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Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America

by: Bradford W. Wright

: Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 300
EAN: 9780801874505
ISBN: 0801874505
Label: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 360
Publication Date: September 18, 2003
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Sales Rank: 354018
Studio: The Johns Hopkins University Press



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'Congratulations to Bradford W. Wright for penning one of the most comprehensive and readable accounts of the pervasive effect that comic books have had upon generations of readers throughout America, and indeed—the world.'—Stan Lee

As American as jazz or rock and roll, comic books have been central in the nation's popular culture since Superman's 1938 debut in Action Comics #1. Selling in the millions each year for the past six decades, comic books have figured prominently in the childhoods of most Americans alive today. In Comic Book Nation, Bradford W. Wright offers an engaging, illuminating, and often provocative history of the comic book industry within the context of twentieth-century American society.

From Batman's Depression-era battles against corrupt local politicians and Captain America's one-man war against Nazi Germany to Iron Man's Cold War exploits in Vietnam and Spider-Man's confrontations with student protestors and drug use in the early 1970s, comic books have continually reflected the national mood, as Wright's imaginative reading of thousands of titles from the 1930s to the 1980s makes clear. In every genre—superhero, war, romance, crime, and horror comic books—Wright finds that writers and illustrators used the medium to address a variety of serious issues, including racism, economic injustice, fascism, the threat of nuclear war, drug abuse, and teenage alienation. At the same time, xenophobic wartime series proved that comic books could be as reactionary as any medium.

Wright's lively study also focuses on the role comic books played in transforming children and adolescents into consumers; the industry's ingenious efforts to market their products to legions of young but savvy fans; the efforts of parents, politicians, religious organizations, civic groups, and child psychologists like Dr. Fredric Wertham (whose 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, a salacious exposé of the medium's violence and sexual content, led to U.S. Senate hearings) to link juvenile delinquency to comic books and impose censorship on the industry; and the changing economics of comic book publishing over the course of the century. For the paperback edition, Wright has written a new postscript that details industry developments in the late 1990s and the response of comic artists to the tragedy of 9/11. Comic Book Nation is at once a serious study of popular culture and an entertaining look at an enduring American art form.



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Comic Book Notion
Wright has a brisk style and his story from the origins of Superhero comic books in 1938 to the mid ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - An Outstanding History of the Comics and Their Place in American Cultural History
A scholarly yet extremely readable and enjoyable account of the history of comics and how they fit into ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Great buy. Great read. SO WORTH IT
If you have a passion for comics or for American culture this is really a great book. It's a lot bigger ... Read More


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Too Much That is Not Discussed
There is simply too much that is not discussed for this to be a truly effective book, including most of ... Read More


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - An amazing book!
I don't know that I can write this review without injecting it with ample amount of gushing praise, but ... Read More

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Copyright ©2003, Mark Carey.