The last week of October, in addition to leading up to Halloween celebrations, is National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week (NLPPW). The theme for 2026, “Keep Kids Safe from Lead,” provides an opportunity for us to remind ourselves of three important messages, outlined on the NLPPW website as follows:

• Get the Facts: Learn about lead hazards in your environment.
• Get Your Child Tested: Ensure early detection through a blood lead test.
• Get Your Home Tested: Identify and address potential lead sources.

The vintage 1973 government comic book The Flake and His Secret Plan was created specifically to educate children and their parents about the dangers of being poisoned by lead paint in the home. Its message is conveyed through a creepy horror story that serves equally well as entertainment for the Halloween season.

Historical Background

After WWII, millions of Americans migrated from smaller towns and farms to the larger cities. As those cities grew, the more affluent citizens moved to new houses in the suburbs, while the older houses in the “inner city” became occupied by less affluent inhabitants  who often could not afford to repair or maintain the crumbling old houses they had moved into. 

Although the dangers of lead-based paint, especially on young children, had been known for decades, propaganda from the lead industry and apathy from wealthier citizens who saw the dangers as a “poor person’s” problem conspired to prevent meaningful action.  

A series of civil rights and public safety demonstrations in the 1950s and ‘60s eventually culminated in the 1970s in a series of landmark federal statutes and regulations supported by public awareness materials such as this comic book.

For instance, in 1970, Congress passed—and Richard Nixon signed—the Lead Based Poisoning Prevention Act (Public Law 91-695), which prohibited lead based paint in residential structures built, owned, rehabilitated, or subsidized by the federal government.

A 1972 FDA regulation (37 FR 5229 (March 11, 1972)) forbade more than ½ of one percent lead in paint after January 1, 1973. (The lead-based paint that already coated countless walls of existing homes, often in multiple layers, was not affected by this regulation.)

By 1973, most cases of poisoning of children were being found in older houses in larger cities. As was pointed out in “An Update on Childhood Lead Poisoning,” published many years later in 2017,

“Infants and children are at higher risk than adults for lead exposure due to their smaller size and proportionately larger dose of ingested toxins, their proximity to ground dirt and indoor dust, their energy and curiosity, their oral exploratory and pica behaviors, their proportionately larger daily water and milk intake, and dietary preferences that differ markedly from those of adults.”

1973 proved to be a crucial moment in the history of lead-poisoning awareness. In addition to The Flake and His Secret Plan, created to educate children about the dangers of eating lead-based paint, a companion volume entitled Lead Paint Poisoning in Children: A Problem in Your Community? provided the parents with more detailed information on the subject.

The Style

This comic book exhibits many characteristics of the design styles popular in its era, and its story makes creative use of common horror movie tropes, sometimes following them and sometimes subverting audience expectations. Unfortunately, as is typical of so many government publications, neither the personal author nor the illustrator of this comic is credited. 

The illustrations are drawn in a loose, informal style that emphasizes the imperfections of human free-hand draftsmanship rather than the more precise draftsmanship that requires rulers and other mechanical aids. An impressive variety of border styles are used, from full borders (always loosely hand-drawn), to partial borders, to no borders at all.

The visual style of this early 1970s children’s comic recalls the Push Pin style of illustrators Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser—sinuous, Art Nouveau–esque contour lines depict hair, cross-hatching and stippling depict shadows, and decorative geometric textures recall the Art Deco style. The images are depicted in line drawings with flat accents of black, gray, and yellow ink. (The color is significant: before it was outlawed in the late 1970s, the yellow ink used in comic books and glossy magazines frequently contained large amounts of lead. There has even been a rumor alleging that the yellow ink in The Flake and His Secret Plan might itself contain lead!)    

As a nod to the style of comic book covers, a theatrical, 3-D style display typeface is used for referring to the Flake on the cover page and when that character is introduced, but otherwise a more utilitarian, sans-serif typeface forms a stark contrast to the ornate, hand-drawn illustrations. This is most likely to make sure that the text is accessible to children and others who might have less developed reading skills.

The Story

The story follows a conventional narrative structure that is simple enough for a child to follow. It also incorporates a few familiar tropes from popular monster movies to add to the creepiness of the plot.

Exposition

The setting is “an old building, somewhere downtown.” Lead paint poisoning could happen anywhere, but it was especially common in old buildings and in less-affluent neighborhoods (“the slums”). The exaggerated perspective and odd architecture create an unsettling, dreamlike atmosphere typical of many horror movies. There appears to be either an open door or a passage leading into a hallway located incongruously next to an exterior window. The shape and color of the architectural feature at the right also suggests a guillotine, contributing to the general feeling of dread. We never see the exterior of the old house, but it may have looked something like the cover illustration of Lead Paint Poisoning in Children: A Problem in Your Community?, the companion publication to The Flake and His Secret Plan.

“A little girl played alone in her room.” Children were especially susceptible to lead-poisoning because of their proximity to the floor, their oral behaviors and insatiable curiosity leading to a tendency to chew on paint chips (a condition known as pica), and their smaller size, which makes them more susceptible to toxic substances.

Inciting Incident

Flake, the story’s monster, is introduced as a section of crumbling paint on the wall of Sarah’s room. The Flake is an example of pareidolia; that is, perceiving faces in everyday objects. It is the sort of phenomenon that might lead to a feeling that a house is “haunted.” Ironically, the family living in this house seem unable to see the monster that is right in front of their faces.

The Flake’s initial statement of intentions emphasizes the creature’s callous cruelty, a typical characteristic of a horror-story villain. The cruelty is even more horrific for being directed toward children and for not being justified in any way: “Kids! Yech! Here’s my plan to get rid of them.”

Flake hatches a secret plan to get rid of the children by flaking lead paint off the wall and tempting Sarah to eat it—the paint chips resemble soda crackers, have a sweet taste, and attract the child’s natural sense of curiosity.

The Flake’s secret plan works like a charm, as Sarah eats the paint, falls ill, and her face grows ashen.

Complication

One day Sarah’s big brother Roger hears a PSA on the radio warning listeners about lead paint. Roger is the main character opposed to the Flake’s evil machinations, and he functions as a sort of avatar for the reader.

Hearing the voice on the radio urging listeners to check on their siblings, Roger discovers to his horror that his sister is sitting in that barren room, leaning against the crumbling wall and nibbling on lead paint chips. There is nothing in the room except Sarah, the crumbling paint, and her creepy button-eyed doll splayed out on the floor.

The dream-like atmosphere is enhanced by a disorienting inconsistency in the limited color scheme: Roger’s shirt switches from yellow to white, and the background switches from white to yellow. The radio also switches from a white face with a yellow grille to a yellow face with a gray grille.

Climax

Roger relates the news to his mother, who takes Sarah to the doctor. The mother is never named, perhaps because this is written from a child’s perspective, and most children don’t refer to their parents by their names. She is also only seen from behind, adding to the anonymity and odd blankness of her character. This is perhaps meant to keep the focus on the children, a technique somewhat analogous to how the Peanuts cartoons keep the adults offstage. 

The portrayal of the doctor subverts the standard trope of the plot being stalled by a rudely incompetent or useless authority figure, for this doctor is an expert and very kind toward the entire family. He is also the only adult shown in full face. The doctor explains that Sarah is very ill, but he can make her well—this time. His explanation of Sarah’s illness, how he tested for it, and how he intends to cure her is largely glossed over. In many cases, children who managed to survive lead poisoning were left with one or more often incurable handicaps. Perhaps such medical explanations were considered too technical for young children, or perhaps it would have taken too much space to explain. The emphasis of this story for children is on awareness of the danger and on how to avoid getting sick in the first place.   

The doctor instructs Sarah’s mother to brush the paint chips off the wall and sweep them up off the floors. The mother scrubbing the paint chips from the wall with a wire brush resembles brushing teeth with a toothbrush, and her groovy, flower-power outfit helps establish the era and the style.

Denouement

The Flake is eliminated from this house, but like a typical horror story villain, it is still around, not quite dead. There is a hint that he might even be in your own house!

The final image is an unsettling portrayal of a seemingly normal suburban neighborhood of relatively modern houses, shrubs, trees, and fluffy clouds (presumably your own neighborhood, not the older location where the main story takes place), but on closer observation we can see that there is not a single human being or animal in sight on the street or in any of the houses. Is everyone dead? Is this a hint of things to come? Is this a trope of the suburban Ghost City, or does everyone just happen to be at work today?

Epilogue

The story ends by enlisting the child reader in the fight against the evil Flake by encouraging readers to tell their parents about what they have learned regarding lead poisoning. Like many government comics, this one includes a one-page “poster” summarizing the basic concepts on the back cover.

Would You Like to Know More?

Explore more government comics and other government publications at Sycamore Library.

Browse our UNT Government Comics Subject Guide.

View our digitized government comics in the UNT Libraries Digital Library.

Resources

Hauptman, Marissa, Rebecca Bruccoleri, and Alan D. Woolf. “An Update on Childhood Lead Poisoning.” Clinical Pediatric Emergency Medicine 18, no. 3 (2017): 181–92. Accessed October 24, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpem.2017.07.010.

Mizelle, Richard. “This Lead Is Killing Us: A History of Citizens Fighting Lead Poisoning in Their Communities.” Online exhibit. National Library of Medicine. Accessed October 28, 2026.  https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/thisleadiskillingus/index.html

“National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week (NLPPW).” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, September 15, 2026. Accessed October 22, 2026. https://www.cdc.gov/lead-prevention/php/nlppw/index.html

U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Health Services and Mental Health Administration, Bureau of Community Environmental Management. The Flake and His Secret Plan. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, [1973]. DHEW Publication No. (HSM) 73-10008. Accessed October 25, 2026. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101552129-bk

U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Health Services and Mental Health Administration, Bureau of Community Environmental Management. Lead Paint Poisoning in Children: A Problem in Your Community? [Rockville, MD: The Department, 1973.] DHEW Publication No. (HSM) 73-10011. Accessed October 25, 2026. http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101552288

U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, Bureau of Community Services. Lead Poisoning in Children. By Jane S. Lin-Fu. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. DHEW Publication No. (HSA) 78-5142. Accessed October 28, 2026. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.a0007740038

Article by Bobby Griffith.