1. Michael Kammen, American Culture, American Tastes: Social Change and the 20th Century (Basic Books, 1999), 95–100. The table is found in Life, April 11, 1949, 100–101; for the original article by Russel Lynes, “Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow,” see Harper’s, February 1949, 19–28, or by the same author Confessions of a Dilettante (Harper, 1966), 119–138.
2. Jean-Claude Glasser, “Courrier,” Cahiers de la bande dessinée #80 (March 1988), 8. “Bande dessinée” supplanted synonyms that are now forgotten such as “bandes illustrées” (illustrated strips) or “bandes imagées” (pictorial strips).
3. Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Naissances du roman (Klincksieck, 1995), 9.
4. Lynd Ward, Storyteller Without Words: The Wood Engravings of Lynd Ward (Abrams, 1974); David A. Beronä, Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels (Abrams, 2008).
5. Martin Barnier, “‘Chantons sous la toile’: Pour une socio-histoire des films cultes,” Les Cultes médiatiques. Culture fan et œuvres cultes, ed. Philippe Le Guern (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2002), 77–80.
6. One of the most detailed inventories characteristic of this approach is found at the end of Gérard Blanchard’s Histoire de la bande dessinée: une histoire des histoires en images de la préhistoire à nos jours (Marabout, 1974).
7. David Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheets from c. 1450 to 1825 (History of the Comic Strip Volume I) (University of California Press, 1973), 2.
8. Pierre Bourdieu has amply demonstrated this, however argumentatively, in The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (Stanford University Press, 1996). An example of the essentialist approach rejecting any historicist determination is found in Thierry Groensteen, The System of Comics (University Press of Mississippi, 2007), 13–17.
9. For the historical vision of the democratic societies that I am referring to, see Pascal Ory, “Conclusions,” in La censure en France à l’ère democratique (1848–), ed. Pascal Ory (Complexe, 1997), 333–340. For a detailed description of the new context of the production of picture narratives in the nineteenth century, see the introduction of David Kunzle, The Nineteenth Century (History of the Comic Strip Volume II) (University of California Press, 1990), 1–17.
10. “Histoire de Mr. Jabot,” Bibliothèque de Genève 18 (june 1837), 334; English translation from Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip, 52. Excellent studies on Töppfer include Daniel Maggetti (ed.), Töpffer (Skira, 1996), and David Kunzle, Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Töpffer (University Press of Mississippi, 2007); also see the collection of Töpffer’s critical writing, L’invention de la bande dessinée (Hermann éditeurs des sciences et des arts, 1992).
11. Ward, Storyteller Without Words, 20; Bhob Stewart, “Graphic novel pioneer Lynd Ward, 80, dies,” The Comics Journal #101 (August 1985), 24–25.
12. Kammen, American Culture, American Tastes, 49–50 (mass culture) and 70–71 (popular culture).
13. Chronology posted by Joe Rainone on the list “Platinum Age Comics,” July 26, 2003, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PlatinumAgeComics/message/10561 (July 3, 2004).
14. For the diverse forms of the dime novel, see Michael Denning, Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America (Verso, 1987), 10–12; Denning places their demise at the turn of the century even though the last ones were published after the First World War: nevertheless it is certainly true that the emergence of pulps coincided with the decline of dime novels at the start of the twentieth century.
15. Edgar Morin, L’Esprit du Temps (1962; Livre de Poche, 1988), 20 (my translation).
16. This anecdote is recounted by Umberto Eco in Apocalittici e integrati. Comunicazioni di massa e teorie della cultura di massa (Bompiani, 1964), xi; for the English translation, see the collection of Eco essays edited by Robert Lumley, Apocalypse Postponed (Indiana University Press, 1994), 52.
1. On the pre-twentieth-century history of comics in America, see Robert Beerbohm and Richard D. Olson’s essay updated annually in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.
2. Doug Wheeler, Robert L. Beerbohm, and Leonardo De Sá, “Töpffer in America,” Comic Art#3 (2003), 28–47. A facsimile has been published in Italy: Rodolphe Töpffer, The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck. The First American Comic Book (Napoli Comicon, 2003).
3. Puck appeared in German in 1876 and in English the following year. Judge appeared in 1881 and Life in 1883. St. Nicholas, created in 1873, was the most popular children’s magazine at the end of the nineteenth century.
4. Rick Marschall, “‘What Fools These Mortals Be!’ The History of the Comic Strip Part One: Puck Magazine and the Ascendance of the Cartoon,” The Comics Journal #57 (Summer 1980), 134–139.
5. David Kunzle, “Precursors in American Weeklies to the American Newspaper Comic Strip: A Long Gestation and a Transoceanic Cross-Breeding,” in Charles Dierick and Pascal Lefèvre (eds.), Forging a New Medium: The Comic Strip in the Nineteenth Century (VUB University Press, 1998), 157–185.
6. For a facsimile of the 1884 edition: Arthur Burdett Frost, Stuff and Nonsense (Fantagraphics, 2003).
7. On R. F. Outcault and the “Yellow Kid,” see Bill Blackbeard (intr.), The Yellow Kid: A Centennial Celebration of the Kid Who Started the Comics (Kitchen Sink Press, 1995); Outcault was inspired by Michael Angelo Woolf’s drawings of street urchins; Woolf himself was influenced by the photographs of Jacob A. Riis whose essay on the New York City underclass “How the Other Half Lives” appeared in 1889. For the commercial exploitation of the first recurring comics characters in the United States, see Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998).
8. On the Humor volumes, see two contributions in Comic Book Marketplace #36 (June 1996): Gary M. Carter, “Missing Link?”, 6; Robert Beerbohm, “Detective Dan and Detective Ace King,” 49.
9. Robert L. Beerbohm and Richard D. Olsen, “The American Comic Book: 1929–Present. Expanded Concise Origins of the Modern Comic Book,” Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 33rd ed. (House of Collectibles/Gemstone, 2003), 298.
10. Larry Jacobs, Big Little Books: A Collector’s Reference and Value Guide (Collector Books, 1996); Bill Borden, The Big Little Book of Big Little Books (Chronicle Books, 1997).
11. Beerbohm and Olsen, “The American Comic Book: 1929–Present,” 300.
12. Lloyd Jacquet, “The Coming of the Comic [Book],” Newsdealer, July 1957, reprinted in Comic Book Marketplace #88 (December 2001), 63–64, 77; Jon Berk, “New Fun! The Birth of an Industry,” Comic Book Marketplace #53 (November 1997), 45–48.
13. The size of the first comic books produced by Eastern Color was 11 by 8.8 inches. Around 1937, the most common size became 10 by 7.5 inches. From the second half of the 1940s, comic books adopted a size that has barely changed since of about 10.4 by 6.8 inches.
1. Lee Server, Danger Is My Business. An Illustrated History of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines: 1896–1953 (Chronicle Books, 1993). For the links of pulps and comic books, see James Steranko, The Steranko History of Comics Vol. 1 (Supergraphics, 1970), 14–33; Ron Goulart, Great History of Comic Books (Contemporary Books, 1986), 93–104.
2. Goulart, Great History of Comic Books, 97.
3. Michelle Nolan, “7 Comic Book Myths,” Comic Book Marketplace #74 (December 1999), 17–18.
4. For the origins of the editorial activities of Donenfeld and Liebovitz, see Will Murray, “DC’s Tangled Roots,” Comic Book Marketplace #53 (November 1997), 26–29, 56–67.
5. Fifty Who Made DC Great (DC, 1985), 7.
6. Erik Andresen, “The First 1,000 Comic Books in History,” Comic Book Marketplace #13 (May 1992), 14–24.
7. For a good general presentation of the superheroes of the first generation, see Michael Benton, Superhero Comics of the Golden Age: The Illustrated History (Taylor, 1992).
1. Michelle Nolan, “1940—For Many Heroes, Titles, Life Began at 40,” Comic Book Marketplace #104 (July 2003), 78–79.
2. The Spirit sections have never been entirely reprinted but Will Eisner’s The Spirit Archives (DC, 2000–2008) contains the complete run of the title strip. A selection of Lady Luck episodes were reprinted in black-and-white in two eponymous pamphlets published by Ken Pierce in 1980–1981; several episodes of Mr. Mystic were reproduced in Will Eisner Presents#1 (Eclipse Comics, 1990).
3. Denis Gifford, The International Book of Comics, rev. ed. (Hamlyn, 1990), 156–157.
4. Michelle Nolan, “1945—The Beginning of the End of the Golden Age,” Comic Book Marketplace #103 (June 2003), 78–79.
5. Self-contained twenty-page comic-strip stories without additional strips became the standard format with thirty-two-page pamphlets only at the start of the 1960s.
6. Michael Barrier and Martin Williams (eds.), A Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics (Smithsonian Institution/Harry N. Abrams, 1981), 41–61, 115–117, 127–148.
7. Probably launched in the summer of 1939, Four Color presented a different story each issue, never limited to a single character for about twenty-two years. Beyond funny animals, the title offered adaptations of films, novels, and animated series.
8. “Racketeers of Childhood,” Time, February 24, 1941, 48–49.
9. Michael Sawyer, “Albert Lewis Kanter and the Classics: The Man Behind the Gilberton Company,” Journal of Popular Culture 20.4 (Spring 1987); William B. Jones Jr., Classics Illustrated. A Cultural History, with Illustrations (McFarland & Company, 2002).
1. “Superman’s Dilemma,” Time, April 13, 1942, 78.
2. For an example of the alarmism on the economic health of the periodic press in 1946, see “Too Many Magazines,” Time, June 17, 1946, 48. On the sales tendencies of the periodic press after the Second World War, see Lawrence C. Stedman, Katherine Tinsley, and Carl F. Kaestle, “Literacy as a Consumer Activity,” in Carl F. Kaestle et al., Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading since 1880 (Yale University Press, 1991), 153–166.
3. The first comics adaptation of a televised program (featuring the puppet “Howdy Doody”) was released by Dell in late 1949.
4. Trina Robbins, The Great Women Super Heroes (Kitchen Sink Press, 1996), particularly chapters 1 and 18.
5. Trina Robbins, From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of Women’s Comics from Teens to Zines (Chronicle Books, 1999), 15–18; Jeffrey C. Branch, “Everything’s … Archie: The Inside Story of Archie Comics,” Comic Book Marketplace #52 (October 1997), 35.
6. Michelle Nolan, “They Weren’t All Archie’s …,” Comic Book Marketplace #34 (April 1996), 19–22; Ernst Gerber, The Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books Volume Two (Gerber, 1990), C10.
7. Mike Benton, The Comic Book in America (Taylor, 1989), 42.
8. Mark Evanier, “What was the relationship between Dell Comics and Gold Key comics?”, http://povonline.com/iaq/IAQ7.htm (January 13, 2004).
9. Michael Barrier, Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book (Lilien, 1981).
10. Joe Simon with Jim Simon, The Comic Book Makers (Crestwood, 1990), 122–125.
11. “Love on a Dime,” Time, August 22, 1949, 41.
12. Michelle Nolan, “1950s … The Love Glut,” Comic Book Marketplace #28 (October 1995), 19–21; Michelle Nolan, “The Case Against Crime Comics!”, Comic Book Marketplace #65 (December 1998), 15.
13. Gerber, The Photo-Journal Guide To Comic Books Volume Two, , C10.
14. The All-American imprint was founded at the end of 1938 by Maxwell C. Gaines and divided between himself and DC co-owner H. Donenfeld (although it has been claimed that Donenfeld’s associate J. Liebowitz had been a third partner since the beginning). Gaines had his offices at 225 Lafayette Street while DC was at 480 Lexington Avenue. Yet the All-American magazines sported the circular seal “A DC Publication” starting in the spring of 1940. In order for DC to become the full owner of All-American properties, Donenfeld donated his shares to Liebowitz, with whom Gaines did not get along. The increasing friction between the two men brought the founder of All-American to finally offer to sell his own shares, which was a done deal by mid-1945. Gaines pursued his publishing activities under the name “Educational Comics” (the first incarnation of EC) at the same address but All-American remained a separate concern until a merger with Detective Comics (the official name of DC) gave birth to one publishing house named “National Publications” in the second semester of 1946. Sheldon Mayer, who had edited All-American titles from the start, finally quit National early in 1948 to become a full-time cartoonist.
15. Roy Thomas, “Written Off 9-30-49 Part I: The Day the Heroes Died,” Alter Ego #3.10 (September 2001), 26–27. On the sale of All-American by Gaines, see Will Murray, “DC’s Tangled Roots,” Comic Book Marketplace #53 (November 1997), 64; Jeffrey Howard-Lindsey, “Re: Chronology of All-American,” http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GainesComics/message/202 (May 27, 2004).
16. About this character, see two excellent articles in Comic Book Marketplace #25 (July 1995): Nicky Wright, “Cheesecake and Crime,” 22–29; “Glamour Gal of Mystery,” 30–34.
17. Michelle Nolan, “Collecting the Western Genre,” Comic Book Marketplace #61 (July 1998), 24. In regard to the fashion for westerns after the Second World War, see William W. Savage Jr., The Cowboy Hero: His Image in American History and Culture (University of Oklahoma Press, 1979).
18. Ron Goulart, Ron Goulart’s Great History of Comic Books (Contemporary, 1986), 227. For the cultural significance of gangsters in the American cinema of the era, see Jonathan Munby, Public Enemies, Public Heroes: Screening the Gangster from Little Caesar to Touch of Evil (University of Chicago Press, 1999).
19. Michelle Nolan, “The Case Against Crime Comics!”, Comic Book Marketplace #65 (December 1998), 14–15. For a good general representation, see Mike Benton, The Illustrated History of Crime Comics (Taylor, 1993).
20. See also William Howard Moore, The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime 1950–1952 (University of Missouri Press, 1974), chapter 2: “The Postwar Crime Scare.”
21. Michelle Nolan, “Adventures into the Comic Book Unknown!”, Comic Book Marketplace #47 (December 1997), 13–17. For a good presentation of the horror genre, see Mike Benton, Horror Comics: The Illustrated History (Taylor, 1991).
22. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Juvenile Deliquency (Comic Books), 83rd Cong., 2nd sess. (GPO, 1954), 104.
23. Maria Reidelbach, Completely Mad: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine (Little, Brown, 1991), 22.
24. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Juvenile Deliquency (Comic Books), 83rd Cong., 2nd sess. (GPO, 1954), 197.
25. Barrier, Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book, 85.
26. On William Gaines and EC, consult Frank Jacobs, The Mad World of William M. Gaines (Lyle Stuart, 1972); Fred von Bernewitz and Grant Geissman, Tales of Terror!/The EC Companion (Fantagraphics/Gemstone, 2000); Reidelbach, Completely Mad; and the interview with William Gaines published in The Comics Journal #81 (May 1983), 53–99.
1. Jean-Paul Gabilliet, “Un cas de censure par médiatisation: les séances de la commission Hendrickson sur l’industrie des comic books,” Revue française d’études américaines #52 (mai 1992), 169.
2. James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America’s Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s (Oxford University Press, 1986), 107.
3. See the CMAA’s self-promotion brochure: John L. Goldwater, Americana in Four Colors: A Decade of Self-Regulation by the Comics Magazine Industry (CMAA, 1964); an updated version was published in 1974. See also the interview with Leonard Darvin in “I was the Attorney for … the Comics Code Authority!”, Comic Book Marketplace #29 (November 1995), 30–34.
4. Michelle Nolan, “1956 … It was a very good year!”, Comic Book Marketplace #27 (September 1995), 17–21; Michelle Nolan, “7 Comic Book Myths,” Comic Book Marketplace #74 (December 1999), 17; Michelle Nolan, “Defending the Code,” letter to The Comics Journal #236 (August 2001), 4–7.
5. Graph taken from elements cited in Michelle Nolan’s chronicle “Nolan’s Notebook” in Comic Book Marketplace #27, 28, 35, 36, 48, 60, 74, 95, 101, 103, 104, 105, 107. The low estimate for the cumulated printings is that proposed by Robert Klein from data taken from Ayer’s Guide in the article “Comics: The Department of Commerce,” Alter Ego #3.18 (October 2002), 40–46; the high estimate is one advanced by Robert Beerbohm from numbers taken from Newsdealer, the trade journal for news retailers that was published at that time. For several years, Beerbohm has announced the appearance of a work that will present all of his discoveries on the history of comic books. See also R. Beerbohm, “Comics Reality #7,” http:// members.aol.com/dianehleb/reality7.txt (April 25 2004).
6. Klein, “Comics: The Department of Commerce,” 40–41.
7. James L. Baughman, The Republic of Mass Culture: Journalism, Filmmaking, and Broadcasting in America since 1941, 2nd ed. (1992; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 41–42.
8. Richard Amper, “Assembly Votes Comic Book Curb,” New York Times, March 28, 1955, 33; Leo Egan, “668 Out of 975 Bills Signed by Harriman,” New York Times, May 3, 1955, I, 22; “Lewd Book Curbs in Effect,” New York Times, July 1, 1955, 8.
9. For an anthology of this genre, see Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Dick Ayers, Bill Everett, Monster Masterworks (Marvel, 1989).
10. Bob Ingersoll, “The Cheese Stands Accused! A Look at the Superman/Captain Marvel Litagation,” Alter Ego #3.3 (Winter 2000), 20–23.
11. We can add to this list the Sea Devils (#27), Aquaman (#30), the new Atom (#34), the Metal Men (#37), Tommy Tomorrow (#41), and Sergeant Rock (#45). The only other notable character that was not created in Showcase was the new Hawkman, who appeared in The Brave and the Bold #34 (February 1961).
12. Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs, The Comic Book Heroes (Prima, 1997), 17.
13. Les Daniels, Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics (Abrams, 1991), 80–81.
14. On the Dell-Western breakup, see Mark Evanier’s interview “Western Goes West,” Comic Book Artist #22 (October 2002), 80–87. This entire issue is devoted to Gold Key.
1. For a general presentation of the superheroes of the 1960s, see Mike Benton, Superhero Comics of the Silver Age: The Illustrated History (Taylor, 1991).
2. On Tower Comics, see Comic Book Artist #14 (July 2001).
3. Charles Perry, The Haight-Ashbury: A History (1984; Vintage, 1985), 28–30, 257.
4. “Kinney Plans to Acquire National Periodical In Exchange of Stock,” Wall Street Journal, July 24, 1967; “Kinney National Acquisition,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 1968; Jon B. Cooke, “Director Comments. From Art Director to Publisher: the Infantino Interview,” Comic Book Artist #1 (Spring 1998), 10.
5. Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (Chicago Review Press, 2003), 60–61.
6. Taken from an advertising insert for Marvel published in the trade journal Newsdealer in 1968, reprinted in Comic Book Artist #10 (October 2000), 34.
7. On Help!, see David A. Roach and Jon B. Cooke (eds.), The Warren Companion (TwoMorrows, 2001), 25–27, 32. Woody Allen appeared in issue #19 (October 1963), John Cleese in issue #24 (May 1965).
8. Paul Krassner (ed.), Best of the Realist (Running Press, 1984). The Realist ran from June 1958 to May 1974.
9. For a general presentation of the underground press, see Robert J. Glessing, The Underground Press in America (Indiana University Press, 1970).
10. Mark James Estren, A History of Underground Comics, rev. ed. (1974; Ronin, 1987), 43–44. Patrick Rosenkranz, Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution, 1963–1975 (Fantagraphics, 2002), 27. For an excellent presentation in French on underground comics comprising monographic chapters on the main creators, see Jacques Bisceglia and Sylvie Brod, Underground U.S.A. (Corps 9 Editions, 1986).
11. Robert Crumb’s entire published output has been reprinted chronologically in The Complete Crumb Comics published by Fantagraphics since 1987. The pages making up Zap Comix #1 are reproduced in volumes 4 and 5.
12. Don Donahue and Susan Goodrick (eds.), The Apex Treasury of Underground Comics (Quick Fox, 1981), 6. On the genesis of Zap Comix #1, see Rosenkranz, Rebel Visions, 68–72. On the “Summer of Love,” see Perry, The Haight-Ashbury, 171–244.
13. Jay Lynch (ed.), The Best of Bijou Funnies (Quick Fox, 1981), 6–7.
14. Dave Schreiner, Kitchen Sink Press: The First 25 Years (Kitchen Sink Press, 1994).
15. On the origins and interpretation of the series, see Jean-Paul Gabilliet, “Mythical and Cultural Aspects of a Superhero: The Silver Surfer 1968–1970,” Journal of Popular Culture 28.2 (Fall 1994), 203–213.
1. Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (Chicago Review Press, 2003), 140–141, 146–147.
2. Joe Brancatelli, “The Comic Books,” Vampirella #64 (October 1977), 15.
3. Bradford Wright, “The Vietnam War and Comic Books,” in James S. Olson (ed.), The Vietnam War: Handbook of the Literature and Research (Greenwood Press, 1993), 427–454. See also Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 241–243.
4. The only notable exception was the magazine Blazing Combat, whose four published issues in 1965–1966 served as vehicles for the antimilitarist ideas of publisher James Warren. See also David A. Roach and Jon B. Cooke (eds.), The Warren Companion (TwoMorrows, 2001), 40–41.
5. “Green Arrow” was an exceptional archer who used arrows with multiple functions. For the occasion of the arrival of two new creators, the title was rebaptized Green Lantern/ Green Arrow; O’Neil and Adams worked from issue 76 (April 1970) to issue 89 (May 1972).
6. The cover of Green Lantern/Green Arrow # 80 (October 1970) was a clear allusion to Bobby Seale, head of the Black Panthers, who was silenced on the order of judge Julius Hoffman during the trial of eight political activists accused of fomenting the strikes of August 28, 1968, in Chicago during the Democratic Party convention. See also Jacques Amalric, “Procès de Chicago,” Le Monde, December 23, 1969; Marie-Christine Granjon, L’Amérique de la contestation. Les années 60 aux États-Unis (Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1985), 498–499. The stand-in for Vice-President Spiro Agnew appeared in Green Lantern/Green Arrow #83 (May 1971).
7. The Sunday, May 2, 1971, issue of the New York Times dedicated the entire magazine section to the subject. In particular, see Saul Braun’s article “Shazam! Here comes Captain Relevant.”
8. Lawrence Van Gelder, “A Comics Magazine Defies Code Ban on Drug Stories,” New York Times, February 4, 1971, 37, 44; “Comic-Book Industry to Allow Stories on Narcotics,” New York Times, April 16, 1971, 34; Arlen Schumer, “Neal Adams. The DC Years,” Comic Book Marketplace #40 (October 1996), 58–59.
9. Green Lantern #85 (September 1971) and #86 (November 1971).
10. Schumer, “Neal Adams,” 61.
11. Luke Cage appeared in Hero for Hire #1 (June 1972); The Black Panther #1 (January 1977); Night Nurse #1 (November 1972); The Cat #1 (November 1972); Ms. Marvel #1 (January 1977); Spider-Woman #1 (April 1978).
12. Despite a protagonist that seemed to offer very little potential—a grotesque half-vegetable creature—Swamp Thing gave Berni Wrightson an opportunity to practice a “gothic” style that had been discarded in comic books since the heyday of EC’s horror titles. Evidently inspired by the graphic possibilities of physical deformities, Wrightson’s visual style transcended his most direct influences, the early 1950s Frank Frazetta and Graham Ingels, by looking toward Hieronymus Bosch and Gustave Doré. On B. Wrightson, see Christopher Zavisa (ed.), Berni Wrightson: A Look Back (Underwood-Miller, 1991).
13. Mike Benton, The Comic Book in America (Taylor, 1989). See Comic Book Artist #13 (May 2001), which was dedicated to the 1970s Marvel horror titles.
14. Joe Brancatelli, “The Comic Books: Death by the Numbers,” Vampirella #72 (September 1978), 17.
15. N. R. Kleinfield, “Superheroes’ Creators Wrangle,” New York Times, October 13, 1979, 25–26.
16. Bisceglia and Brod, Underground U.S.A., 26. For a very good account of the state of affairs of the underground comics production in 1970, see Jacob Brackman, “The International Comix Conspiracy,” Playboy, December 1970, 195–199, 328–334.
17. The circumstances of the creation of the film were evoked in Thomas Maremaa, “Who Is This Robert Crumb?”, New York Times Magazine, October 1, 1972, 70, 72.
18. On this last theme, see the chapter “Trina Robbins et les femmes” in Bisceglia and Brod, Underground U.S.A., 74–87.
19. Ronald Levitt Lanyi, “Trina, Queen of the Underground Cartoonists: An Interview,” Journal of Popular Culture 12.4 (Spring 1979), 737–754; Rosenkranz, Rebel Visions, 154–156.
20. Bill Griffith, “A Sour Look at the Comix Scene,” San Francisco Phoenix, April 1973, I, 14; this article was reproduced in The Comics Journal #157 (March 1993), 56–58. Rosenkranz, Rebel Visions, 217–219.
21. “Two Held on Smut Charge,” New York Times, September 18, 1969, 26; “2 Bookstore Clerks Found Guilty in Obscenity Case,” New York Times, October 29, 1970, 46. The owners of the two bookstores were found not guilty and appealed the verdict pronounced against their employees. The judicial reference to this affair is People of the State of New York v. Charles Kirkpatrick and Peter Dargis, 32 N.Y. 2d 17; 295 N.E. 2d (1973).
22. Robert L. Beerbohm, “Secret Origins of the Direct Market. Part Two: Phil Seuling and the Undergrounds Emerge,” Comic Book Artist #7 (March 2000), 120.
23. Gary Groth, “Bill Griffith” (Interview), The Comics Journal #157 (March 1993), 64.
24. Pierre Couperie, “L’Underground,” Phénix #35 (4e trim. 1973), 51; Granjon, L’Amérique de la contestation, 519–535.
25. From 1966 to 1969, Wallace Wood self-published at irregular intervals a black-and-white magazine that consisted of high-quality contributions produced in complete freedom. The erotic and violent content of certain pages appearing in Witzend were one of the precursors of comix. Meanwhile, Wood (born in 1927) and his friends were born of the Warren magazine and not the countercultural movement. The enterprise failed due to the absence of adequate distribution structures in that era.
1. “Gold Key Comics Line Discontinued,” The Comics Journal #53 (Winter 1980), 17; on the Whitman comic books, see Jon McClure’s two-part article “Solving the Whitman Mystery” in Comic Book Marketplace #85 (September 2001), 45–49, and #86 (October 2001), 46–51. Tom Heintjes, “Charlton Goes Down for the Count,” The Comics Journal #103 (November 1985), 10–11; Comic Book Artist #9 (August 2000) and #12 (March 2001) are both dedicated to the history of Charlton. Mark Arnold, “A Family Affair: The Harvey Comics Story,” Comic Book Artist #10 (June 2002), 18–38; the entirety of this issue is dedicated to the Harvey publishing house.
2. Les Daniels, Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics (Abrams, 1991), 187.
3. Lee Wochner, “Comics 1983: The Year in Review,” The Comics Journal #89 (May 1984), 62.
4. Jeff Gelb, “Pacific Comics,” Comics Scene #9 (May 1983), 20–23.
5. On the independent publishers at the start of the 1980s, see Comic Book Artist #8 (May 2000) and #15 (November 2001), both which are entirely dedicated to them.
6. Andrew Dagilis, “The Siren Song of Blood,” The Comics Journal #133 (December 1989), 88–96.
7. See “Controversy raised over explicit Miracleman birth scenes,” The Comics Journal #112 (October 1986), 11; the series of articles published in The Comics Journal #113 (December 1986), 12–18; “DC Guidelines spawn reaction,” The Comics Journal #114 (February 1987), 16–22.
8. “Comic Shop Busted,” The Comics Journal #114 (February 1987), 13–15. See also the articles dedicated to this affair in the following issues of The Comics Journal: 116, 117, 118, 120, 122, 126, and the article on its conclusion: Greg S. Baisden, “Friendly Frank’s Wins on Appeal,” The Comics Journal #133 (December 1989), 13–15.
9. The first prominent case in Canada was the seizure of 192 comic books at the “Comics Legends” store in Calgary, Alberta, on September 22, 1987. The owner, the manager, and the employees of the store were accused of selling obscene material. See also “Canadian Comic Shop Busted,” The Comics Journal #118 (December 1987), 131–134.
10. “‘Mature’ Comics Fall into an Unfavorable Media Spotlight,” The Comics Journal #119 (January 1988), 9–11; “Violent Comics Draw Unfavorable Media Spotlight,” The Comics Journal #130 (July 1989), 5–10.
11. For a presentation of the CBDLF’s actions and its fights for the free expression of comic book creators, see Bob Shrek and Jamie S. Rich (eds.), Free Speeches (Oni Press, 1988).
12. Georgia Dullea, “Holy Bomb Blast! The Real Robin Fights On!”, New York Times November 10, 1988, C23.
13. Gary Groth, “Black and White and Dead All Over,” The Comics Journal #116 (July 1987), 8–12.
14. Harvey Pekar, American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar (Doubleday, 1986); More American Splendor: the Life and Times of Harvey Pekar (Doubleday, 1987). Pekar first appeared on Late Night with David Letterman on October 15, 1986; he recounted his experiences with Letterman in American Splendor as well as in several articles: “Me ‘n’ Dave Letterman,” Cleveland Plain Dealer #1 (February 1987), I; “Late Night of the Soul with David Letterman,” Village Voice #25 (August 1987), 45–46; “Getting Dave’s Goat,” Cleveland Edition #22, September 1988, I+; these television appearances were accounted for among the bravura set pieces in the film American Splendor (2003). Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, and Frank Stack, Our Cancer Year (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1994).
1. Calvin Reid, “Picture This,” Publishers Weekly, October 12, 1990, 17–23.
2. “Maus receives wave of publicity; first printing sells out,” The Comics Journal #112 (October 1986), 14
3. Dirk Deppey, “Memo from Hibbs, postscript,” The Comics Journal: Journalista! Monday, October 27, 2003 (supplement), http://www.tcj.com/journalista/zarch200310Db.html (March 14, 2004).
4. On “bad girl art,” see Trina Robbins, The Great Women Superheroes (Kitchen Sink Press, 1996), 166–169.
5. Harry F. Waters, “Another Kind of Superhero,” Newsweek, August 16, 1993, 52–53. For a profound study of the reception of the Milestone titles, see Jeffrey A. Brown, Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and their Fans (University of Mississippi Press, 2001).
6. Several films taken from comic books that were not particularly remarkable in their publishing career experienced variable levels of success: they came from the catalogs of Dark Horse (Timecop and The Mask, 1994; Barb Wire, 1996; Mystery Men, 1999), Aircel (Men in Black, 1997), Image (Bulletproof Monk, 2003), and DC (no less than three Batman films during the decade). On the other hand, several enormous best sellers gave way to diversely received films: Spawn (1997) from the title by Todd McFarlane, Hellboy (2004) taken from the Mike Mignola title and the unconvincing Alan Moore adaptations of From Hell (2001) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). After the failures of the direct-to-video films The Punisher (1989) and Captain America (1991), Marvel played a better hand with its cards resulting in several successes: Blade (2000), starring a secondary character from the 1970s series The Tomb of Dracula, X-Men (2000), and Spider-Man (2002) all begat sequels, even though their success did not parlay in 2003 for Daredevil and Hulk despite considerable publicity hype.
7. On the Batman animated series, see Paul Dini and Chip Kidd, Batman Animated (HarperEntertainment, 1998). On Darwyn Cooke, see “Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontiers,” Comic Book Artist #2.3 (March 2004), 34–43, 84–103.
8. As he had promised at the start of the 1980s, Sim saw Cerebus through to its three-hundredth issue and six-thousandth page in March 2004, completing a creative and publishing adventure that saw a comic book originally pastiching the stories of “Conan the Barbarian” grow toward a dimension of greater metaphysical reflection, transforming itself over time into a forum that allowed Sim to express his ideas (which would alienate him over the long term with a large part of his original readers and the quasi-totality of the comics community) about subjects as diverse as the philosophy of self-publishing, the illegitimacy of feminism, the decadence of Canadian political life, and finally, his discovery of God in a syncretic faith that mixed Protestant fundamentalism with Islam. At the same time, Cerebus was a space of permanent formal research that saw its creator move further and further away from the conventions of graphic narration.
9. Gary Groth, “Confessions of a Smut Peddler,” The Comics Journal #143 (July 1991), 5–7.
10. Samuel Bréan, “Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth: A Hall of Mirrors” (English master’s thesis, Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3, 2001).
11. For a list of Anglophone Canadian comics creators, see Kirsten Andersen, Contemporary Canadian Comics and Graphic Novels in English, http://www.yourlibrary.ca/CanadianComics.pdf (May 3, 2004).
1. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Sphere Books, 1964).
2. Ron Goulart, Great History of Comic Books (Contemporary Books, 1986), 23.
3. Emma Mai Ewing, “The ‘Funnies’ Can Be Serious,” New York Times, September 12, 1976, K16; Ron Goulart, “Golden Age Sweatshops,” The Comics Journal #249 (December 2002), 71–72; “Joe Kubert. An Interview with Gary Groth,” The Comics Journal #172 (November 1994), 62–63; Jon Berk, “Harry ‘A’ Chesler, Jr.: Comic Book Entrepreneur,” Comic Book Marketplace #91 (May 2002), 40–54. Chesler donated his archives to Fairleigh Dickinson University, situated in Rutherford, New Jersey; they were subsequently transferred to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
4. Will Murray, “DC’s Tangled Roots,” Comic Book Marketplace #53 (November 1997), 59–60.
5. Will Eisner, The Dreamer (Kitchen Sink Press, 1986), 21. See also R. C. Harvey, “Interview with Will Eisner,” The Comics Journal #249 (December 2002), 65–66.
6. Harvey, “Interview with Will Eisner,” 62–69; Goulart, “Golden Age Sweatshops,” 73–74, 77.
7. Steve Duin and Mike Richardson, Comics Between the Panels (Dark Horse, 1998), 168.
8. Goulart, “Golden Age Sweatshops,” 74–76.
9. Goulart, “Golden Age Sweatshops,” 18.
10. P. C. Hamerlinck, “The Jack Binder Shop Days. An Interview with Nat Champlin,” Alter Ego #3.3 (Winter 2000); “Captain Marvel Section,” 38–41.
11. John Benson, “An Introduction by John Benson,” Hey Look! Cartoons by Mad Creator Harvey Kurtzman (Kitchen Sink Press, 1992), 6.
12. A remarkable testimony on the ambience that reigned in the Marvel Offices at the start of the 1970s is Robin Green’s article “Face Front! Clap Your Hands, You’re on the Winning Team!”, Rolling Stone I, 91 (September 16, 1971).
13. On the back of the check that they received for their work is a mention of the contractual terms in which they renounced all future rights to the finished work; it was impossible to endorse the check without signing the contract. This practice remained unchanged until recent times with publishers employing freelancers under the regime of commission contract. William Gaines, the owner of Mad, himself appended a stamp on the back of all his checks that carried text that imposed similar condition to his collaborators: see Frank Jacobs, The Mad World of William M. Gaines (Lyle Stuart, 1972), 36.
14. John Kobler, “Up, Up and Awa-a-y! The Rise of Superman, Inc.,” Saturday Evening Post, June 21, 1941, 73–76; reproduced in facsimile in San Diego Comic-Con Souvenir Programme, 1988, 63–68. Will Murray, “Epitaph for Robert Kahn,” Comic Book Marketplace #65 (December 1998), 52.
15. Les Daniels, Superman: The Complete History (DC, 1998), 70–73.
16. Mary Breasted, “Superman’s Creators, Nearly Destitute, Invoke His Spirit,” New York Times, November 22, 1975, 31; David Vidal, “Mild-Mannered Cartoonists Go to Aid of Superman’s Creators,” New York Times, December 10, 1975, 51; “Superman’s Creators Get Lifetime Pay,” New York Times, December 24, 1975, 25. See also the obituaries of Siegel and Shuster written by Michael Catron in The Comics Journal: “Joe Shuster … Forever Up, Up and Away,” The Comics Journal #153 (October 1992), 20–24; “Superman Creator Jerry Siegel Dies at 81,” The Comics Journal #184 (February 1996), 25–39.
17. “Marvel Writers Lose Claim to Original Artwork,” The Comics Journal #60 (November 1980), 13.
18. “Comix Book: A Marvel Oddity,” Comic Book Artist #7 (March 2000), 102–108; Jordan Rapheal and Tom Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (Chicago Review Press, 2003), 142–145.
19. “Marvel Announces Royalty Program,” The Comics Journal #70 (January 1982), 10–11; “Marvel Offers Own Royalty Plan,” Comics Scene #3 (May 1982), 10.
20. Robert Greenberger, “Marvel Introduces New Contracts,” Comics Scene #2 (March 1982), 18.
21. Kim Fryer, “Comics Contracts: What the Various Companies Offer,” The Comics Journal #113 (December 1986), 19–23.
22. Julius Schwartz, Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics (HarperEntertainment, 2000), 113–114.
23. Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs, The Comic Book Heroes (Prima, 1997), 22.
24. Les Daniels, Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics (Abrams, 1991), 68.
25. For a description of the intangible work method practiced at Fawcett, see P. C. Hamerlinck, “Fond Memories. Former Fawcett Comic Book Editor Virgina A. (‘Ginny’) Provisiero,” Fawcett Companion, ed. P. C. Hamerlinck (TwoMorrows, 2001), 65–67.
26. Harvey, “Interview with Will Eisner,” 66. The method is described in detail with supporting illustrations in Daniels, Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics, 226–231.
27. Greg Sadowski, B. Krigstein Vol. One (1919–1955), (Fantagraphics, 2002), 177–179.
28. For an interpretation of the origins of Spider-Man according to Steve Ditko, see his essay “An Insider’s Part of Comics History: Jack Kirby’s Spider-Man,” Alter Ego #2.3 (Winter 1999), 4–7.
29. R. C. Harvey, The Life and Times of Murphy Anderson (TwoMorrows, 2003), 88–91.
30. Steve Ringgenberg, “Sol Harrison: ‘The King of Color,’” The Comics Journal #169 (July 1994), 111–112.
31. Roger Hill, “Silver Print Rediscovered!”, Comic Book Marketplace #25 (July 1995), 79; Pat Calhoun, “Producing Superman: Ed Eisenberg,” Comic Book Marketplace #33 (March 1996), 31.
32. D. A. Kraft, “Anthony Tollin,” Comics Interview #10 (April 1984), 45.
33. Ibid., 47.
34. Steve Ringgenberg, “Steve Ringgenberg interviews Marie Severin,” Psychoanalysis, boxed set “The Complete EC Library: Piracy, Aces High, Psychoanalysis, Extra!” (Russ Cochran, 1988), n.p.; Kraft, “Anthony Tollin,” 45.
35. Brian Tulley, “Bob Sharen,” Comics Interview #6 (August 1983), 37.
36. D. A. Kraft, “Steve Oliff,” Comics Interview #1 (February 1983), 49.
1. Ron Goulart, “This is a job for adman,” Comics Buyer’s Guide #6 (October 1989), 50.
2. On the comic book ads published between the 1940s and 50s, see Miles Beller and Jerry Leibowitz, Hey Skinny! Great Advertisements from the Golden Age of Comics (Chronicle Books, 1995).
3. For example: Demon #2 (October 1972) contained one page for DC and ten pages for advertisers; Stalker #4 (December 1975), four pages for DC and twelve pages for advertisers.
4. Advertisements of this type of intermediary sales organization, which initiated children to consumption in the fashion of Amway or Tupperware, already appeared in the comic books of the 1930s. Harvey Kurtzman created the first parody on the cover of Mad #21 (EC, March 1955), and Chris Ware has also pastiched this tendency in abundance in The Acme Novelty Library (Fantagraphics).
5. Robert L. Beerbohm, “Secret Origins of the Direct Market. Part One: ‘Affadavit Returns’—The Scourge of Distribution,” Comic Book Artist #6 (Fall 1999), 84.
6. During the 1970s, Marvel produced, for the Hostess cream-filled cakes, a series of publicity pages that parodied its popular series. Captain America, Captain Marvel, and Iron Man, among others, led the promotion of these pastries.
7. Specifically, it consisted of acne treatment products. It is important to note that this type of advertisement was one of the only actual domains where the rules of the Comics Code were strictly respected. Due to the draconian control over advertisements for hygienic and paramedical products, as well as the puritanical connotations of “innocence” that surrounded the reading of comic books, there is a notable absence of preventative advertisements in these comics for products that addressed an age bracket directly concerned with venereal diseases.
8. Greg. W. Myers, “Clipping Service,” Comic Buyer’s Guide #832 (October 27, 1989), 66; DC’s announcement can be found in the February 18, 1989, issue of Adweek.
9. The facts on H. Donenfeld and E. Budner come from Fifty Who Made DC Great (DC, 1985), 6, 15.
10. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency: A Part of the Investigation of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States, 84th Cong., 1st sess. (GPO, 1955), 44–50.
11. U.S. Congress, House, Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, Hearings, 82nd Cong., 2nd sess. (GPO, 1953), 35, 321.
12. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Juvenile Delinquency (Comic Books), 83rd Cong., 2nd sess. (GPO, 1954), 201 sqq.
13. Joe Brancatelli, “The Comic Books,” Vampirella #55 (October 1976), 65; Robert Beerbohm, “Secret Origins of the Direct Market. Part One: Affadavit Returns—The Scourge of Distribution,” Comic Book Artist #6 (Fall 1999), 80–91. The anecdote told by James Warren is found in David A. Roach and Jon B. Cooke, The Warren Companion (TwoMorrows, 2001), 23–24.
14. “Marvel Direct Sales over 90% of Single Copy Sales,” http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/331.html (May 25, 2004); “Newsstand Sales Slipping across the Board. Archie Tops the Comics Field,” http://icv2.omnimadison.com/articles/indepth/300.html (May 25, 2004).
15. Kim Thompson, The Direct-Sales Boom,” The Comics Journal #64 (July 1981), 7.
16. Robert Beerbohm, Comics Reality #8, “The Comic Book Store Phenom—Rebirth of an Industry,” http://members.aol.com/dianehleb/reality8.txt (May 27, 2004).
17. Ibid.
18. The first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was produced by Mirage Studios in the spring of 1984. Printed at three thousand copies, this comic featured four mutant ninja water turtles that parodied the atmosphere of film noir and martial arts in the final issues of Frank Miller’s Daredevil. The mix of action and buffoonery probably touched a nerve with a large audience among collectors and, due to the small initial print run, this comic became one of the most sought-after comics of the decade. In three years, the initial sales price ($1.50) became $150 in the collector’s market.
19. The “black-and-white glut” constituted the primary preoccupation of The Comics Journal during the first half of 1987. See also “Black-and-white explosion slowing down according to comics distributors,” The Comics Journal #114 (February 1987), 26; “The black-and-white market rapidly declining say industry professionals,” The Comics Journal #115 (April 1987), 21–22; Bill Sherman, “The Black and White Boom,” The Comics Journal #115 (April 1987), 144–145; Gary Groth, “Black and White and Dead All Over,” The Comics Journal #116 (July 1987), 8–12.
20. “New Glut Predicted,” The Comics Journal #121 (April 1988), 5–6.
21. The elements of the following paragraphs Dirk Deppey’s article “The Fog Hollow memorial address,” The Comics Journal: !Journalista, Sunday, November 10, 2002 (supplement), http://www.tcj.com/journalista/fhmaprint.html (March 14, 2004).
22. On Atlas/Seaboard, see Comic Book Marketplace #77 (April 2000), 26–46, and Comic Book Artist #16 (December 2001), which focuses several articles on this situation.
23. Eric Reynolds, “Industry Sales Records in 1993 Shadowed by Collapse of Speculator Boom,” The Comics Journal #166 (February 1994), 27–33; Eric Reynolds, “Comics Publishers Suffer Tough Summer,” The Comics Journal #172 (November 1994), 13–18.
24. Melchior Thompson, “An Overview of the Direct Market in 2003,” http://www.comtrac.net/Comics%20Market%20in%202003.pdf (April 30 2004), 2.
25. Dan Raviv, Comic Wars: How Two Tycoons Battled Over the Marvel Comics Empire—And Both Lost (Broadway, 2002); for a summary of this financial odyssey, see Dan Raviv, “Comic Wars,” http://randomhouse.com/features/comicwars/timeline.html (May 3, 2004).
26. Brian Hibbs, “A Business Based on TPBs Alone,” Comics Retailer #105 (December 2000), 56–57.
27. Melchior Thompson, , “An Overview of the Direct Market in 2003,” 2.
28. Kurt Eichenwald, “Grown-Ups Gather at the Comic Book Stand,” New York Times, September 30, 1987, A1.
29. John Davis (president of Capital City Distribution), interview accorded to the author, Salon International de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême, January 30, 1993.
30. Stuart Wells III, Comic Cards and Their Prices (Wallace-Homestead, 1994), iv–v.
31. On Topps and the creation of its comics publishing branch, see the interview with Len Brown and Gary Gerani (4–10) as well as the one with Jim Salicrup (24–33) in Comics Interview #115 (1992).
32. These numbers were mentioned by Mel Thompson at a round table “Comic Book Statistics,” San Diego Comic-Con, August 3, 2002.
33. With respect to female clientele and comic book stores, see Loubert, Deni (ed.), How to Get Girls (into your store). A Friends of Lulu Retailer Handbook (Friends of Lulu, 1997).
34. For a very informed and satirical representation of the milieu of fanboys, see the stories “The Eltingville Comic-Book-Science-Fiction-Fantasy-Horror and Role-Plaing Club” in Evan Dorkin’s comic book Dork (Slave Labor Graphics).
35. On comic book stores, see Matthew J. Pustz, Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers (University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 3–9 and passim.
1. Jerry Bail’s Who’s Who of American Comic Books, 2nd edition, downloadable at http://www.nostromo.no/whoswho/.
2. On the female creators of comic books, see the articles and work of Trina Robbins, particularly The Great Women Cartoonists (Watson-Guptill, 2001).
3. Graph drawn from a sampling of 439 individuals whose birth dates and professional entry in the comic book industry were taken from Jerry Bail’s Who’s Who of American Comic Books, Comic Book Artists by Alex G. Malloy (Wallace-Homestead Book Co., 1993), Comic-Book Superstars by Don and Maggie Thompson (Krause, 1993), and various Internet sites.
4. The citation is by Luc Boltanski, “La constitution du champ de la bande dessinée,” Actes de la recherché en sciences socials I (1975), 40. On this characteristic of Jewish immigrants, see for example Claude Fohlen, La Société américaine 1865–1970 (Arthaud, 1973), 40–41.
5. Jack Schiff and Gene Reed, “Reminiscences of a Comic Book Editor,” Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide #13 (1983), A64.
6. Will Murray, “DC’s Tangled Roots,” Comic Book Marketplace #53 (November 1997), 26–29, 56–67; David Anthony Kraft, “Jerry Perles,” Comics Interview #43 (1987), 40.
7. On the association of comics to Belgium, see Arnaud Piccin, “Marqueurs de l’identité wallonne (IV). Chapitre 2: un ‘marqueur’ … la bande dessinée,” http://www.voxlatina.com/vox_dsp2.php3?art=1389 (January 21, 2004). For an example of the rewriting of the history of comic books starting from the role played by the Jews, see for example the series of articles by Arie Kaplan appearing in Reform Judaism #32.1 (Fall 2003) to #32.3 (Spring 2004).
8. Talk given by Will Eisner transcribed by the author, “Golden Age Panel,” San Diego Comic-Con, August 3, 2002.
9. Alvin Schwartz, “After the Golden Age with Alvin Schwartz—After the Golden Age for 08/16/1999 Column 14,” http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/alvin/index.shtml?19990816 (April 17, 2003).
10. Will Eisner, The Dreamer (Kitchen Sink Press, 1986); Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Random House, 2000).
11. Paul Power, “For Love or Money,” Comics Interview #90 (1991), 6.
12. David Hamilton, “Gene Colan,” Comics Interview #95 (1991), 45.
13. Jules Feiffer, “Memoirs of a Pro Bono Cartoonist,” interview led by Gary Groth, The Comics Journal #124 (August 1988), 45.
14. “John Romita,” interview conducted by Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Journal #252 (May 2003), 85.
15. See for example the letter from artist John Belfi published in Capa-Alpha #5 (February 1965).
16. Rosenkranz, , Rebel Visions, 103–104.
17. C. N. Landon, The Landon School of Cartooning (The Landon School, 1922–1924).
18. Larry Rodham, “Gene Colan,” The Comics Journal #231 (March 2001), 65–66.
19. Gary Groth, “Burne Hogarth Interview, Part II,” The Comics Journal #167 (April 1994), 84–86, 99–101.
20. The “GI Bill” was the name given by the American Press to the “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act,” voted by Congress in June 1944 in the prevision of the return to civil life of millions of soldiers engaged in the global conflict. This law accorded diverse economic advantages such as priority in government posts and low interest rates for real estate taxes, but especially with considerable financial facilities to attain superior and professional instruction, which close to 50 percent of soldiers profited from upon return to civilian life.
21. Joe Heffernan and Kevin Weremeychik, “The John Buscema Workshop,” Alter Ego #3.16 (July 2002), 31–37; Jeff Gelb, “Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb,” Comics Interview #99 (1991), 35–37; Darrel L. Boatz, “John Buscema,” Comics Interview #62 (1988), 25.
22. Stan Lee and John Buscema, How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way (Simon & Schuster, 1978).
23. Eric Evans (ed.), “John Buscema’s Chalk Talk,” The Comics Journal #226 (August 2000), 63–73.
24. Roy Thomas, “Draw for Comic Books! Learn and Earn in Your Spare Time—At Home!” When Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer Taught Comics Drawing By Mail!”, Alter Ego #2.3 (Winter 1999), 8–13.
25. “Joe Kubert. An Interview by Gary Groth,” The Comics Journal #172 (November 1994), 96–98; Sam Kujava, “First Year Kubie—My Greatest Adventure,” Comics Feature (Summer 1983), 86–90; school Web site: http://www.kubertsworld.com/kubertschool/Kubertschool.htm (January 4, 2004).
26. Jon B. Cooke et al., “In Easy Company with the Kuberts,” Comic Book Artist #20 (July 2002), 30.
27. R. C. Harvey, “The Reuben at Fifty,” The Comics Journal #188 (July 1996), 137–140; What is the National Cartoonist’s Society? (National Cartoonist’s Society, 1982).
28. Letter of John Belfi, Capa-Alpha #5 (February 1965), n.p.
29. The sources, very few in number, on the S.O.C.B.I. come from the works on Bernard Krigstein: [Bhob Stewart et al.], “An Interview with Bernard Krigstein,” Squa Tront #6 (1975), 22; Greg Sadowksi, B. Krigstein Volume One (1919–1955) (Fantagraphics, 2002), 119–125. It is equally mentioned in an interview with Harry Harrison conducted by Bill Spicer and Pete Serniuk published in Graphic Story Magazine #15 (Summer 1973), whose transcription can be found at http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm/hh/comics-gsm-interview.htm (December 13, 2003).
30. Sadowski, B. Krigstein Volume One (1919–1955), 120–121.
31. Les Daniels, DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes (DC, 1995), 151; Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs, The Comic Book Heroes (Prima, 1997), 123–124; Mike W. Barr, “The Madames and the Girls. The DC Writers Purge of 1968,” Comic Book Artist #5 (Summer 1999), 12–17.
32. Bill Schelly, Words of Wonder: The Life and Times of Otto Binder (Hamster Press, 2003), particularly chapter 16, “Mary.”
33. Michael Eury, Dick Giardano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time (TwoMorrows, 2003), 43.
34. Mark Vogler, “Kurt Schaffenberger. The Right Man for the Right Job!,” Comic Book Marketplace #59 (May 1998), 27; the entry “Schaffenberger, Kurt,” Who’s Who of American Comic Books.
35. Jud Hurd, “Conversation with Neal Adams—Part One,” Cartoonist Profiles #11 (September 1971), 7; “Conversation with Neal Adams—Part Three,” Cartoonist Profiles #14 (June 1972), 13; Doug Murray, “Flacks and Hacks at A.C.B.A.,” Inside Comics #1.1 (Spring 1974), 26–29; Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (Chicago Review Press, 2003), 216–217.
36. Doug Murray, “Flacks and Hacks,” 29.
37. Rosenkranz, Rebel Visions, 169–170,221; “Button 007-A: United Cartoon Workers of America: Local I, San Francisco,” http://deniskitchen.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=S&Product_Code=BP_KSP.07-A (May 19, 2004).
38. Gary Groth, “The Comics Guild. A professional Guild to protect the rights of visual creators: A Report,” The Comics Journal #42 (October 1978), 15–17.
39. “Birth of the Guild. May 7, 1978,” transcribed and edited by Gary Groth, The Comics Journal #42 (October 1978), 21–28. Joe Brancatelli, “What hath Congress Wrought?,” Vampirella #73 (October 1978), 74.
40. “Comics Guild Update,” The Comics Journal #48 (Summer 1979), 20.
41. Michael Dean, “The Image Story Part Four: An Accounting,” The Comics Journal #226 (August 2000), 17.
42. On the (aborted) attempts of collective organization in the 1990s, see Michael Dean, “Collective Inaction: The Comics Community Tries and Tries Again to Get It Together,” The Comics Journal #262 (August/September 2004), 21–25.
43. Michael Dean, “Graphic Artists Guild Joins with UAW to Offer Support to Comics Creators,” The Comics Journal #213 (July 1999), 7–8. See equally the Web sites of the two organizations: http://www.gag.org [Graphic Artists Guild] and http://www.nwu.org [National Writers Union] (April 9 2004).
44. Herb Trimpe, “Old Superheroes Never Die, They Join the Real World,” New York Times, January 7, 2000, http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/010900edlife-56-edu.html (December 26, 2003).
1. This slogan was that of the paperback publisher “New American Library” at its creation in 1948. “Invented” ten years earlier in Great Britain by Penguin Books founder Allen Lane the paperback was, since its beginnings, the object of a promotion constructed around its low price but also for its capacity to democratize literature and culture.
2. Robert Klein, “Comics: The Department of Commerce,” Alter Ego #18 (October 2002), 41.
3. Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture 1890–1945 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998), 40–41.
4. Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture 1890–1945, 43–58.
5. Robert. L. Beerbohm, Doug Wheeler, and Richard D. Olsen, “The American Comic Book: 1897–1938. Our Collective Knowledge Continues to Grow!”, Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 33rd ed. (Gemstone, 2003), 275–281.
6. I thank Robert Beerbohm for communicating this anecdote to me.
7. Harvey C. Lehman and Paul Witty, “The Compensatory Function of the Sunday Funny Paper,” Journal of Applied Psychology #11 (June 1927), 202–211. Cited by Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture 1890–1945, 86, and Pierre Couperie et al., Bande Dessinée et figuration narrative (Musée dea Arts Décoratifs/Musée du Louvre, 1967), 147–149.
8. Gallup made a distinction between continuity strips telling a long story from one day to the next and comic strips offering a different gag each day. In practice, a certain number of series, like Popeye and Blondie, were midway between the two types at the time.
9. George Gallup, “Guesswork Eliminated in New Method for Determining Reader Interest,” Editor & Publisher #62 (February 8, 1930), I, 55. Cited by Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture 1890–1945, 88.
10. “Double Funnies,” Time, February 18, 1935, 55.
11. “Fortune Survey: The Fortune Quarterly Survey: VIII,” Fortune, April 1937, 111–112, 185–190. Cited by Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture 1890–1945, 88.
12. Cited by Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture 1890–1945, 89–105
13. Kaestle et al., “Literacy as a Consumer Activity,” 153–154; Erik Andresen, “The First 1,000 Comic Books in History,” Comic Book Marketplace #13 (May 1992), 14–24.
14. Kammen, American Culture, American Tastes, 83.
15. Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merell Lynd, Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (Harcourt Brace, 1937), 244–258.
16. R. Gordon Kelly (ed.), Children’s Periodicals of the United States (Greenwood Press, 1984).
17. John Kobler, “Up, Up and Awa-a-y! The Rise of Superman, Inc.,” Saturday Evening Post, June 21, 1941, 73; reproduced in facsimile at the San Diego Comic-Con Souvenir Programme (1988), 63–68.
18. Klein, “Comics: The Department of Commerce,” 40.
19. “Superman’s Dilemma,” Time, April 13, 1942, 78.
20. Douglas Gilbert, “No Laughing Matter,” a series of three articles published in New York World-Telegram in 1942, reproduced in Comic Book Marketplace #36 (June 1996), 22–35.
21. Ruth Morris Bakwin, “Psychological Aspects of Pediatrics: The Comics,” Journal of Pediatrics (1953), 633, cited by Patrick Parsons, 69.
22. For example, Lauretta Bender and Reginald Lourie, “The Effect of Comic Books on the Ideology of Children,” American Journal of Orthospsychiatry #11 (1941), 540–550; Robert Thorndike, “Words and the Comics,” Journal of Experimental Education #10 (1941), 110–113; H. Dyson Carter, “Are the Comics Bad for Children?”, Family Circle, April 17, 1942, reproduced in facsimile in Comic Book Marketplace #60 (June 1998), 48–49.
23. William Moulton Marston, “Why 100,000,000 Americans Read Comics,” The American Scholar #13.1 (Winter 1943–1944), 35–44.
24. “Too Many Magazines?”, Time, June 17, 1946, 48. For a diagram showing the evolution of the monthly sales numbers based on the data in Ayer’s Guide, the annual yearbook of periodicals, see Klein, “Comics: The Department of Commerce,” 40.
25. America Reads the Comics. Report number 2 in a series “Adult America’s Interest in Comics,” Puck—The Comic Weekly, 1948.
26. “Reading of Comic Magazines in Dayton, Ohio—A Continuing Study (Prepared for the National Comics Group, May 1950, by Stewart, Dougall & Associates, New York),” in U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Juvenile Delinquency: A Compilation of Information and Suggestions … Relative to the Incidence of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States and the Possible Influence of So-Called Crime Comic Books During the 5-Year-Period 1945 to 1950, 81st Cong., 2nd sess. (GPO, 1950), 168–179.
27. Adult America’s Interest in Comics: The first in a series of reports based on a study of popular habits, attitudes, and preferences related to comics and other media of communication, conducted under the auspices of the Department of Communications in Education, New York University, Puck-The Comic Weekly, 1948, 17.
28. Michelle Nolan, “1950s … The Love Glut,” Comic Book Marketplace #28 (October 1995), 19–21; Michelle Nolan, “The Case Against Crime Comics!”, Comic Book Marketplace #65 (December 1998), 15.
29. “Reading of Comic Magazines in Dayton, Ohio,” 172–173.
30. Nineteen fifty-two was the year where the combined printings of comic books reached their historical maximum but there is no data at our disposal that allow us to quantitatively determine this. At the time of the audiences of the Commission of the Chamber of Representatives on the Pornographic Publications in December 1952, the estimations on the volume of comic books published monthly doubles in range: fifty million copies according to publisher David Cook and one hundred million copies according to the representative of New York State Joseph Carlino; see also U.S. Congress, House, Select Committee on Current Pornographic Material, Hearings, 82nd Cong., 2nd sess. (GPO, 1953), 233 (J. Carlino), 249 (D. Cook).
31. Schramm, Wilbur, Jack Lyle, and Edwin Parker, Television in the Lives of Our children (Stanford University Press, 1961). Cited by Parsons, 73.
32. Paul Lyness, “The Place of the Mass Media in the Lives of Boys and Girls,” Journalism Quarterly #29.1 (1952), 43–54. Cited by Parsons, 73.
33. Jack Lyle and Heidi Hoffman, “Children’s Use of Television and Other Media,” Television and Social Behaviour Vol.4, Television in Day-to-Day Life: Patterns of Use, ed. E. A. Rubenstein, G. A. Comstock, and J. P. Murray (National Institute of Mental Health, 1971), 1290256. Cited by Parsons, 74–75.
34. Klein, “Comics: The Department of Commerce,” 42–43.
35. “O.K., You Passed the 2-S Test—Now You’re Smart Enough for Comic Books,” Esquire #66.3 (September 1966), 115.
36. Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 219.
37. Klein, “Comics: The Department of Commerce,” 45–46.
38. Kaestle et al., 155–157. Kaestle divided the mass media into two categories: on one hand, reading (newspapers, magazines, books) and audiovisual (volume of tickets to the cinema, theater, and sports arenas); on the other hand, “electronic expenditure.” The latter was subdivided into two subcategories: for one part, radios, televisions, records, musical instruments, and for the other part, the repair of radios and televisions. For example, the non-media expenditure comprised of plants, toys, sports equipment, and social life.
39. Kammen, American Culture, American Tastes, 182.
40. Leo Bogart, Press and Public: Who Reads What, When, Where, and Why in American Newspapers, 2nd ed. (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989), 121–126.
41. Ibid., 117–119.
42. Characteristics and Advertising Responsiveness of the Marvel Comics Primary Audience (Simmons Market Research Bureau, 1984). The three titles that had the inserted questionnaires were: Alpha Flight, the new series conceived by one of the most popular creators of the time, John Byrne; Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, a strong selling superhero title; Star Wars, the comics adaptation of the films of George Lucas.
43. The print run of American Flagg! was cited in John Jackson Miller et al., The Standard Catalog of Comic Books (Krause Publications, 2002), under the entry “American Flagg!”; the print runs of the Marvel titles were those given in Characteristics and Advertising Responsiveness of the Marvel Comics Primary Audience.
44. Julie Stuempfig, “Survey: Industry Demographics,” Comics Retailer (March 1993), 45.
45. “SmartGirl—Teen Read Week Survey Results,” http://www.smartgirl.com/results/trwsummary.html (April 20, 2001).
46. “SmartGirl—Survey Archives,” http://live.smartgirl.org/speakout/archives/trw/trw2001/html (July 3, 2003). A part of the study was reproduced at the end of Marc Aronson’s article “Coming of Age,” Publishers Weekly #11 (February 2002), 82–86.
47. “The State of the Industry: Revisiting Comics by the Numbers,” Comics Retailer #72 (March 1998), 46.
48. Ibid.
49. Elements mentioned by Melchior Thompson over the course of the round table “Comic Book Statistics,” San Diego Comic-Con, August 3, 2002. The examples of specialties were those most frequently cited by bookstores that had responded to the “Friends of Lulu” study; see also Cheryl Harris, 80.
50. Gérard Mauger et al., Histoires de lecteurs (Nathan, 1999), 233–234; on what is meant by “lectures masculines” or “lectures feminines,” 231–234. See also the classic work on masculine or feminine determination in sociology: L. M. Terman and C. C. Miles, Sex and Personality: Studies in Masculinity and Femininity (McGraw Hill, 1936).
51. “Back Issue Analysis,” Comics Spectator (May-June 1997), http://comtrac.net/articles.htm (March 11, 2003).
52. “Archie Comics Reaches A Millennium Milestone with the 500th Issue! 60 Years of Archie Comics,” section “Readership Demographics,” http://www.archiecomics.com/acpaco_offices/presskit/2002%20New%20Media%20Kit%20part%201%20Co%20Info.htm (July 3, 2003).
53. Dirk Deppey, “You Can’t Miss What You Can’t Measure,” The Comics Journal: !Journalista! Monday, December 8, 2003 (supplement), http://www.tcj.com/journalista/zarch200312Ba.html (March 14, 2004).
54. Dirk Deppey, “Memo from Hibbs,” The Comics Journal: !Journalista! Monday, October 27, 2003 (supplement), http:www.tcj.com/journalista/zarch200310Da.html (March 14, 2004); Dirk Deppey, “Memo from Hibbs, postscript,” The Comics Journal: !Journalista! Monday, October 27, 2003 (supplement), http:www.tcj.com/journalista/zarch200310Db.html (March 14, 2004).
1. For an example of a diatribe against newspaper comic strips, see John K. Ryan, “Are the Comics Moral?”, Forum 95 (May 1936), 301.
2. Sterling North, “A National Disgrace,” Chicago Daily News, May 8, 1940; reprinted in Childhood Education 17 (1940), 56.
3. Lovell Thompson, “Not So Comic,” The Atlantic Monthly 167 (January 1941), 105–107.
4. Walter Ong, “The Comics and the Super State: Glimpses Down the Back Alley of the Mind,” Arizona Quarterly 1 (Autumn 1945), 34–48; “Are Comics Fascist?,” Time, October 22, 1945, 67–68.
5. On the evaluative committees, see Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (University Press of Mississippi, 1998), 23–30.
6. “Manners and Morals,” Time, April 26, 1948, 26.
7. “‘Comics’ Blamed in Death. Boy Hanged Himself Re-enacting Book’s Scene, Mother Believes,” New York Times, September 15, 1942, 12; “Comic Book Inspires Boys’ Torture of Pal,” New York Times, August 19, 1948, 17.
8. For a good example of the rhetoric then used in the press, see “Not So Funny,” Time, October 4, 1948, 46.
9. John Mason Brown, “The Case Against the Comics,” Saturday Review of Literature, March 20, 1948, 32–33.
10. “Clean-Up Started by Comic Books As Editors Adopt Self-Policing Plan,” New York Times, July 2, 1948, 23; “Publishers To Start Regulation of Comics,” New York Times, September 10, 1948, 26. The twelve members were, in alphabetical order: Ace, Avon, Consolidated Magazines, Famous Funnies (Eastern Color), Lev Gleason, Golden Willow, Hillman, McCombs, Orbit, Parents Magazine Institute, Premium Service, and Superior. Absent were the three largest publishers of the period (Dell, DC, Marvel) as well as small yet visible companies, like Gilberton and St. John.
11. “Three Cities Curb Comics,” New York Times, May 25, 1948, 25.
12. “Unfunny Comic Books Barred in Los Angeles,” New York Times, September 23, 1948, 38. The decree was repealed on December 28, 1949, after being judged unconstitutional.
13. “50 Cities Ban Off-Color Funnies,” New York Times, October 5, 1948, 29.
14. “State Bill to Curb Comic Books Filed,” New York Times, January 14, 1949, 18; “Comic Books Curb Vetoed by Dewey,” New York Times, April 20, 1949, 20. This bill was sponsored by Republican Senator Benjamin Feinberg; it required that publishers wishing to produce comic books obtain prior permission from the Department of Education.
15. “Outlawed,” Time (Canadian edition), December 19, 1949, 33–34. The preceding year, Canadian opinion had been shocked by a sordid incident: one night in November 1948, on the road between Dawson Creek and Kilkarren, British Columbia, a farmer named James Watson was sitting in the rear of a car driven by his son when he was shot in the head by a randomly fired bullet. A week later, police found the guilty parties, two boys of ten and thirteen years: after having stolen a rifle from a car that had been left open, they were hiding in the sandpit that ran along the highway and one of the two, his face masked by a handkerchief, fired upon the first car that passed by. See also “Just Like the Book,” Time (Canadian edition), December 6, 1948, 38. Later, Fredric Wertham published this anecdote in Seduction of the Innocent, in chapter 11, titled “Murder in Dawson Creek. The Comic Books Abroad.” For a detailed analysis of the Canadian anti-comics campaign, see Bart Beaty, “High Treason: Canadian Nationalism and the Regulation of American Crime Comic Books,” Essays in Canadian Writing 62 (Fall 1997), 85–107.
16. Madeleine Loeb. “Anti-Comics Drive Reported Waning,” New York Times, January 21, 1950, 9.
17. U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Juvenile Delinquency: A Compilation of Information and Suggestions … Relative to the Incidence of Juvenile Delinquency in the United States and the Possible Influence Thereon of So-Called Crime Comic Books During the 5-Year-Period 1945 to 1950, 81st Cong., 2nd sess. (GPO, 1950).
18. U.S. Congress, House, Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, Hearings, 82nd Cong., 2nd sess. (GPO, 1953); “The Big Business,” Time, January 12, 1953, 73.
19. On the origins of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency see James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America’s Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s (Oxford University Press, 1986), 148–150.
20. “Comic Book Hearing is Set,” New York Times, February 21, 1954, 45.
21. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, Juvenile Delinquency (Comic Books), 83rd Cong., 2nd sess. (GPO, 1954); the numbers in parentheses in the text that follows reference the pages of the report.
22. Gaines has subsequently indicated that he was suffering the effects of Dexedrine (an 345 amphetamine that he was taking to lose weight); he had stopped taking the drug the day before in the hopes that his testimony would benefit from a clearer head. He recognized too late that he should not have made this remark; it would have been better, however, had he withheld the instructions that he had given to artist Johnny Craig attenuating the truly horrific character of the first version of the cover. However, the shocking nature of the publisher’s reply was played up in the press as Kefauver’s response—“You have blood coming out of her mouth”—was rephrased in the next day’s New York Times as “You’ve got blood dripping from the mouth”; see also Peter Kihss, “Comics Publisher Sees No Harm In Horror, Discounts ‘Good Taste,’” New York Times, April 22, 1954, 34. This inaccurate quotation was ultimately used by the rest of the press; see also “Horror Comics,” Time, May 3, 1954, 78.
23. “Are You a Red Dupe?” appeared as the inside cover of a number of magazines published by EC in spring 1954, including in Crime Suspenstories 24 (September 1954); it is reproduced in my article cited above, 165. It is important to note that the term “dupe” was, at the time, the used to designate individuals receptive to communist propaganda, whether or not they were members of the Communist Party.
24. In the early 1950s, each DC title contained a half-page insert titled “Editorial Advisory Board” in which appeared the names of four experts explicitly presented as guarantors of the quality of the magazines (“your guarantee of the best in comics reading”): Dr. Lauretta Bender, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, New York University, College of Medicine; Dr. W. W. D. Sones, Professor of Education and Director of Curriculum Study, University of Pittsburgh; Josette Frank, Consultant on Children’s Reading, Child Study Association of America; Dr. S. Harcourt Peppard, Director, Essex County Juvenile Clinic, Newark, New Jersey. At the same time, Marvel’s magazines were published with the support of an editorial consultant, Dr. Jean Thompson, MD, Psychiatrist, Child Guidance Bureau: Board of Education, New York City.
25. All of these measures are described in detail in the report by Edward L. Feder, Comic Book Regulation, Legislative Problem no. 2 (Bureau of Public Administration, University of California, Berkeley, 1955). The findings of the hearings held in the spring of 1954 were collected in a report published in February 1955: U.S. Congress, Senate, Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency: Interim Report of the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency 84th Cong., 1st sess. (GPO, 1955). The subcommittee never released a final report on the issue of comic books.
26. “Comic Book Curb Grows,” New York Times, July 11, 1955, 24; “Ban on Lurid Comics Voted in Kentucky,” New York Times, February 12, 1956, 37.
27. Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage. The numbers indicated in parentheses in the following text refer to the pages of this work.
28. In the appendix to the transcription of the 1952 Gathings Commission hearings a letter from a mother in a separated family whose son had fallen into delinquency “because he read comic books,” whereas she “had always cared for the family home and never worked outside the household.” Cf. U.S. Congress, House, Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, 370–371.
29. James Gilbert himself dedicated chapter 6 of his book A Cycle of Outrage to the “Crusade Against Mass Culture” (91–108). On the social and professional trajectory of Fredric Wertham, see the article by Jean-Matthieu Méon, “Logiques et coûts d’un investissement militant. La croisade de Fredric Wertham contre les comic books: la mise en scène d’une psychiatrie sociale et engagée,” in Philippe Hamman et al. (eds.), Discourse savants, discours militants: mélange des genres (L’Harmattan, 2002), 225–250.
30. Gershon Legman, Love and Death: A Study in Censorship (Breaking Point, 1949); Fredric Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent (Holt, Rinehart, 1954); Geoffrey Wagner, The Parade of Pleasure: A Study of Popular Iconography in the USA (Derek Verschoyle, 1954).
31. For a biographical sketch of Gershon Legman see “The Sovereign of Smut. A Tribute to the Life and Work of Gershon Legman, Scholar of the Dirty Joke,” http://www.spectator.net/EDPAGES/1141_sovereign.html (June 22, 2004).
32. C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (Oxford University Press, 1956).
33. For a remarkable intellectual biography of Dr. Wertham, see Bart Beaty, Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture (University Press of Mississippi, 2005).
34. Kirk Varnedoe and Adam Gopnik (eds.), High and Low, Modern Art and Popular Culture (Museum of Modern Art, 1991), 186–187.
35. On the reaction to the publication of Seduction of the Innocent, see Méon, “Logiques et coûts d’un investissement militant”; on the role of comic books in juvenile delinquency, see two other works by Fredric Wertham: The Circle of Guilt (Holt, 1956), 83–103, and A Sign for Cain: An Exploration of Human Violence (Macmillan, 1966), 193–199.
36. For a criticism of Wertham formulated by an author equally hostile to comic books, see Robert Warshow, “Paul, the Horror Comics, and Dr. Wertham,” The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre and Other Aspects of Popular Culture (1962: Harvard University Press, 2001), 68–71.
37. Martin Barker, A Haunt of Fears. The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign (Pluto, 1984), 71–72.
38. Leslie Fiedler, “The Middle Against Both Ends,” Encounter 5 (1955), 16–23.
39. Roger Garcia and Bernard Eisenschitz (eds.), Frank Tashlin (Festival International du Film de Locarno/Yellow Now, 1994). On the reception of the film in France, see pages 14–109.
40. Ibid., 218.
41. New York State, Joint Legislative Committee Studying the Publication and Dissemination of Offensive and Obscene Material, Report, Legislative Document no. 83 (Williams, 1960), 78.
42. “Curbs by Comics,” New York Times, December 10, 1968, 76. The 1954 code forbade only knives, concealable weapons, and realistic reproductions of firearms.
43. On the problems posed by the definition of obscenity, see John Atherton, “Speech, Act and the Right to Offend in their First Amendment Context,” Revue Française d’Études Américaines 52 (May 1992), 137–148.
44. “Artists Produce Benefit Portfolio,” The Comics Journal #116 (July 1987), 21.
45. “Friendly Frank’s Wins on Appeal,” The Comics Journal #133 (December 1989), 13–15.
46. “Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund Information Page,” http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~lswong/CLLDF.html (June 22, 2004).
47. John Fulce, Seduction of the Innocent Revisited (Huntington, 1990).
48. “Gay Health Group is Cleared in U.S. Inquiry,” New York Times, December 2, 1987, A29.
49. Greg Stump, “They Said ‘No’: Supreme Court Declines to Hear Diana’s Petition,” The Comics Journal #198 (August 1997), 7–8.
50. André Kaspi, La Vie quotidienne aux États-Unis au temps de la Prosperité: 1919–1929 (Hachette, 1980), 151–152.
1. For a sharp problematization of the reasoning behind the sociology of art and cultural production, see Nathalie Heinrich, Ce qui l’art fait à la sociologie (Minuit, 1998).
2. Bernard Lahire, La Culture des individus (La Découverte, 2004), 7–10.
3. The information about the prizes comes primarily from Darren Hick, “Untangling the Laurels: Your Online Field-Guide to the Comics Industry’s Major Awards,” http://www.tcj.com/3_outline/f_laurels.html (June 16, 2003), and Joel Hahn, “Comic Book Awards Almanac,” http://users.rcn.com/aardy/comics/awards/index.html (February 24, 2004).
4. “Alley Awards,” http://users.rcn.com/aardy/comics/awards/alley.shtml (February 24, 2004).
5. CBG changed its format to a monthly magazine in June 2004.
6. The Harvey Awards Web site: http://harveyawards.org/ (February 26, 2004). “Harvey Award Winners Announced at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art,” http://harveyawards.org/news.html (February 26, 2004).
7. Web site: http://www.spxpo.com/ignatzaward.htm (February 26, 2004). The Ignatzes were not awarded in 2001 because the Expo was canceled following the attacks of September 11 on New York and Washington.
8. Although the annual San Diego event has retained the name “Comic-Con,” its organizers have shifted its focus toward the promotion of television and film properties since the early 2000s. In 2008 comic books per se occupied an estimated 20 percent of the convention’s floor space.
9. The full list of Inkpot, Manning, and Clampett award winners is printed each year in the catalog published by the convention. For a list see Joel Hahn, “Comic Book Awards Almanac,” http://users.rcn.com/aardy/comics/awards/ (February 27, 2004).
10. Web site: http://www.friends-lulu.og/awards.html (February 27, 2004)
11. On the concept of the “singularity” of cultural objects, see Heinich, Ce qui l’art fait à la sociologie, 26–29.
12. “Comics and Fandom: Where Do We Go From Here?”, Alter Ego #3.20 (January 2003), “Spotlight on the 1965 New York Comicon,” 30–38.
13. Jean-Yves Mollier, La Lecture et ses publics à l’époque contemporaine (PUF, 2001), 78.
14. Michael L. Cook, Dime Novel Round-Up: Annotated Index, 1931–1981 (Popular Press, 1983).
15. Julius Schwartz, Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics (HarperEntertainment, 2000), 13–16; for a detailed description of the world of science fiction fans in the 1930s, see Sam Moskowitz, The Immortal Storm: A History of Science Fiction Fandom (1954; Hyperion, 1973).
16. Bill Schelly, The Golden Age of Comics Fandom (Hamster Press, 1999), 13.
17. Ibid., 13–14.
18. Jerry Weist, Original Comic Art: Identification and Price Guide, 1st edition (Avon Books, 1992), 22; Schelly, The Golden Age of Comics Fandom, 17–20. The Crumb Brothers’ Foo was reprinted in a limited edition as The Complete Foo! by Bijou Empire Publishing in 1980.
19. Tim Hessee, “The Pop Hollinger Story: The First Comic Book Collector/Dealer,” Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide 12 (1982), A58–A66; Schelly, The Golden Age of Comics Fandom, 20–21.
20. Robert Warshow, “Paul, The Horror Comics, and Dr. Wertham,” The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre and Other Aspects of Popular Culture (1962; Harvard University Press, 2001), 53–54, 57–58; the article was originally published in Commentary 17 (1954), 596–604.
21. Ibid., 56
22. Information on the genesis of comics fandom is provided in “The History of Comics Fandom,” Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 23rd edition, A46–A47.
23. Katherine M. Wolf and Marjorie Fiske, “The Children Talk About Comics,” in Communications Research 1948–1949, ed. Paul Lazarsfeld and Frank Stanton (Harper, 1949), 3–50.
24. The articles published in Xero were later collected in the book All In Color For A Dime (Ace, 1970).
25. The first ama-strips were Spotlite where Ronn Foss, in 1961, created “Dimension Man” and Komix Illustrated where Biljo White, a firefighter, published his first strips in 1962. Star-Studded Comics, published in Texas by Howard Keltner, Buddy Saunders, and Larry Herndon, became the period’s leading ama-strip in 1964.
26. Schelly, The Golden Age of Comics Fandom, 99, 156.
27. Ron Frantz, Fandom: Confidential (Midguard Publishing Company, 2000), 175.
28. Capa-Alpha 2 (November 1964), inside front cover.
29. Schelly, The Golden Age of Comics Fandom, 103.
30. Ibid., 85–89; “Old Comic Books Soar in Value,” New York Times, December 6, 1964, 141; Leonard Sloane, “Shazam! Vintage Comics Prices Up, Up and Away,” New York Times, January 20, 1965, 31; “Superfans and Batmaniacs,” Newsweek, February 15, 1965.
31. Scott Shaw, “The Secret Origin of (The San Diego Golden State) Comic-Con International,” in Comic-Con International: San Diego Souvenir Book (1999).
32. For a general presentation of comic conventions see Matthew J. Pustz, Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers (University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 157–165. For a case study of relations between a passion for comic books and personal identity, see Jeffrey A. Brown, Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans (University Press of Mississippi, 2001), chapter 4 (“The Readers,” 93–132) and chapter 5 (“Reading Race and Genre,” 133–166); for a study of French readers of American superhero comics, see Éric Maigret, “‘Strange grandit avec moi’. Sentimentalité et masculinité chez les lecteurs de bandes dessinées de super-héros,” Résaux 70 (March/April 1995), 79–103.
33. See two articles published in Alter Ego #2.3 (Winter 1999): Roy Thomas, “‘Hi! I’m Your Host, Tom Fagan’: An Interview with the Man Who Led the Parade” (22–25), and Carl Gafford, “Once Upon A Halloween … When Comic Pros Beat A Path To Rutland, Vermont” (26–29).
34. Twenty-five issues of Comic Book Artist were published by TwoMorrows up until June 2003. In the autumn of that year, the magazine launched a second volume at Top Shelf (Comic Book Artist, vol. 2), which devoted itself more to contemporary artists, while the specialization on artists from the Silver and Bronze Age was passed to a new TwoMorrows magazine titled Back Issue, launched in December 2003.
35. Katherine Keller, “Do Not Underestimate the Power of the Dark Side. A Hard Won Interview with ‘Darth’ Groth,” Sequential Tart 3.2 (February 2000), http://www.sequentialtart.com/archive/feb00/groth.shtml (August 25, 2003).
36. Ed Via, “The Perfect Imbalance,” The Comics Journal #84 (September 1983), 47–51.
1. Pascal Ory, “L’américanisation,” in Antoine Compagnon and Jacques Seebacher (eds.), L’Esprit de l’Europe, vol. 3, Goûts et manières (Flammarion, 1993), 255; Jean-Pierre Rioux and Jean-François Sirinelli (eds.), Histoire culturelle de la France, vol. 4, Le temps des masses, the vingtième siècle (Seuil, 1998), 223–224; Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, Panorama du film noir américain (Minuit, 1955).
2. Hergé cited in Numa Sadoul, Tintin et moi. Entretiens avec Hergé (Champs/ Flammarion, 2000), 142.
3. Pascal Ory, “Mickey Go Home! La désaméricanisation de la bande dessinée (1945–1950),” in Thierry Crépin et al. (eds.), “On tue à chaque page!” La loi de 1949 sur les publications destinées à la jeunesse (Éditions du Temps/Musée de la bande dessinée, 1999), 83, 85.
4. Récits complets was an extremely popular format in France from the late 1930s to the late 1950s. They were stapled monthly pamphlets with gaudy covers printed on cheap paper that predated the album format. They typically contained complete stories—hence the name given to this format—unlike the prestigious newspaper-sized weekly comic magazines and the high-profile Belgian tabloid-sized weeklies Le Journal de Tintin and Le Journal de Spirou. Nowadays they have been rediscovered as artifacts of real popular culture whereas comic albums are seens as middle-class cultural products.
5. Petits formats are small-sized (hence their name), often irregularly published, cheaply printed monthly comic books containing either feature-length or serialized stories. Although millions of such booklets were printed in the second half of the twentieth century they have been largely ignored in the historiography of French comics because they contained material regarded (often with good reason) as hack work.
6. Pierre Bourdieu, Luc Boltanski, Robert Castel, and Jean-Claude Chamboredon, Photography, A Middle-Brow Art (Stanford University Press, 1990).
7. Luc Boltanski, “La constitution du champ de la bande dessinée,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 1 (1975), 37–59.
8. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (Routledge, 1984).
9. Éric Maigret, “La reconnaissance en demi-teinte de la bande dessinée,” Réseaux 67 (1994), 113–140.
10. Sometimes without their agreement: Jean-Claude Mézières, artist on the Valérian series, saw a number of his graphic creations plagiarized by the set designers of Hollywood (Conan the Barbarian, Return of the Jedi) years before he was chosen by Luc Besson to design the visuals of The Fifth Element. See also Jean Tierney, “Le retour du Jedi: C’est de la B.D.,” Pilote 113 (October 1983), 50–56; Jean-Claude Mézières, Mon Cinquième element. Décors pour le film de Luc Besson (Dargaud, 1998).
11. Alain Finkielkraut, La Défaite de la pensée (Gallimard, 1987), 156, 138. For a similar perspective from an American neoconservative, see Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (Simon and Schuster, 1987).
12. “Comics sans frontieres: Kurtzman discusses European Comics,” The Comics Journal #153 (October 1992), 64, 69.
13. Bourdieu, Distinction, 16.
14. Ian Gordon, Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890–1945 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998), 40–41.
15. John Canemaker, Winsor McCay: His Life and Art (Abbeville Press, 1987), chapters 8 and 9.
16. Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Vintage, 1933), 23–26; Varnedoe and Gopnik (eds.), High and Low, Modern Art and Popular Culture, 168.
17. Gilbert Seldes, “The ‘vulgar’ comic strip,” The 7 Lively Arts (Harper, 1924), 213–214.
18. Harold E. Stearns (ed.), Civilization in the United States: An Inquiry by Thirty Americans (Harcourt, Brace, 1922). Cited in Seldes, “The ‘vulgar’ comic strip,” 214.
19. Gilbert Seldes, “The Krazy Kat That Walks By Himself,” The 7 Lively Arts, 231.
20. On the proximity of naive art and art brut with respect to the example of Douanier Rousseau, see also Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (Stanford University Press, 1996), 243–247.
21. On the place of Seldes in the intellectual history of the United States, one can read the biography by Michael Kammen, The Lively Arts: Gilbert Seldes and the Transformation of Cultural Criticism in the United States (Oxford University Press, 1996).
22. E. E. Cummings, “Introduction,” in George Herriman’s Krazy Kat (Holt, 1946). The same text, under the title “A Foreword to Krazy” was reprinted in Sewanee Review 54 (April–June 1946), 217–221, and in George J. Firmage (ed.), E. E. Cummings: A Miscellany (Argophile Press, 1958).
23. “Dumas from Ohio,” Newsweek, April 24, 1950.
24. Al Capp, The World of Li’l Abner (Farrar, Straus, and Young, 1953). It is necessary to note that Chaplin’s text, relatively shallow and evidently quickly edited, certainly constituted a return of a favor for the extravagant article that Capp had written about the actor in the Atlantic Monthly in 1949, at a time when Chaplin’s career was in a steep decline. See also Al Capp, “Discourse on Humor: The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin,” in D. M. White and Robert H. Abel (eds.), The Funnies: An American Idiom (Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), 263–273.
25. For a detailed overview of the links between comics and contemporary art, see my article “De l’art pop au pop art. Les comics et l’art contemporain: quelques repères,” Le Collectionneur de Bandes Dessinées 94 (Summer 2001), 14–23. For a study in English see Varnedoe and Gopnik (eds.), High and Low, Modern Art and Popular Culture, 153–229.
26. See also the excellent study of the adaptation of the drawings of these artists by Kirk Varnedoe and Adam Gopnik (eds.), High and Low, Modern Art and Popular Culture, 194–208. However, the testimony of Irv Novick according to which he started Lichtenstein on his career path (194) should be taken with a grain of salt, since by 1947, the date at which Novick claimed to have met Lichtenstein, the painter had been out of the army for a year.
27. Janis Hendrickson, Roy Lichtenstein (Taschen, 1989), 7. Tilman Osterwold, Pop Art (Taschen, 2003), 44.
28. For a contemporary article on the way that Lichtenstein’s paintings betrayed the awkward position of a critic, see Brian O’Doherty, “Lichtenstein: Doubtful but Definite Triumph of the Banal,” New York Times, October 27, 1963, II, 21.
29. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (Schocken Books, 1969), 217–252.
30. During the first science fiction convention held in New York in July 1939, many cover and interior illustrations from science fiction magazines were sold at auction: see also Sam Moskowitz, The Immortal Storm: A History of Science-Fiction Fandom (1954; Hyperion, 1973), 221.
31. Jerry N. Weist, “History of Comic Art Collecting in America,” Comic Art Price Guide, 2nd ed. (Arcturian Books, 2000), 22–27.
32. Carol Hall and Mark Frankel, “Pop Auctions,” Newsweek, November 25, 1991, 42–43.
33. Animation cels are images painted on acetate used in the making of animated films. They are the heart of an older and more lucrative market than that of original comic art.
34. William Murrell, A History of American Graphic Humor, 1787–1865 (Whitney Museum, Macmillan, 1933); A History of American Graphic Humor, 1965–1938 (Whitney Museum, Macmillan, 1938); Thomas Craven (ed.), Cartoon Cavalcade (Simon & Schuster, 1943).
35. Martin Sheridan, Classic Comics and Their Creators: Life Stories of American Cartoonists (Hale, Cushman & Flint, 1942).
36. Coulton Waugh, The Comics (Macmillan, 1947; reprinted, University Press of Mississippi, 1994). For a review published at the time, see “Stuff of Dreams,” Time, December 1, 1947, 71–72.
37. Thomas Craven (ed.), Cartoon Cavalcade, 245–246. There also exists an abridged version of this work where the passage concerning comic books is found on page 234 and is reduced to two paragraphs.
38. For an example of a very different periodization, see Bertha E. Mahony, Louise Payson Latimer, and Beulah Folmsbee (eds.), Illustrators of Children’s Books, 1744–1945 (Horn Books, 1947).
39. “Albany to Exhibit History of Comics,” New York Times, June 6, 1949, 38; “Comics Exhibit is Opened,” New York Times, June 7, 1949, 33; C. Gosnell “Twenty Thousand Years of Comics,” Journal of Art Education 2.3 (1949), 4, 6.
40. Cf. for example, Stephen Becker, Comic Art in America: A Social History of the Funnies, the Political Cartoons, Magazine Humor, Sporting Cartoons, and Animated Cartoons (Simon & Schuster, 1959), and Jerry Robinson, The Comics (Putnam, 1974).
41. Becker, Comic Art in America.
42. David M. White and Roger Abel (eds.), The Funnies: An American Idiom (Free Press of Glencoe, 1963).
43. “World of Comic Art Publisher Dies,” The Comics Journal #221 (March 2000), 33.
44. To give an example, the six Tintin albums were translated for the American market for the first time in the 1950s by Golden Press, who felt that the sales did not warrant continuing the series. It was only in 1974 that Little, Brown took on the publication of the series that has been available since that time. On the reception of Tintin in the United States, see T. F. Mills “America Discovers Tintin,” The Comics Journal #86 (November 1983), 60–69. On Astérix, Dwight R. Decker, “Asterix: ‘These Frenchmen Are Crazy!’” The Comics Journal #38 (February 1977), 20–30. For an exhaustive overview of the penetration of European comics in the American market to 2002 see Randall W. Scott, European Comics in English Translation: A Descriptive Sourcebook (McFarland and Co., 2002).
45. Georges Perry and Alan Aldridge, The Penguin Book of Comics (Penguin, 1967); Pierre Couperie et al., A History of the Comic Strip (Crown, 1968); translation of Bande dessinée et figuration narrative (Musée des Arts Décoratifs/Musée du Louvre, 1967); Reinhold Reitburger and Wolfgang Fuchs, Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium (Little, Brown, 1972), translation of Comics: Anatomie eines Massenmediums (Heinz Moos Verlag, 1971).
46. Maurice Horn, 75 Years of the Comics (Boston Book of Art/New York Cultural Center, 1971); Maurice Horn (ed.), The World Encyclopedia of Comics (Chelsea House, 1976). The same author later published The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons (Chelsea House, 1981).
47. Kammen, American Culture, American Tastes, , 95–102, 221–222; Ray B. Browne, Against Academia: The History of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Movement, 1967–1988 (Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1989).
48. See also Sol M. Davidson, “Culture and the Comic Strips,” International Journal of Comic Art 5.2 (Fall 2003), 233–240.
49. Marshall McLuhan, The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man (Vanguard Press, 1951), 62–69; he touches successively upon Li’l Abner, Orphan Annie [sic], Bringing Up Father, and Blondie. Marshall McLuhan, “Comics: Mad Vestibule to TV,” in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Signet, 1964), 150–155; David Riesman, with Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character, abridged ed., with a new foreword (Yale University Press, 1961), particularly chapter 4, parts 2 and 3; Reuel Denney, “Children of Thoth,” in The Astonished Muse (University of Chicago Press, 1957), 169–185.
50. Russel B. Nye, “Fun in Four Colors, the Comics,” The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America (Dial Press, 1970), 216–241.
51. Arthur Asa Berger, Li’l Abner: A Study in American Satire (Twayne, 1970); The Comic-Stripped American: What Dick Tracy, Blondie, Daddy Warbucks and Charlie Brown Tell Us About Ourselves (Walker & Co., 1973). For an extremely critical review of this work, see also Robert Lasson, “Humor is not always a laughing matter,” New York Times, December 9, 1973, VII, 40.
52. Bill Blackbeard and Martin Williams (eds.), The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (Smithsonian Institution/Abrams, 1977); Robinson, The Comics;. Ron Goulart, The Adventurous Decade: Comic Strips of the Thirties (Arlington House, 1975).
53. Michael Rhode has compiled a bibliography of articles on comics (defined quite broadly, including cartoons and in some cases animation, from the United States and elsewhere) published in the Journal of Popular Culture: it includes 107 articles (and 27 reviews) from 1969 to 2002, or about 5 percent of the two thousand articles published in the journal in thirty-three years. See also “Bibliography of Comics Articles in the Journal of Popular Culture,” http://www.lib.msu.edu/comics/rhode/jpopcult.htm (July 31, 2003).
54. Stan Lee, Secrets Behind the Comics (Famous Enterprises, 1947); Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book (Chicago Review Press, 2003), 33–34; Jim Shooter (text), Official Marvel Try-Out Book (Marvel, 1983); John Lewandowski, All New Marvel Try-Out Book (Marvel, 2000).
55. Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent.
56. Jules Feiffer, “Memoirs of a Pro Bono Cartoonist,” interview conducted by Gary Groth, The Comics Journal #124 (August 1988), 36–95; on the beginning of his career, see particularly pages 45–56.
57. Jules Feiffer (ed.), The Great Comic Book Heroes (Bonanza Books/Dial Press, 1965), 186.
58. The following anecdote, repeated ad nauseam by Stan Lee over the years, reveals a critical posture less distanced than Feiffer’s: at a lecture that Lee gave at a university in the mid-1960s, a student allegedly said to him “We think of Marvel Comics as the 20th century mythology and you as this generation’s Homer.” Cited by Saul Braun, “Shazam! Here Comes Captain Relevant,” New York Times Magazine, May 2, 1971, 32.
59. Eliot Fremont-Smith, “What th——?,” New York Times, November 22, 1965, 35; Charles Herbert, “Shazam!”, New York Times, December 5, 1965, VII, 70.
60. Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson (eds.), All In Color For A Dime (Arlington House, 1970); Don Thompson and Dick Lupoff (eds.), The Comic-Book Book (Arlington House, 1973).
61. Robert M. Overstreet, Comic Book Price Guide (self-published, 1970). This price guide became annual starting in 1972.
62. James Steranko, The Steranko History of Comics, 2 volumes (Supergraphics, 1970–1972); Les Daniels, Comix: A History of Comic Books (Bonanza, 1971); Mark James Estren, A History of Underground Comics (Straight Arrow, 1974).
63. Jerry Bails and Hames Ware, Who’s Who in American Comic Books (self-published, 1973); Hubert H. Crawford, Crawford’s Encyclopedia of Comic Books (Jonathan David, 1978); Michael Barrier and Martin Williams (eds.), The Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics (Smithsonian/Abrams, 1981).
64. The Taylor History of Comic Books is composed of five volumes: Horror Comics (1991), Superhero Comics of the Silver Age (1991), Science Fiction Comics (1992), Superhero Comics of the Golden Age (1992), Crime Comics (1993); afterward he published a general history of comic books, The Comic Book in America: An Illustrated History (Taylor, 1989, updated in 1993).
65. Roberta E. Pearson and William Uricchio (eds.), The Many Lives of the Batman (Routledge, 1991); Amy Kiste Nyberg, Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (University Press of Mississippi, 1998); Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Brown, Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and their Fans.
66. Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Kitchen Sink Press, 1994); Scott McCloud, Reinventing Comics (Perennial, 2000); Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art (Poorhouse Press, 1994); Will Eisner, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative (Poorhouse Press, 1996).
67. Umberto Eco, Apolcalittici e integrati. Comuicazioni di massa e teorie della cultura di massa (Bompiani, 1964), includes three essays on comics: “It mito di Superman e la dissoluzione del tempo” (published originally in 1962 in Archivio di Filosofia 1–2), it has been translated as “The Myth of Superman” in The Role of the Reader (Indiana University Press, 1979); “Lettura di “Steve Canyon” (originally published in Comunicazioni di massa 4–5) has been translated as “A Reading of Steve Canyon” in the December 1976 issue of Twentieth Century Studies. “Il mondo di Charlie Brown,” published in 1963 as the introduction to the first Italian translation of Peanuts, Arriva Charlie Brown! by Milano Libri Edizione, was translated in a modified version under the title “The World of Charlie Brown” in The Graphic Art of Charles Schulz, catalog for the exhibition of the same name organized by the Oakland Museum in 1985; this text can also be found in the Robert Lumley (ed.), Apocalypse Postponed (Indiana University Press, 1994), 36–44.
68. Web sites: Comic Art Conference, http://www.hsu.edu/faculty/duncan/cac_page.htm (February 28, 2004); International Comic Art Festival, http://go.to/icaf (February 28, 2004).
69. Web site: NACAE—Teaching Resources, http://www.teachingcomics.org/links.php (February 28, 2004).
1. The series The Authority, created in 1999 at Wildstorm/DC by the British writer Warren Ellis, featured a team of individuals endowed with considerable powers. From their inaccessible spacecraft, they unilaterally decided where, when, and for what reasons to intervene in our dimension and others. In the series The Ultimates (2002–2004), scripted by Scottish writer Mark Millar, the original protagonists of the super team the Avengers are recast in “extreme” versions: Hulk is an uncontrollable cannibalistic monster, Captain America is a psychorigid patriot manifesting ruthless ferocity in combat and Thor is a European antiglobalization activist who only agrees to become a part of the official superhero team of the American government in exchange for a doubling of the US international aid; when this is instantly given by President Bush because the Hulk has begun to destroy Manhattan, the African American head of the team, secret agent Nick Fury, declares “And to think I voted for Ralph Nader … “ (Ultimates 5)
2. Ted Rall, “The King of Comix,” Village Voice, July 28, 1999.
1. Other self-regulating codes were used internally by individual publishers: Fawcett’s code from 1942 is reproduced in P. C. Hamerlinck (ed.), Fawcett Companion (TwoMorrows, 2001), 24; Lev Gleason’s, taken from the inside front cover of Crime Does Not Pay 63 (1948), is reproduced in Tales Too Terrible to Tell 8 (New England Comics, May-June 1993), 58.