The history of comic books goes way back into the 1800s so, in order to keep my presentation from lasting as long as one of your lectures, I focused on a certain type of comic book: superheroes. During my presentation today, I’ll flip through the pages of the different ages of s.h comics, pause to look at the major ups and downs of the industry, and complete the comic book with a short financial and societal impact comic have left (well, still leaving.)
We’ll start off with the pre-superhero age, a time where things were much simpler and eating obscene amounts of spinach wasn’t just a health fad: the era of the “pulps.” Pulps were small, 10 cent books filled with characters that traveled the world and went on interesting adventures. The character
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Fredric Wertham, M.D.A distinguished psychologist who tried to get all comic books banned. He studied “delinquent” children and believed that the violent comic books were the cause of disobedient children. In 1948 he did an interview in Collier's Magazine titled "Horror in the Nursery.“ and attended a symposium in New York City called "The Psychopathology of Comic Books" And the public reactions were immediate. Within 2 years, all traces of a booming comic book business were gone. He wrote a book, called “The Seduction of the Innocent: the influence of comic books on today’s youth; in which he stated “I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry.” With the allied powers defeating Hitler once and for all, America had found a new enemy: Comic …show more content…
After Marvel’s failure, DC tried and succeeded. This was called the silver age: an age where many old comic book heroes were brought back and revamped. This went on for a while, and then, in 1958, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby joined the Marvel time. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created over 90% of the superheroes in the Marvel Comics Universe. The silver age also became known as the “Marvel Age”. Following the silver age, came the Bronze Age. In the Bronze Age, the CCA’s influence begins its decline as stories get a bit darker, dealing with real life situations. "Grim and gritty" comics were very popular, as they dealt with real life. The age after bronze is the age we’re in now, Modern. Grim and gritty "realism" continues. A short boom took place in the early 1990s but after, that there is a steady decline in sales. Once again, old heroes are revamped, this time to show more diversity, “Marvel Now!”, Marvel Ultimate, etc. The superhero genre now has more diversity than ever, with LGBT characters, people of color, and people of different faiths all
Inspired by the way comics were able to illustrate the events of WWII I decided to investigate to what extent did comic books influence American perceptions during World War II. Comics turned into an apparatus to exploit racial and social contrasts and outlet for wartime purposeful publicity. The Golden Age of Comic Books portrays a period of American comic books from the late 1930s to the mid 1950s. During this time, present day comic books were initially distributed and quickly expanded in notoriety. The superhero model was made and some surely understood characters were presented, for example, Superman, Batman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel.
Let’s discuss a little bit of comic book history for starters. The most iconic superhero in all of American comic book history has got to be Superman. He was created near the beginning of superhero comic books and debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938[1]. He would remain as the blueprint for many superheroes for years to come as the atypical white American male. But as the years go by there were comic book heroes that came out that go against this archetype such as Wonder
The insurrection of the Sub-Committee and subsequent Comic Codes gave many comic book producers the opportunity to reinvent their previously successful wartime superhero comics. Even with the Comic Codes they had the opportunity to reinvent the classic hero vs villain fight, as long as there was no blood. This is clearly evident with these comics, which shows that even though Codes were not in full effect, the superhero genre could still followed the Codes rhetoric before their implication. Rodger Sabin comments ‘it was a genre which stayed within the codes’. They did this to somewhat appease the Sub-Committee and the American public; since they feared what they could and could not put in the storylines. The Human Torch in his insert in Captain America #78 show him dominating communism, not only with his whit, but his strength, with him wiping out an army of communist, whilst also comically bending the Tanks cannon the reverse way. Comic writers used these superhero comics to show the American public, the industry was socially responsible, and concerned about American values. Not only this, they
Perceptions of the superhero and supervillain are mainly based on subjective definitions of each concept. These observations often lead to a definitive dichotomy that precisely splits characters into two impermeable divisions. However, this stringent separation is unable to account for the characters that are not at the extreme ends of their respective side. Neither is this rift capable of classifying characters that flirt with both sides of the superhero-supervillain dichotomy. Therefore it is imperative to analyze the established criteria for both superhero and supervillain to derive a more adequate explanation. Most superheroes are not easily characterized, but rather fall somewhere between Superman, the bastion of moral purity, and Doctor Doom, the display of indubitable corruption. This solicits genesis of an entirely new notion about the differences between superheroes and supervillains. A more precise idea is that superheroes and supervillains are lined on a spectrum that spans from pure good to pure evil. Disparities between superheroes and supervillains are not black and white, but rather these characters are on a spectrum that radically changes based on individual cases.
Superheroes have been around for at least 90 years. The first superhero comic book came out in 1933 about Superman. Since then, there have been tons of superheroes created and two of the most popular superhero “universes” have been made. These two “universes” are called Marvel and DC. Many people have different opinions on these two universes and it even begins in arguments and debates; however, Marvel is the better “universe” because they really took superheros to the next level. Marvel came out with more and more creative superheroes as the years went by. Marvels best superhero is the Incredible Hulk because of his changing ability, physical abilities, and work efficiency.
During those ages when we are just a little kid, we dreamt to be a superhero that could protect the world from being attacked or destroyed by enemies. We always worship to the superheroes that we liked when we watch the superheroes movies. Not only that, we also even act as them by using a scarf, tie on our necks and crazy around with our friends. Recently, I adored with two kinds of superhero movies after I watched them. Those movies are The Kick-Ass 2 and The X-Men 2 which mainly attract teenager’s attention nowadays when they plan to watch a movie. However, there are many differences between these two superheroes movie that we could see from their abilities, costume, and even their operation when they fight criminal.
In 1941, Stan Lee, the creator of the Marvel universe, released his firs comic book about the patriotic hero Captain America. This comic was released during World War 2 to give the Americans a sense of hope and to let people know that we’re not alone. Marvel does a good job with its comics because they want to show you that even when times get tough, as long as you have hope things will get better. A good example of this would be Spiderman. When his Uncle Ben died, his last words to Peter were, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Spiderman goes on to
Klock, Geoff. "The Bat and the Watchmen: Introducing the Revisionary Superhero Narrative." How to read superhero comics and why. New York: Continuum, 2002. 25-26. Print.
II. Claim: Today’s superheroes emphasize competition, domination, and possession of wealth (WebMD Health News, 2010) and appealing physical appearances (Student Pulse, 2010).
Comic books have been used in a number of ways. Besides as an entertainment source they also have been a way to introduce children to reading. This is proved true by the annual event held nationwide called “free comic book day”, which held on the first Saturday of May. With their well-drawn pictures and colorful characters, comic books have been successful in that area. Howev...
The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with an insight into the Super Hero Series Batman. This crime fighter originally appeared in Detective Comics issue #27 in 1939. It later became a comic book series, a TV series and a movie series. The character Batman is second only to Superman as a Super Hero. Amazingly Batman has no super powers, but he does have a lot of neat crime fighting gadgets. In this paper, we will explore the creation of Batman, his supporting cast of characters both good and bad and the gadgets he used.
Alan Moore successfully breaks down the effectiveness of superheroes portrayed in your average comic book with his use of Dr.Manhattan:Super-powers and the superpowers inside his graphic novel Watchmen. Dr.Manhattan is made out to be less than divine. The American’s “placing our superhuman benefactor in the position of a walking nuclear deterrent”(Dr.Manhattan:Super-powers and the superpowers.II), depicting him as the Vitruvian Man and having a God present among mere mortals all lead to Moore being able to break down the common conceptions about superheroes.
“The Golden Age of Comics” PBS. PBS, 2011 Web. Retrieved on February 11 2014 from http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/the-golden-age-of-comics/
When one thinks about it, though it may be hard to believe, superheroes stem from God. This began as early back as Greek gods, then leading to Jesus. Jesus was a seemingly normal man who helped everyone, and led people. He was the ultimate superhero of his time. Once he was gone and became no more than a story passed down from father to son, people began to crave what was new, what was ‘in the now.’ That is when tales of knight...
Wright, Bradford W.. "Origins of The Comic Book Industry." In Comic Book Nation: the transformation of youth culture in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. 4.