Friday, August 03, 2007

1958 Singapore Planned Parenthood Comic

In 1958, the Ministry of Health in Singapore produced an 8 paged planned parenthood comic book about birth control called "Escape From Fear".

What's so weird about this is that it is almost identical to a version released in 1956 by the Americans.

Here's the back page of the Singapore version:

Singapore version

Now compare it to this US version:

US version

Different names, a change of skin colour and redrawn heads! Check out the front cover of the Singapore version and the American cover. Spooky! You can read the entire comic (US version) here.

12 comments:

pinto said...

Hahaha! Maybe there is some Worldwide Planned Parenthood Association.

Or did MOH... ignore copyright? *gasp*

(Some would say that is worse than not doing family planning.)

Anonymous said...

Uncanny... Its really creepy. But the artwork's pretty well copied / adapted considering...

pinto said...

You know, the more I look at this, the more the comic character looks like a certain Harry Lee.

He wears all white too!

Anonymous said...

Ha ha! He does look a bit like Harry/

Anonymous said...

MOH saw the comic and thought it was a good idea to have it here so they approached the US authorities for the rights.

Of course they had to get someone to make some changes to it (the redrawn heads, etc) to make it suitable for our population.

Anonymous said...

Make more babies people!!!!

Anonymous said...

Someone should show this to the Chinese authorities since they have a problem with population control. I like to see a Chinese version of this comic.

Anonymous said...

interesting! i'm sure that nowadays a similar copying still occurs with TV-shows to educate the population - and localise it.

Anonymous said...

Comic was published in 1958. PAP only came to power in 1959. Don't understand why PAP and LKY are being slammed for the comic in view of this ?

Anonymous said...

It'd be nice if there was a S'pore version of the US Planned Parenthood - the US organisation EDUCATES kids about contraception options, not abstinence, WITHOUT JUDGING.

Like I said, would be nice... ;)

Anonymous said...

erm .. so what if its copied ... so what if its propaganda?

Anonymous said...

The Singapore Planned Parenthood Association is an NGO that was formed in 1949. From their website:

Formerly known as the Family Planning Association of Singapore, the Singapore Planned Parenthood Association (SPPA) was formed in 1949. The Association was one of the founder members of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) that was formed in 1952, an international body which supports programmes of member associations in the world. In the early years, the Association spearheaded for the wide acceptance of family planning. It was instrumental in helping to persuade the government to adopt an official population policy in 1966.

http://www.sppa.org.sg/about.html

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