Comics in the 1960’s dealt with social issues and changes significantly. The sixties in the United States were full of change. There were civil rights movements, women’s rights movements, and issues going on with the Vietnam War. Women and blacks were done with being less than white men and started to act upon it. In the media, women and blacks were not depicted as equal to white men, blacks especially. The African Americans were depicted in a very racist view. Luke Cage for example, gained his powers in prison and is very strong and violent, a typical racist view on blacks. A long with these media problems, comic underground began to emerge. This was a company that made comics on whatever they wanted. It was usually about doing drugs and showing how wrong our government was. These people were laid back and just living their life during the sixties. They decided to make a comic company that wrote whatever they wanted too. For once they could be free without the comic codes. Comic Underground dealt with a lot of social norms and showed how they were happening during the time. Since the government at the time was dealing with a huge drug crackdown, the Comic Underground wrote mostly about that. They showed how characters would react if they were taking drugs. The comics were very amusing and were REAL. There were no codes enforced and the comic underground showed reality in comics during the 1960’s.
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.
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