Comic Book Nation: The transformation of youth culture in America, by 
Wright W. Wright  

By Jennifer G.

            Wow! If you have never given much thought to comic books before, you will now! Wright has assembled an enjoyably readable history and cultural analysis of comic books, from the industry’s inception in the 1930’s to the present, with some projections for the future. As both a shaper and a reflection of youth culture and American values, comic books filled a niche in the newly expanding commercial market. It is estimated that in the heyday of comic books, 90% of American children and adolescents read them. Wright places this dynamic entity in the varying contexts of social, political, and economic transformations of American culture in the 20^th century.

As a comic book enthusiast himself, Wright was first exposed to the power of ideology reflected in a simple comic book when on his first trip to Europe in 1977. When crossing the East to West German border on his ninth birthday, a border guard searched his father’s car and confiscated his comic books. Devastated as he was by the incident, years went by and he eventually ‘outgrew’ comic books. It wasn’t until searching for a paper topic for a ‘mass culture’ class in graduate school that Wright revisited his childhood fantasy. Upon studying the comic books from the historical perspective, he pieced together the face of youth through this seldom examined source. Created by youth and for youth, comic books were a marketing phenomenon that began with a simple idea to expand upon pulp fiction and newspaper comics. Initially the books were given away as product advertisements. But as you’ll see, they took on a life of their own and grew into a cultural machine, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. Comic books became the media through which young Americans experimented in creating and living national myths. And this was done, for the most part, with a great deal of freedom until the 1960’s and 1970’s; the time that we tend to associate with revolution and civil liberties. Oddly enough, the climax for comic revolution was in the unregulated 1930’s to 1950’s. This was the voice of a new generation with an unprecedented soapbox, and it was the prime time for a captive audience as young GI’s fought a war overseas.

Wright discusses the early professional field of comic books, with young urban male authors in their late teens and early twenties. During the depression there were a great deal of illustrators out of work and comic books were produced with one thing in mind – sales! Shops were assembly lines of writers and illustrators with little signed work. These texts revealed a new world view and were guided by profit. With movies at the top of the cultural hierarchy, comic books filled the void at the bottom and appealed to kids with money to spend. While content was inspired by sales, comic books sometimes served as a subversive territory to ‘harmlessly’ assert and circulate alternative ideas. Early superheroes were defenders of the common man against crooked politicians and corrupt industry owners. Wright shows how the changing face of the superhero is reflected as we grow and struggle with a shifting social climate, and he demonstrates his points with reprinted comic graphics. During the cold war, superheroes changed in character because the defense of the common man against a corrupt infrastructure rang an alarm of infiltrating socialism. In the same way that comic books united the nation during the depression, they united citizens behind the government during WW2 in defense of the world from dictatorship. Isolationists were portrayed as misguided, and children were solicited for their patriotic help. Even the feared and persecuted Japanese Americans and German Americans were shown to denounce their assumed allegiance to their motherlands.

Wright illustrates that the Germans and the Japanese in war comics were often portrayed as evil, non-human monsters during WW2. Americans of German and Japanese descent were discriminated against in the stories, but in the case of the Japanese it was portrayed as justifiable. The traitors repented their selfish betrayal in the end. Likely due to the large East Coast German immigrant population, German Americans were shown to have a ‘good side’, and even traitors were seen as helplessly manipulated. So, while they had a long way to go in portraying ethnicity in an accurate manner, comic books did preach some tolerance after WW2 – a liberal attempt by those who now realized the consequences of intolerance. While these comic books may read as a propaganda machine with a patriarchal American hero, we are told that they were written by a patriotic generation of teens who were eager to help in the war effort and sincerely believed in the nobility of the ‘good war’. They were written for GI’s overseas and kids back home trying to understand the political world.       

During WW2, there was growing unrest regarding comic book violence, and some made analogies between superheroes and Nazi fascists. So, the comic book industry replaced its gangster villains with fascists. This was the birth of the superhero as patriotic defender.  In addition to criticism within the United States, several other nations began scrutinizing comic books. International criticism began as France led the ban of American comic books after WW2, calling the United States ‘cultural imperialists’. Recognizing comic books to be poor ambassadors for the country, the U.S. State Department printed its own comics to combat the Soviet’s analogies of Superman to Hitler, and distributed them in vulnerable developing nations.

After the war came a change in the social structure of the family, and juvenile delinquency became a hot topic for debate. Interest evolved in comic book content along with the fear that youth would not have the emotional support and fortitude to deal with a foreseeable communist war. Thus began a post WW2 fight for cultural power in America. Censorship loomed large and, after going all the way to the Supreme Court, impacted the content of texts for decades.

Comic books served as a battleground for social change, and as a public service announcement for conformity. As Archie comics featured formulaic and trivial teenage storylines with lessons of conformity for pre-teens, most other comics tried to target the teenage male audience with sex. But, there was also a darker side to post WW2. Some ‘comics’ revealed the sense of failure and negative self-image that erupted in America. The 1940’s saw gruesome crime stories with sadistic psychopaths, deconstructing the American Dream. Comic books were banned from many states. In the battle over the First Amendment and amidst charges of contributing to increasing juvenile delinquency, Wright points out that it was more likely the consumer force in a growing market culture that created the symptomatic social problems, and not the products themselves. The US government, once a significant market for comic books with young troops overseas, ironically banned the books in the military as concerned citizens began to see them as too violent for our young soldiers! Through a lengthy critical examination of the events surrounding the controversy, Wright reveals a case study with great relevance today, as we continue to deal with the onslaught of youth targeted media and its effect on children. His detailed discussion of the role and consequences of censorship suggests lessons and caution for the future. His analysis raises concerns about what can happen when patriotism and the interest of ‘national security’ are used as weapons in ideological and cultural wars. It also serves as a warning about what can happen when a fearful majority controls democracy and threatens Constitutional rights. Wright’s sensitive and academic approach presents the issue of censorship within a fair arena. Many of these comic book excerpts read like propaganda, given hindsight. This is a good example of how confusing the ‘truth’ can be, especially when viewed through the goggles of the media. When does patriotism become propaganda? Given our current national situation, this book serves good food for thought.

While Wright addresses gender and audience many times with relevant statistics, I was left with the impression that there may be a misrepresentation with regard to audience. I don’t contend that it was a fault or omission by Wright, but rather an interesting area that could possibly be more extensively examined in the future. While Wright says that women were seldom targeted, and only in trivial, romantic and conforming ways, I wonder if more is known about the female consumption of superhero and war comic books. I believe that there may be some interesting numbers revealed if one could find and examine such data. Wright reports that males were doing the purchasing, but it would be interesting to know the impact those magazines had on females viewing secondhand copies. As a preteen tomboy there was little stopping me from identifying with male superheroes, so I don’t believe it’s as simple as ‘males identify with males’, and ‘females identify with females’. I’d be willing to bet that there was a significant portion of female readers that identified with male characters, especially given the lack of quality female characters. If this were the case, comic books may have also served as a subversion of the gender role metanarrative. Did females find male-targeted comics appealing, and if so, why didn’t they buy more? Was expendable money available to young women in the 1930-1950’s as it was to young men?

Wright examines youth culture not only through the voice of this new generational category, but also through the reactions of the world that created it. Comic Books provided a drawing board upon which we, as a nation, were able to experiment with our own value system and direction. Wright proves that we are lucky to have the benefit of these sketches to examine for posterity, because they offer insight into the way youth viewed and constructed their own reality. He presents a linear history of the industry, the politics and the social environment of the nation and manages to weave a cultural fabric complete with diversity of opinion and aesthetic. In my opinion, Comic Book Nation should be on the recommended reading list for any student of contemporary American history, marketing, politics or culture. Fans and non-fans alike will likely find this book engaging and relevant, as it reveals the origins of a debate that still rages today over what our youth should be consuming and creating, and ultimately what is healthy for our future. As Wright says, America has become the parody of itself, and in this way may have caught up to comic books in representation. But, he sees a need for comics in contemporary culture, as they still provide a place for youth to grapple with discovering identity in a changing world of increasing pressures.