Comic Book History of Comics (3 points)

 I found a lot of The Comic Book History of Comics interesting. It gave a pretty wide scope view on the different artists, publishers, writers, editors, and studios that influenced each other throughout time. An aspect of the comic I found interesting that I’d like to focus on is how WW2 influenced both animation and comics. It was fascinating to see how different artists and producers in the field adapted to something like war. Jack Kirby and Joe Simmon created Captain America by facing him against the real-life villain at the time, Hitler. They built a hero that represented American ideals and patriotism in the face of a real-life war, and it became a success. I think it probably helped embolden many young readers with a sense of patriotism, though I’m not sure if that was good or a bad thing as it wasn’t a very accurate portrayal of war and gave an idealistic version. After Pearl Harbor, though DC editors chose to have heroes like superman stop fighting in the war in comics. I thought it was also interesting how different artists found workarounds when the draft came, except for Kirby who had to be a scout on the front lines. Many like Simmons and Eisner found work in various art departments for the US. Eisner even got comics to be used as teaching manuals for things like preventive maintenance and producing technical materials for Army Motors. It showed the power of comics in sequence through panels with efficiency. I thought it was also interesting how Disney basically became the main distributor for American propaganda funded by the Federal Government. It’s quite bizarre to see Donald Duck in a Nazi uniform saluting Hitler.

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