The Extensive History of American Comics


american comics
A Date
by Jeremy Dauber

There should be a Superduperman for every Superman. In 1953, 15 years after Man of Steel’s first high-rise jump, Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood satirized the protagonist for the fourth issue of a new humor comic – giving him his alter-ego, Clark Bent, who worked for the Daily Dirt newspaper. called crazy. Superduperman was “a product of the neuroses of the ’50s,” writes Jeremy Dauber in “American Comics,” a fun and richly detailed new comic book history. “As Superduperman suggests, comics have sex and capital behind them, not virtue or grand ideals. … But Mad elevated such parody to a way of life.”

Dauber, who teaches a lecture on graphic novels at Columbia University, wrote a scholarly survey that was both opinionated and often humorous, as in the previous “Jewish Comedy: A Serious History.” It all starts with 19th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast, who popularized Santa and Uncle Sam on the way to install his “Tammany Tiger” to overthrow Boss Tweed’s political machine. From there, Dauber traces the newspaper comics boom of the turn of the century, the emergence of comics, underground comics, fan culture, and finally, graphic novels and web comics.

The book becomes most entertaining when Dauber uncovers what Greil Marcus calls the “lipstick traces” of history that illuminate the hidden sources of modern culture. He traces the influence of both Jewish and hot rod magazines on underground comics and finds unexpected early examples of autobiographical work about Japanese immigrant students, including the 1931 “Four Students Comics.” Despite the title of his book, Dauber also pays close attention to non-American traditions such as the French and Belgian. band dessinee and especially the extraordinarily popular genre of Japanese manga that will continue to influence American artists from Frank Miller to Art Spiegelman. (In the 1970s, Spiegelman read Keiji Nakazawa’s stunning manga series “Barefoot Gen” about the atomic bombing of Nakazawa’s hometown of Hiroshima; in 1980 Spiegelman drew the line with the landmark “Maus,” which explores historical trauma through a similarly intimate changed the history of the novel. autobiography.)

Dauber is particularly nuanced in tackling the many controversies that have plagued comics in the past and present, from debates over comics codes and depictions of gender and violence, to questions of diversity, representation, and authority. He describes the “original sin” of comics as publishers’ failure to give creators proper credit, compensation, and rights for their work. From there, it digs deep into the comic book economy, starting with the $130 that was once paid to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for Superman, and descending into the current multi-platform, multi-billion dollar industry. There is no shortage of bitter ironies in this part of the story: “In something that feels like an overdetermined symbol, the original Control It won $160,000 at auction in 2012, for $130 made to Siegel and Shuster for Superman, the site of the greatest battle between creator and company.”

Although the book lacks visuals, it does contain names and titles as fiercely as Dauber, Kurtzman, and Wood once filled gags in Mad panels; readers will want to make a list for future reading. But it’s not all here. Oddly enough, Dauber doesn’t usually include political cartoons in his poll. All dates are subjective (he clearly calls it “history” for a reason), but it’s jarring not to see a name like Herblock in a book beginning with Thomas Nast.

But the biggest shortcoming is in newspaper comics. Dauber occasionally makes trips into early newspaper history, mixing up the story of how William Randolph Hearst came to call the New York newspaper The American (It was during an Ambrose Bierce poem and the 1901 debate over the McKinley assassination, not World War I) and George Herriman’s Krazy Falsely stating that the gender of Kat and Ignatz Mouse is uncertain (Krazy only; the brick-happy mouse is apparently a cisgender male). It skips decades of vital newspaper work in the mid-20th century, often bringing comics only when making a point about their decline or commercialization or comparing them to comics in other formats; this applies even to a work as important as Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts”. She writes well about women’s comics and the Black press, but with the rare exceptions of Jules Feiffer’s legendary work in The Village Voice, alternative weekly papers, cartoonists ranging from Matt Groening to Lynda Barry to Chris Ware to Derf It is not considered a springboard for Backderf is discussed each in relation to the books and later works, but not the strips. (How could a comic book history not name the “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” that Barry felt so deeply?)

Yet the story Dauber tells is powerful, and in the end, Superduperman may be his true hero. Throughout comic book history, what Dauber calls “parodic sensibility” in a discussion about cartoonist Dave Sim is pushed forward by the work. The works discussed in “American Comics” are mostly animated by these parodies. There is a parody as a tribute. Parody as cutting, ruthless criticism. parody like cheap laughter; parody as genius. Dauber deftly demonstrates that comics, as or more than any other art or literature, can tackle the most serious issues, including one of the most serious: our ability to laugh at ourselves.



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