Charles Hatfield, Jeet Heer, and Kent Worcester (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617038068
- eISBN:
- 9781621039549
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617038068.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
Despite their commercial appeal and cross-media reach, superheroes are only recently starting to attract sustained scholarly attention. This book includes chapters and book excerpts by major writers ...
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Despite their commercial appeal and cross-media reach, superheroes are only recently starting to attract sustained scholarly attention. This book includes chapters and book excerpts by major writers on comics and popular culture. While superhero comics are a distinct and sometimes disdained branch of comics creation, they are integral to the development of the North American comic book and the history of the medium. For the past half-century they have also been the one overwhelmingly dominant market genre. The sheer volume of superhero comics that have been published over the years is staggering. Major superhero universes constitute one of the most expansive storytelling canvases ever fashioned. Moreover, characters inhabiting these fictional universes are immensely influential, having achieved iconic recognition around the globe. Their images and adventures have shaped many other media, such as film, videogames, and even prose fiction. The primary aim of this reader is twofold: first, to collect in a single volume a sampling of the most sophisticated commentary on superheroes, and second, to bring into sharper focus the ways in which superheroes connect with larger social, cultural, literary, aesthetic, and historical themes that are of interest to a great many readers both in the academy and beyond.Less
Despite their commercial appeal and cross-media reach, superheroes are only recently starting to attract sustained scholarly attention. This book includes chapters and book excerpts by major writers on comics and popular culture. While superhero comics are a distinct and sometimes disdained branch of comics creation, they are integral to the development of the North American comic book and the history of the medium. For the past half-century they have also been the one overwhelmingly dominant market genre. The sheer volume of superhero comics that have been published over the years is staggering. Major superhero universes constitute one of the most expansive storytelling canvases ever fashioned. Moreover, characters inhabiting these fictional universes are immensely influential, having achieved iconic recognition around the globe. Their images and adventures have shaped many other media, such as film, videogames, and even prose fiction. The primary aim of this reader is twofold: first, to collect in a single volume a sampling of the most sophisticated commentary on superheroes, and second, to bring into sharper focus the ways in which superheroes connect with larger social, cultural, literary, aesthetic, and historical themes that are of interest to a great many readers both in the academy and beyond.
Brian Cremins
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781496808769
- eISBN:
- 9781496808806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496808769.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
Steamboat, Billy Batson’s friend and valet, was a stereotypical African American character who appeared in Fawcett’s comic books until 1945, when a group of New York City middle school students ...
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Steamboat, Billy Batson’s friend and valet, was a stereotypical African American character who appeared in Fawcett’s comic books until 1945, when a group of New York City middle school students visited Captain Marvel editor Will Lieberson. Those students, all part of a program called Youthbuilders, Inc., successfully argued for the character’s removal. Drawing on the work of Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and George Yancy, this chapter studies the character and his similarities to other racial caricatures in U. S. popular culture of the era. It also provides a short history of the Youthbuilders, an organization created by social worker Sabra Holbrook. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Alan Moore’s Evelyn Cream, a black character who appears in the 1980s series Miracleman. Although not directly based on Steamboat, Moore’s character was an attempt to address racial stereotypes in superhero comic books, figures that have their origins in the narratives of the 1930s and 1940s.Less
Steamboat, Billy Batson’s friend and valet, was a stereotypical African American character who appeared in Fawcett’s comic books until 1945, when a group of New York City middle school students visited Captain Marvel editor Will Lieberson. Those students, all part of a program called Youthbuilders, Inc., successfully argued for the character’s removal. Drawing on the work of Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and George Yancy, this chapter studies the character and his similarities to other racial caricatures in U. S. popular culture of the era. It also provides a short history of the Youthbuilders, an organization created by social worker Sabra Holbrook. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Alan Moore’s Evelyn Cream, a black character who appears in the 1980s series Miracleman. Although not directly based on Steamboat, Moore’s character was an attempt to address racial stereotypes in superhero comic books, figures that have their origins in the narratives of the 1930s and 1940s.
Aldo J. Regalado
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781628462210
- eISBN:
- 9781626746183
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628462210.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
This book examines the historical origins and cultural significance of Superman and his fellow American crusaders. It asserts that the superhero seems a direct response to modernity, often fighting ...
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This book examines the historical origins and cultural significance of Superman and his fellow American crusaders. It asserts that the superhero seems a direct response to modernity, often fighting the interrelated processes of industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and capitalism that transformed the United States from the early nineteenth century to the present. Reeling from the destabilizing forces, Americans turned to heroic fiction as a means of explaining national and personal identities to themselves and to the world. In so doing, they created characters and stories that sometimes affirmed, but other times subverted conventional notions of race, class, gender, and nationalism. The cultural conversation articulated through the nation's early heroic fiction eventually led to a new heroic type—the brightly clad, super-powered, pro-social action heroes that first appeared in American comic books starting in the late 1930s. Although indelibly shaped by the Great Depression and World War II sensibilities of the second-generation immigrants most responsible for their creation, comic book superheroes remain a mainstay of American popular culture. Tracing superhero fiction all the way back to the nineteenth century, the book firmly bases analysis of dime novels, pulp fiction, and comics in historical, biographical, and reader response sources. It explores the roles played by creators, producers, and consumers in crafting superhero fiction, ultimately concluding that these narratives are essential for understanding vital trajectories in American culture.Less
This book examines the historical origins and cultural significance of Superman and his fellow American crusaders. It asserts that the superhero seems a direct response to modernity, often fighting the interrelated processes of industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and capitalism that transformed the United States from the early nineteenth century to the present. Reeling from the destabilizing forces, Americans turned to heroic fiction as a means of explaining national and personal identities to themselves and to the world. In so doing, they created characters and stories that sometimes affirmed, but other times subverted conventional notions of race, class, gender, and nationalism. The cultural conversation articulated through the nation's early heroic fiction eventually led to a new heroic type—the brightly clad, super-powered, pro-social action heroes that first appeared in American comic books starting in the late 1930s. Although indelibly shaped by the Great Depression and World War II sensibilities of the second-generation immigrants most responsible for their creation, comic book superheroes remain a mainstay of American popular culture. Tracing superhero fiction all the way back to the nineteenth century, the book firmly bases analysis of dime novels, pulp fiction, and comics in historical, biographical, and reader response sources. It explores the roles played by creators, producers, and consumers in crafting superhero fiction, ultimately concluding that these narratives are essential for understanding vital trajectories in American culture.
