The 1960's was a rough and confusing time for the United States. During the late 1960's, the main event or social issue that was taking
place and was the topic of everyday life in America was the war in
Vietnam. Because the war was so heavily opposed, people rioting and
protesting were common in city streets and college campuses. This sparked
a whole new era in America. This era in america was filled with protest and outrage. These protestors were the ones who formed the hippy movement in the
United States. These times were all about peace and war was far from
what any one wanted. Drugs became extremely popular during the hippy
movement. This can be seen in the comic books of the late 1960s. Comic
books became a big hit and were now created at an underground level.
These comic books were not required to be checked by the comic code and this sparked a new generation of comic books.These underground comic books were very representative of the rebellious
times. Also the comic book The Amazing Spider-Man featured drugs in
them as Peter Parker's best friend begins taking drugs in order to ease
the pain of his girlfriend Mary Jane coming on to Peter. This is
another aspect that had not yet been featured in comic books that is
socially relevant in the 1960s.
There
were also stories that confronted feminism and female empowerment with
female versions of male characters like Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel, and
She-Hulk. The growing popularity of socially relevant comics during the
1960s gave way for the comic writer’s of the 1970s to be free to talk
about more personal and realistic social problems that people face
everyday.
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...
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