As an educational tool, comics have been used to teach us about roller skating, dentistry, chemicals, ecology, and careers as millwrights and machinists. But have they tackled the most pressing issue facing today's world? Have they a solution to the one crisis we all face? Let's find out.


We're all drowning in junk. Old advertising circulars, leftover shopping bags, puzzles that we swear are missing pieces and that's why we couldn't finish them, we can all barely get out of our homes due to all the junk clogging the halls and stairs. But what to do about it? Simply setting the whole mess on fire and moving away is not a solution. Not a good one, anyway.


Scriptographic produced a wide variety of pamphlets on topics like What It Means To Be An Episcopalian, V.D., the Bible, drugs, the phone, going to Mass, electric safety, herpes, the sacrament of the Eucharist, symphonies, how to study, grief, disabilities, and fire safety. They still publish informational booklets today, though without the charming cartoon style of the past. Which is why we're here, we're all about cartoony guides to dealing with the two pounds of coat hangers, half burned candles, old paint cans, and photos of forgotten people we collect every day.


Once upon a time there was a boy who, as the result of various psychological traumas and underlying developmental issues, became a hoarder. And that little boy was me! And you! We're all on A&E watching Matt Paxton and Dr. Chabaud escort a camera crew through our piles of shame.


Ask yourself these five questions. Can I smoke it? Can I drink it? Can I engage in sexual congress with it? If not, then throw it away!

Sure, that's only three questions. But if you do it right, those three are all you need!


If you could actually use this stuff, you wouldn't have a problem. And if you had enough space to store this stuff, again, you wouldn't have a problem.


And here's where your well-thumbed copy of the Crazy Grandma Comic Book Price Guide comes in handy, when somebody tells you to go ahead and sell whatever it is for a few dollars now instead of marking it up 500% because YOU know what REAL VALUE is


Do you have relatives, friends, co-workers, acquaintances who might appreciate a used plastic bucket or three years' worth of Entertainment Weekly or a VGA computer monitor? Sure you do. Just fob your unwanted stuff off on them, and then you can get all huffy when they fail to show the proper appreciation!


Are people really afraid of using the trash can for its intended purpose? It's a trash can! Go ahead and make Oscar The Grouch happy.

You'll note "recycling" isn't an option here, this pamphlet is from 1957 and there was a good fifteen years to go before anybody thought about recycling anything except 1948 Buicks with possible mob boss corpses in the trunk.


Make a STORAGE PLAN for your home. Match this diagram up with Scriptographics' pamphlet on building your own fallout shelter for that peak 1957 experience!


Sure, most of you moved out of the big city, away from the pushcart vendors who'd come around every day to pick up your used cardboard and rags. But that doesn't mean you can't accumulate at least one hundred pounds of cast iron and zinc for your local junkyard! And don't think this is merely a 1957 thing, ask anyone who got through the last economic downturn by, let's say scavenging copper wire out of those half-built housing developments. Look, if they didn't want us to take it, they'd have put up a higher fence.


Calm down, uranium is perfectly safe as long as don't eat it, drink it, or inhale any particles of it. Just make sure your license is up to date! YES you need a license to own enriched uranium, you need a license to fish too, I don't see you complaining about THAT.


Here's some junk that can explode and kill you, or catch fire and kill you, or sublimate into lethal vapors and kill you, or, in the case of cement, can harden into blocks which can then fall on your head and kill you. My advice is to leave this stuff in the hardware store where it belongs.


Iodine? Cod liver oil? Milk Of Magnesia? You're darn tootin' I'm gonna beware of these medicines, no matter their age!


Are your household papers vital records, or just junk? Let me see... uh... um... sorry guys, I can't make fun of this right now, I need to go out and buy a fireproof box and talk to somebody at the bank about a safety deposit box.

Still gonna toss all those instruction manuals, though.


And remember, that attic or crawlspace or cellar or storage unit or third home crammed full of stuff might contain something valuable! Merely decide how many hours you're going to spend rooting through it all, and then divide the number of hours spent by the amount of profit you made trying to sell bits of it to strangers. Then compare that to what you'd make per hour working at the local McDonalds. It's fun!


Keep a particular eye out for small rectangular portraits of dead presidents. Those are worth $$$!!!


And if you can find some old stamped letters inside a toy bank resting on top of a hooked rug with gaudy colors - kaCHING!!


Listen, with the right gun you can get WAY more than $2,000. You just have to present it to the right people. You know, bank tellers, armored car drivers, etc.


Perhaps the last major usage of the secondary meaning of the word "truck" as "heterogeneous small articles often of little value," seen here in the title of Morgan Towne's seminal book, which was one of the primary encouragments for America's predilection for flea-market picking, dumpster-diving, thrift-store addiction, and hoarding in general. Because that little doodad might be worth something to somebody someday! Says so right here in the book!


FINALLY an instructional booklet that dares to ask "so what?" So THIS, Bell Of Nevada employees. Enjoy life more by cutting out clutter and junking the junk! Except for this pamphlet, don't throw this pamphlet away, save it so I can buy it from a junk dealer in sixty years and then convert the images into digital files, and make them available for the entire world to see via a global network of linked informational systems, full of... junk.

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