Hey, want to read several thousand Everett True comics? Look here: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?date1=1777&rows=50&searchType=basic&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=Outbursts+of+Everett+True&y=13&x=19&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1&sort=date
Pick one and post!
I doubt that symbol had any meaning back then. The artist probably just thought it looked nice.
The Iron Cross was an old Prussian symbol before the nazis adopted it, used as a military award. It still was used in military contexts for quite a few years after the war, IIRC, the finns stopped putting it on their planes in like 2016.
It would probably have been known in 1919, WWI and all.
But this isn't that, this is just an X
Yep. TIL the Iron Cross is called a "Cross pattée" (or French for "footed cross" bc it widens into feet, see?) and is still used in several national and local coats of arms. After WW1 the German Wehrmacht used the "Balkenkeruz" ("bar cross") until the end of WW2. But in this cartoon it's just an "x marks the spot" character, like on a treasure map.