When The Wind Blows (comics) - Nuclear Preparation Critique

Nuclear Preparation Critique

The two pamphlets mentioned in When the Wind Blows are based on actual pamphlets. These sort of pamphlets go back as far as 1938, when the British government put out a leaflet titled The Protection of Your Home Against Air Raids. This was updated post-WWII into Advising the Householder on Protection against Nuclear Attack which was originally published in 1963, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the other was Protect and Survive which was published in 1980, shortly before Raymond Briggs began work on When the Wind Blows.

Many of James and Hilda’s preparations came directly from these pamphlets. Page 10 of Protect & Survive provided James with the directions for making the lean-to from doors to protect you from radiation. Page 14 of Advising the Householder demonstrates how whitewashing your windows will reduce fire damage by reflecting the heat from the nuclear blast. Page 16 of Protect & Survive illustrates the box of sand for washing dishes.

Briggs wasn’t the only one to criticize these pamphlets about preparation for nuclear war. One of the best-known critiques was E. P. Thompson’s anti-nuclear paper called Protest and Survive, playing off of the Protect and Survive series.

Criticisms like Protest and Survive point out the inadequacies of the preparation procedures posed by the pamphlet Protect and Survive. In contrast, through the comic format or graphic novel genre, Briggs is able to depict a more realistic account of the effects of nuclear attack on civilians like James and Hilda. In When the Wind Blows, James makes reference to the bombing of Hiroshima and uses his knowledge of that event to infer what could happen to him and Hilda and to make sense of his own experience before and after the nuclear attack. Unlike the nuclear preparation pamphlets, Briggs depictions of James and Hilda’s experience with radiation sickness actually align with real accounts.