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Comic Books and America, 1945-1954
First edition bound in yellow cloth. B&W illustrations. A Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket.
- GenresHistoryComicsNonfiction
168 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 26, 2014
This 1990 book covers the same period as David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague but, other than one chapter devoted to Dr. Wertham’s crusade, the focus of the book is very different. Professor Savage (great name for a comic book character) has read hundreds of comic book stories from the period, analyzing what the stories say about popular attitudes toward political and social concerns of the time. While no one would be surprised on his findings concerning women and racial minorities, there are two chapters in which I found information that was totally new to me.
In his chapter “The Bomb”, Savage describes stories in which WWIII has been launched and an ongoing atomic war between the US and its allies and the forces of Communism is fought in various locations around the world. Savage includes five complete comic book stories (reproduced in black and white from color originals) illustrating his observations and “The Bomb” chapter ends with “Assault on Target UR-238”, from Atom-Age Combat 1, in which so much atomic fuel has been expended in hostilities that a battle is being fought in an African jungle for control of a source of uranium. Rifles fire “atomic bullets” and mortars launch “atomic rockets” which seem to display little increase in carnage over their conventional predecessors. After the Russian commander has his neck broken by a gorilla, the uranium is secured and the story ends with an allied colonel saying, “At last we’re starting to win this war!” The novelty here for me was that there was a time in popular culture when nuclear war was shown not as an instant worldwide reversion to savagery and subsistence but as basically a replay of WWII with slightly different alignments and more advanced weaponry.
I thought that Viet Nam was the first war fought by the US in which the brutality and futility of the conflict were openly expressed in some parts of the mass culture. The chapter on “Korea” shows that this was also true of the Korean conflict as shown in comic books. I had seen some pretty grim war stories reproduced from EC comics of the time, but these were often presented in the context of demonstrating the cutting edge ideas of that particular publisher. Savage shows that a despairing outlook toward the Korean War was not limited to a single publisher. The story appended to this chapter, “The Slaughter on Suicide Hill” from Battlefield 1, takes place entirely in the rain (no benevolent nature with Commie crushing gorillas here) as a company of Marines advances into battle only to find death and madness; the story ends with the same drawings as it opened: a group of soldiers marching through the mud to the front as replacements move up into the position where the previous deployment was slaughtered.
Savage analyzes the very different attitudes toward war shown by these stories explaining that the contemporary conflict in Korea was impossible to fit into any narrative pattern other than that which the audience would know about from daily news reports, whereas fantasy wars or the activities of US secret agents, being clandestine and unpublicized, could serve as a vehicle for portraying unqualified victories.
In his chapter “The Bomb”, Savage describes stories in which WWIII has been launched and an ongoing atomic war between the US and its allies and the forces of Communism is fought in various locations around the world. Savage includes five complete comic book stories (reproduced in black and white from color originals) illustrating his observations and “The Bomb” chapter ends with “Assault on Target UR-238”, from Atom-Age Combat 1, in which so much atomic fuel has been expended in hostilities that a battle is being fought in an African jungle for control of a source of uranium. Rifles fire “atomic bullets” and mortars launch “atomic rockets” which seem to display little increase in carnage over their conventional predecessors. After the Russian commander has his neck broken by a gorilla, the uranium is secured and the story ends with an allied colonel saying, “At last we’re starting to win this war!” The novelty here for me was that there was a time in popular culture when nuclear war was shown not as an instant worldwide reversion to savagery and subsistence but as basically a replay of WWII with slightly different alignments and more advanced weaponry.
I thought that Viet Nam was the first war fought by the US in which the brutality and futility of the conflict were openly expressed in some parts of the mass culture. The chapter on “Korea” shows that this was also true of the Korean conflict as shown in comic books. I had seen some pretty grim war stories reproduced from EC comics of the time, but these were often presented in the context of demonstrating the cutting edge ideas of that particular publisher. Savage shows that a despairing outlook toward the Korean War was not limited to a single publisher. The story appended to this chapter, “The Slaughter on Suicide Hill” from Battlefield 1, takes place entirely in the rain (no benevolent nature with Commie crushing gorillas here) as a company of Marines advances into battle only to find death and madness; the story ends with the same drawings as it opened: a group of soldiers marching through the mud to the front as replacements move up into the position where the previous deployment was slaughtered.
Savage analyzes the very different attitudes toward war shown by these stories explaining that the contemporary conflict in Korea was impossible to fit into any narrative pattern other than that which the audience would know about from daily news reports, whereas fantasy wars or the activities of US secret agents, being clandestine and unpublicized, could serve as a vehicle for portraying unqualified victories.
March 14, 2013
Read this for a Cold War-themed book club that I didn't actually get to go to, but it was still an enjoyable read. The author looks at the transition of comic book characters and themes from the end of WWII through the first decade of the Cold War. A little dry in places, but definitely interesting to see how art and media mirror reality.
June 18, 2023
A bit dry but interesting reading,and historic comics you rarely see anywhere else.
August 6, 2016
A light and surface level discussion of comics in the immediate postwar period.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews