Comic and Scholarship

The semester is over and now we will get to the hard work of considering the good, the bad, and the ugly of the class this semester. While I and my colleague felt good about some of the aspect of the class, we struggled with others. We will touch base about what the future holds later. What I really want to do is point out that overall, our efforts are paying off. This October our article on the transition from pulp era adventure magazine to golden age comics will be published in Studies in American Culture. If that was not enough, this month we were quoted in CNN.COM story on the Ten Cent Plague, a new book about the anti-comic scare of the 1950s. Follow the link for more information.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/05/08/comic.books/index.html

Comments

Mythology and Superheroes in Comics

Ohhh my goodness... When I decided on trying to analyze the mythological origins and references in superhero comics, I had no idea the can of worms I was opening up... On the one hand, it was awesome to see just how many connections there were between superheroes and psychology/mythology/philosophy, but all the information also made it terribly difficult to distinguish what I should be using and how to tie it all together. When I was talking to one of my sorority sisters about it she said, "Oh yeah, well, research essays are kind of like putting together puzzles..." and I think that really sums up what writing this paper was like for me. Fortunately, I was really interested throughout the whole process and I very much enjoyed writing the paper. Being a psychology major, I was especially interested in reading about the Jungian archetypes that had a lot of parallels with major modern comic books superheroes. I was also able to incorporate Joseph Campbell's "hero cycle...

Why blame comics for societal failure?

Why blame comics for societal failure? Society blamed comics for the societal failures because it was a fairly new industry, and as things seemed to go “wrong” they figured it must be comic books. When a child grew up during the war, his father was probably killing people and the military and his mother was probably making things in factories to help kill the opposition. The only things kids had to “babysit” them was comic books, and they read many different kinds. So when kids starting acting differently in this new generation the figured it must be the comic books. Society didn’t want to believe it may have been the internal and external scars war causes on the soldiers and their families. Also the fact that young unattended children are reading these comics may not be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. When society fails it always needs a scapegoat then it was comic books next it was rock and roll. Society naturally resist change.

#FUTURES: Tomorrow Idris Elba will be the Last Man Standing

There is some bad buzz around Pacific Rim on the web. I suspect the possibility of a giant robot movie being awesome is too much for some people. The internet is full of dark corners, but until we see the movie we won't know the box office. What we can tell right now is that Idris Elba is doing his part to make the movie a success. A standout performer, Elba has made a name for himself in countless productions . He achieve wide recognition for his turn on the big screen in films such as Thor and on the small screen in the BBC's Luther . Of course, the open question about actors of color in any film is whether not they will help or hurt the box office. Will Smith recent disappointment with After Earth opens the door for this conversation. His lack of success sparks the question who will be the next "bankable" star of color. There can be only one! See what I did there:-) These sentiments reflect a Hollywood centric approach that ignores Nolly...

'Nuff Said: American Graphic Media

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