anyone.
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| William Steig's printed signature |
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| William Steig Rachel Davis Fine Arts listing accessed September 16, 2023, fourteen days before the sale |
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| William Steig Rachel Davis Fine Arts item description accessed September 16, 2023 |
Note: If you should happen to be the proud owner of any obscure published material by master cartoonist William Steig, you don't have to keep it under your hat. Just send some good images to the blog, care of me. Don't send them to our adversaries.
It turns out I mentioned this very poster five years ago here. I covered much of the same ground. To my consternation, the earlier post is much better written and more visually interesting as well. You owe it to yourself to check it out.
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