Comic Books and the Cold War, 1946-1962

Comic Books and the Cold War, 1946-1962 PDF Author: Chris York
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786489472
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Conventional wisdom holds that comic books of the post-World War II era are poorly drawn and poorly written publications, notable only for the furor they raised. Contributors to this thoughtful collection, however, demonstrate that these comics constitute complex cultural documents that create a dialogue between mainstream values and alternative beliefs that question or complicate the grand narratives of the era. Close analysis of individual titles, including EC comics, Superman, romance comics, and other, more obscure works, reveals the ways Cold War culture--from atomic anxieties and the nuclear family to communist hysteria and social inequalities--manifests itself in the comic books of the era. By illuminating the complexities of mid-century graphic novels, this study demonstrates that postwar popular culture was far from monolithic in its representation of American values and beliefs.

Comic Books and the Cold War, 1946-1962

Comic Books and the Cold War, 1946-1962 PDF Author: Chris York
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786489472
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Conventional wisdom holds that comic books of the post-World War II era are poorly drawn and poorly written publications, notable only for the furor they raised. Contributors to this thoughtful collection, however, demonstrate that these comics constitute complex cultural documents that create a dialogue between mainstream values and alternative beliefs that question or complicate the grand narratives of the era. Close analysis of individual titles, including EC comics, Superman, romance comics, and other, more obscure works, reveals the ways Cold War culture--from atomic anxieties and the nuclear family to communist hysteria and social inequalities--manifests itself in the comic books of the era. By illuminating the complexities of mid-century graphic novels, this study demonstrates that postwar popular culture was far from monolithic in its representation of American values and beliefs.

Comics as a Nexus of Cultures

Comics as a Nexus of Cultures PDF Author: Mark Berninger
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 078645587X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
These essays from various critical disciplines examine how comic books and graphic narratives move between various media, while merging youth and adult cultures and popular and high art. The articles feature international perspectives on comics and graphic novels published in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Portugal, Germany, Turkey, India, and Japan. Topics range from film adaptation, to journalism in comics, to the current manga boom.

Redrawing the Western

Redrawing the Western PDF Author: William Grady
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477329986
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
"As the Western began to flourish in literature, it also began to appear in illustrations and early comic strips of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. William Grady charts the history of the genre in comic strips and books from its origins in this period through its mid-century heyday to its gradual decline in the 60s and 70s, ending with a brief look at the current "afterlife" of Western comics over the last few decades. In doing so, he also argues for the importance of comics in the development of the Western alongside both literature and film/television. He explains how the mythic-historical settings of Western comics allowed the young readers at whom they were aimed to explore different aspects of their contemporary society, wrestle with taboo topics, and envision different futures for the US. Grady begins by exploring the origins of the Western genre in the late 19th century and shows the importance of illustrated narratives and cartoons in helping readers visualize the West, thus establishing much of its iconic imagery of frontier life, including racist stereotypes of Indigenous Peoples. He moves forward in time to show how the West became mythologized and fantastic elements were introduced into the real landscape in comic strips such as Gasoline Alley and Krazy Kat, until the Great Depression, where strips emphasized the escapist adventures of the West in Red Ryder, Lone Ranger, and others. The postwar Western spread into comic books and was used alternately as positive and negative commentaries on the Cold War and America's place in the world, but in the era of Vietnam and Watergate, Western comics portrayed darker reflections of American culture and history and eventually more or less died out. Despite the genre's apparent demise, Grady ends by examining its ongoing influence over the last decades as its tropes are used to interrogate and subvert the idea of the mythic West and explore diverse perspectives on the genre"--

Little Cold Warriors

Little Cold Warriors PDF Author: Victoria M. Grieve
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190675691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Both conservative and liberal Baby Boomers have romanticized the 1950s as an age of innocence--of pickup ball games and Howdy Doody, when mom stayed home and the economy boomed. These nostalgic narratives obscure many other histories of postwar childhood, one of which has more in common with the war years and the sixties, when children were mobilized and politicized by the U.S. government, private corporations, and individual adults to fight the Cold War both at home and abroad. Children battled communism in its various guises on television, the movies, and comic books; they practiced safety drills, joined civil preparedness groups, and helped to build and stock bomb shelters in the backyard. Children collected coins for UNICEF, exchanged art with other children around the world, prepared for nuclear war through the Boy and Girl Scouts, raised funds for Radio Free Europe, sent clothing to refugee children, and donated books to restock the diminished library shelves of war-torn Europe. Rather than rationing and saving, American children were encouraged to spend and consume in order to maintain the engine of American prosperity. In these capacities, American children functioned as ambassadors, cultural diplomats, and representatives of the United States. Victoria M. Grieve examines this politicized childhood at the peak of the Cold War, and the many ways children and ideas about childhood were pressed into political service. Little Cold Warriors combines approaches from childhood studies and diplomatic history to understand the cultural Cold War through the activities and experiences of young Americans.

Korean War Comic Books

Korean War Comic Books PDF Author: Leonard Rifas
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786443960
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Comic books have presented fictional and fact-based stories of the Korean War, as it was being fought and afterward. Comparing these comics with events that inspired them offers a deeper understanding of the comics industry, America's "forgotten war," and the anti-comics movement, championed by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who criticized their brutalization of the imagination. Comics--both newsstand offerings and government propaganda--used fictions to justify the unpopular war as necessary and moral. This book examines the dramatization of events and issues, including the war's origins, germ warfare, brainwashing, Cold War espionage, the nuclear threat, African Americans in the military, mistreatment of POWs, and atrocities.

James Bond's Socialist Rivals

James Bond's Socialist Rivals PDF Author: TARIK CYRIL AMAR
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190916281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
James Bond's Socialist Rivals focuses on blockbuster television series in the former Soviet bloc of the Cold War to recover a world of spy fiction entertainment that was both hugely popular and of great and deliberate political importance for the Communist regimes.

Beyond MAUS

Beyond MAUS PDF Author: Ole Frahm
Publisher: Böhlau Wien
ISBN: 3205210662
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
Beyond MAUS. The Legacy of Holocaust Comics collects 16 contributions that shed new light on the representation of the Holocaust. While MAUS by Art Spiegelman has changed the perspectives, other comics and series of drawings, some produced while the Holocaust happened, are often not recognised by a wider public. A plethora of works still waits to be discovered, like early caricatures and comics referring to the extermination of the Jews, graphic series by survivors or horror stories from 1950s comic books. The volume provides overviews about the depictions of Jews as animals, the representation of prisoner societies in comics as well as in depth studies about distorted traces of the Holocaust in Hergé's Tintin and in Spirou, the Holocaust in Mangas, and Holocaust comics in Poland and Israel, recent graphic novels and the use of these comics in schools. With contributions from different disciplines, the volume also grants new perspectives on comic scholarship.

Four-Color Communism

Four-Color Communism PDF Author: Sean Eedy
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800730012
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
As with all other forms of popular culture, comics in East Germany were tightly controlled by the state. Comics were employed as extensions of the regime’s educational system, delivering official ideology so as to develop the “socialist personality” of young people and generate enthusiasm for state socialism. The East German children who avidly read these comics, however, found their own meanings in and projected their own desires upon them. Four-Color Communism gives a lively account of East German comics from both perspectives, showing how the perceived freedoms they embodied created expectations that ultimately limited the regime’s efforts to bring readers into the fold.

The 10 Cent War

The 10 Cent War PDF Author: Trischa Goodnow
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496810317
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Contributions by Derek T. Buescher, Travis L. Cox, Trischa Goodnow, Jon Judy, John R. Katsion, James J. Kimble, Christina M. Knopf, Steven E. Martin, Brad Palmer, Elliott Sawyer, Deborah Clark Vance, David E. Wilt, and Zou Yizheng One of the most overlooked aspects of the Allied war effort involved a surprising initiative--comic book propaganda. Even before Pearl Harbor, the comic book industry enlisted its formidable army of artists, writers, and editors to dramatize the conflict for readers of every age and interest. Comic book superheroes and everyday characters modeled positive behaviors and encouraged readers to keep scrapping. Ultimately, those characters proved to be persuasive icons in the war's most colorful and indelible propaganda campaign. The 10 Cent War presents a riveting analysis of how different types of comic books and comic book characters supplied reasons and means to support the war. The contributors demonstrate that, free of government control, these appeals produced this overall imperative. The book discusses the role of such major characters as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Uncle Sam along with a host of such minor characters as kid gangs and superhero sidekicks. It even considers novelty and small presses, providing a well-rounded look at the many ways that comic books served as popular propaganda.

Comics as History, Comics as Literature

Comics as History, Comics as Literature PDF Author: Annessa Ann Babic
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611475570
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This anthology hosts a collection of essays examining the role of comics as portals for historical and academic content, while keeping the approach on an international market versus the American one. Few resources currently exist showing the cross-disciplinary aspects of comics. Some of the chapters examine the use of Wonder Woman during World War II, the development and culture of French comics, and theories of Locke and Hobbs in regards to the state of nature and the bonds of community. More so, the continual use of comics for the retelling of classic tales and current events demonstrates that the genre has long passed the phase of for children’s eyes only. Additionally, this anthology also weaves graphic novels into the dialogue with comics.