'Nuff Said: American Graphic Media

On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appeared on television to deliver his farewell address. Broadcasted from the Oval Office of the White House, Eisenhower framed his closing remarks as “a message of leave taking and farewell” to his countrymen. Far from a nostalgic reminisce of national service, Eisenhower provided a cautionary narrative about the dangers of military buildup in the United States.  Eisenhower's remarks frame a debate about U.S. defense policy since 1945. Namely, he spoke openly of the need to find balance between forces that desired to spend, at all costs, to secure the United States from attack and those forces that advocated for negotiation and disarmament. These ideas inform the meta-textual narrative found in the pages of Iron Man. Debuting two years after Eisenhower's address, Iron Man can be seen as continuation of the pro-American and anti-communist dialogue found throughout Marvel's Silver Age revival. Yet, the narrative als...

It should not be a surprise that I'm once again returning to discussion of the book. After dealing with a conference presentation on comics at the Florida Conference of Historians meeting in Wakulla Springs,FL I'm thinking about the collection again. The concept is sound, but the publishers' spirits are weak. So, after some consultation among the editors we have decided to revamp the proposal a bit, to highlight the themes we think are important. This is not to say we have not done that before, we have, and now we are doing it again with the intention of making the links clearer to the less comic savvy reader. One thing that came out of the discussion is me moving away from race in my chapter and incorporating an examination of Iron Man. Don't worry, I will send the chapter out to a journal, so eventually someone will read it. Moving away from my exploration of race in Marvel does not mean the book will not address race, in fact we have one article exploring Lat...

There is no doubt that academics have a very particular view of the world. The public can be dismissive of academic writing and thought because they "live in an ivory tower." People tend to forget the purpose of the "ivory tower" is to allow some small part of society to think and write without fear their words will lead to reprisals. Why do I mention this? Well, like any other subject that get a critical appraisal, comics, under the right critical lens, can be a source of contention. Above you see Michael Lecker at the 2009 Florida Conference of Historian. Mr. Lecker's “You Made Them Strong, We’ll Make Them Army (Avengers) Strong: How the Marvel Universe’s Story Arc and Ad Usage are Propaganda for Army Recruitment, " is one example of how Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men applies cutting edge scholarship. Lecker's work is heavily influence by French theorist Michel Foucault. Specifically, he is using Foucault's Biopower concept to explore how the ...