Shortly after 9/11, a handheld electronic game appeared called Laden VS USA. A knockoff of Submarine Battle, a Casio game from 1983, it gave players “Ages 5 and Up” the chance to gun down jets before they reached the Twin Towers, with the primitive gameplay taking place atop an actual 9/11 photograph.
Popular with children in Pakistan in the early 2000s, it’s one of the many pieces of strange ephemera collated in Never Forget: Souvenirs from the Gulf War & The War on Terror, soon to be published by the independent imprint Lock Books.
“The book features hundreds of commemorative pieces from these two eras,” says Lock Books founder Mike McCabe. “It explores the strange afterlives of conflict—how trauma, pride, grief, and myth become tangible through souvenirs.” Drawn from the archive of an anonymous collector known only as WMD, these items include Saddam Hussein dartboards and George W. Bush toilet brushes.
McCabe started working as a graphic designer in London around 2010. “As the industry began to decline, I freelanced less and initiated design projects of my own as a side hustle—mostly bootleg T-shirts,” says McCabe. “While working on shirt graphics, I was constantly searching for quality reference books as an antidote to the repetitive visual loop of sites like Pinterest and Tumblr.”
In March of last year, he established Lock Books as an online store and publisher to serve as precisely that visual cure. “I began by making a list of publishers and titles I enjoyed from my personal library and started reaching out to stock them,” says McCabe. “I’m intentional about every book I stock—a tight edit of must-haves, rather than an overstuffed catalogue.”
Highlights include Masks of Crime, by artist Penny Van Hazelberg, an assemblage of real CCTV stills featuring criminals mid-robbery concealing their identity with Halloween masks. “There’s something extremely unsettling about seeing someone brandishing a shotgun whilst wearing a Snow White mask,” says McCabe.
Or there’s Saddam Hussein Watches, by the great British photographer Martin Parr, comprising his collection of watches featuring the late dictator’s image. One of McCabe’s favorite stocked publishers is France’s Masala Noir, which puts out hyper-niche single-subject graphic books, such as Movie Posters from Iran and BDSM Magazines from Japan.
In a short period of time under the Lock Books imprint, McCabe has diligently thrown his hat in the ring to preserve and highlight the beauty of ephemeral culture. Recently released in a new, expanded edition, his A Compendium of Print Advertising from The Simpsons collects exactly that. “A few years ago, I came across scans of old U.S. TV Guide ads for The Simpsons and was struck by how special they were—each one featured bespoke artwork,” says McCabe.
“Growing up in the U.K., I’d never seen these before, and because they were printed only once weekly in TV Guide, their scarcity compelled me to track down as many as I could.” The compilation book has been a big hit with The Simpsons’ community, but fulfilling the order of one particular customer was especially thrilling. “Matt Groening himself [purchased] a copy, which was mind-blowing.”
Spike Carter is a writer and filmmaker
