Re-Visualizing the Dangers of Smoking

In 2003, American poster companies airbrushed the Beatles’ iconic Abbey Road album. The reason? To remove Paul’s barely recognizable cigarette. While this was, perhaps, an overzealous move by anti-smoking campaigners, it reflects our society’s recognition that popular culture can promote smoking as a fun, cool lifestyle. Moreover, it reflects an “out-of-sight-out-of-mind” approach for combating the cigarette industry. This approach is often taken to prevent impressionable young adults from smoking. Last week I was pleasantly surprised to see another approach in a Daredevil comic I chanced upon at a book sale. Instead of hiding cigarettes, the artist confronts readers with them as a group of smokers are surrounded by fragments of Surgeon General’s Warnings found on cigarette cartons. Compared to the visuals throughout the rest of the issue, this panel also contains the greatest use of drab, grimy colors. Not a very pleasant picture. While confronting the public with the dangers of smoking instead of hiding them is not unique (indeed, the Surgeon General’s Warning is one example), using the Surgeon General’s Warnings as cigarette smoke and ashes promotes a visual literacy in readers. Whereas one may ignore the cigarette carton’s warning label as soon as she pockets the carton, specters of the warning remain, haunting the smokers. Thus, readers are invited to see the Surgeon General’s Warning as not merely a label to ignore as soon as it is out of sight, but intrinsically linked with smoking itself. In short, the warning is unavoidable.

Image from Daredevil: Wakeup, issue #16 (2002).