Best Essay of the Year

Julian Chambliss and William Svitavsky received the Jerome Stern Award for best essay in 2008 Issue of Studies of American Culture. We won for our essay "From Pulp Hero to Superhero: Culture, Race, and Identity in American Popular Culture, 1900-1940"

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

Search This Blog