Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 68 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Feb. 25, 1958. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Feb. 18, 1962. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are the comics that went on sale between Feb. 22 and Feb. 28.) So, let’s set the scene: Y’know what never occurred to me? That the peace symbol would have an origin story. I mean, everything has an origin story, but for me, the peace symbol has always been there, like letters in the alphabet. It was everywhere when I was a kid in the early ’70s and, while not quite as ubiquitous as it once was, it has become ingrained in the political and cultural firmament. I guess I figured that it was something adopted by hippies that was somehow based in New Age mysticism. But no, as it happens, it was created by a British designer and unveiled Feb. 21, 1958, to the organizers of a march protesting nuclear weapons well before the Flower Power, movement took root. Artist Gerald Holtom, a conscientious objector in World War II, had been hired to devise a symbol for the April march (pictured at top) from London to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment facility in Aldermaston, Berkshire. Holtom superimposed the semaphore gestures for the letters “N” and “D” — representing “Nuclear Disarmament” — and placed them in a circle. If you notice, the lines are flared at the ends. That’s because Holtom was also inspired by Goya’s 1814 painting The Third of May 1808: “I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing into a line and put a circle around it,” Holtom once wrote to the editor of Peace News. The symbol was later streamlined, with the flares removed, becoming the more familiar version we know today. The top movie in the United States was Billy Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution, starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton. Other major films included A Farewell to Arms, Peyton Place,...