Update: We’re offering a few items for sale in our shop:

Most likely, you will want to purchase a Steampunk version of the We Can Do It! poster. That has been made available in the shop; it’s a long story why I chose that over the Dieselpunk version, it’s a boring story and you don’t want to hear it.

But there are ALSO two shirts for sale. We call them the ‘f-bomb cancer’ shirts. Wear them and show the world what you think of cancer!

If we get a healthy enough response to these items, we’ll expand the selection in our store.

Proceeds from the poster go to help run the site. Proceeds from the shirts go to the American Cancer Society.

For the past month, Lauren Reeser and I (with some input from my friend and writing mentor, Jim Bricker) have been working on a tribute to an icon from World War 2. Mistakenly referred to as Rosie the Riveter (more on this in a moment), the “We Can Do It!” poster has become an enduring symbol of the United States’ mobilization of its workforce for the wartime effort – and specifically has stood as a shining example of woman’s rights, equality, and capabilities.

Lauren and I wanted to explore the “We Can Do It!” poster from a Steampunk and Dieselpunk angle for two reasons:

1. We wanted to re-imagine what it would have looked like in alternate realities – which is part of the allure of Steampunk and Dieselpunk.

2. As I’ve said on my blog, A Case of Do or Die is an exploration of my dealing with cancer. In September, just days before we launched the comic, I learned I had a new tumor. I went back and forth on what to do and nearly scrapped the comic altogether. Ultimately I decided to go ahead with the comic and, to that end, Lauren, Jim and I all felt that “We Can Do It!” spoke not only to the mustering of strength and will during the war effort, but it also spoke to my situation and my own personal war with cancer. And it’s the use of the plural ‘We’ that resounds most. *I* could do it all on my own, but with support from my friends, I can better handle the struggles associated with cancer. With the help of my artistic team, we can produce this comic. We. Can. Do it. And we shall. While I am taking a brief break from the comic to deal with my cancer, we’ll let Dieselpunk “We Can Do It!” stand as a place holder until the comic starts back up again on March 25th.

Geraldine Doyle, the unwitting model for the poster, died on Sunday, Dec. 26th. Lauren and I had wanted to release our re-imagined takes on this poster at the start of the New Year, but in light of Geraldine’s passing, we decided to share them a little bit earlier than originally planned. We had a lot of fun designing and producing these and we hope you enjoy them as much as we do. You can see both the Steampunk and Dieselpunk versions of this poster at the end of this entry.

The History of “We Can Do It!”:

Some may wonder why it is I refer to this as the “We Can Do It!” poster and not Rosie the Riveter:

As stated above, Geraldine Doyle unwittingly became the model for the “We Can Do It!” poster – which was done by illustrator J. Howard Miller. At the time of its release in February 1942, the term “Rosie the Riveter” was not in use. The poster was hardly known outside of the Midwest as it was displayed solely at Westinghouse factories – and even then only for two weeks (followed by another poster in Miller’s series). The We Can Do It! poster was rediscovered in the 1970s or 1980s and became the well known piece of Americana it is today.

The term Rosie the Riveter comes from a song of the same name (released later in 1942) by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb and is about an untiring factory worker  doing her part for the American war effort.

Norman Rockwell painted the definitive image of Rosie the Riveter, eating lunch with her riveting gun in her lap, her arms perched on her lunchbox (marked ‘Rosie’) and her loafered feet resting on a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Her pose is modeled after Michelangelo’s depiction of Isaiah in the fresco for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Later nest week, Jim Bricker and Lauren Reeser will share their thoughts on We Can Do It!

R.I.P. Ms. Doyle. And thank you to all the Rosies out there for both your hard work and for showing that women are as equally capable as men.

Our Steampunk and Dieselpunk renditions of We Can Do It!: