Does popular media shape your belief or does belief shape media? It is a good question, and of course, comic books are one way to consider the problem. Think about it, comic books have for many decades, offered their readers a self-contained world with detailed character histories and evolving circumstances. If you read Superman in the 1940s his dress, ideas, language, and surrounding reflect that time. Today, they reflect contemporary life incorporating radically different social, political, and economic circumstances. The writers update the characters and their world so that readers feel a connection to the story. Thus, we can make the argument strongly that comics reflect culture incorporate new ideas as they come. On the other hand, when comics introduce readers to concepts such as challenging political corruption in the 1930s, attacking the fascism in the 1940s, or challenging racism in the 1960s they do so ahead of mainstream opinion. Therefore, those comics help to shape the reader's view of these issues. Both position can't be right, can they? Someone who can offer some insight into the question is John Donovan. His contribution to Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men, traces comics' approach to communism. He joins several contributors who ask us to consider nationalism and the power of political ideology in comics.
To begin with, I really do like the idea of reading a comic about comics. I think it's a great idea and it's very well executed. As I was reading the first two chapters, I was surprised at how many examples there were of art in recent (and ancient, in some cases) history that are variations of "sequential visual art" and thus the foundations of modern comics. I'd never even thought about it before and it was hard to believe how many different kinds there were. I also love all the discussion about how our human brains automatically interpret certain images in a specific way, how we see others constantly but we identify ourselves when we look at cartoons, and how inanimate objects automatically becomes extensions of our bodies. The pyramid of styles was very interesting too as a way to conceptualize and almost graph or "place" a specific art style in comics. In Comic Book Nation , I enjoyed reading about the evolution of early comics from "funnies...
Comments