Robert Osborn's 1960 Satire The Vulgarians Revisited in PRINT Magazine

Robert Osborn's 1960 satirical book The Vulgarians is the subject of a new Daily Heller column by Steven Heller in PRINT Magazine. The book, created before the term "graphic novel" was coined, attacks what Osborn called "the decline of greatness and rise of mediocrity in America" through drawings and text. Osborn, born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1904 and died in 1994, was a U.S. Navy officer during World War II, for whom he produced the "Dilbert" safety manuals and the 1945 pacifist work War is No Damn Good. Heller, who knew Osborn as a neighbor and friend, describes him as an "artist of conscience" whose expressive lines targeted political hypocrisies including McCarthyism and militarism, while also producing commercial and book illustrations such as those for S.J. Perelman's Acres and Pains. In the introduction to The Vulgarians, Osborn writes that the book examines "the present corruption of our greatness" and what "over-weaning desire for money and comfort is doing to America." The column includes numerous image excerpts from the book and references a New Yorker article about a president's architectural machinations. The post appeared on PRINT Magazine's website.