Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America

Abstract

Comic books, Bradford W. Wright argues, have been an important part of youth culture, especially boy culture, since the late 1930s. Until the rise of television and rock and roll in the 1950s, the chief commercial rivals for the attention and spare change of American pre-teen consumers were Saturday matinee movies and pulp magazines. Unregulated until the adoption of an industry code in 1954, comic book publishers were freer than filmmakers to satisfy the tastes of their customers. As those tastes changed in the years of World War II, nuclear weapon testing, and anticommunist crusades, some comic book writers and artists experimented with what the author calls “mature themes like murder, lust, psychosis, and political intrigue.” Competition for an ever-changing, fickle, and largely undefined audience drove some publishers to introduce increasingly lurid characters, plots, and graphic design. Others perpetuated stereotypes that continue to haunt us. A 1953 issue of John Wayne Adventure Comics involved the capture of an Arab who “has launched a terrorist campaign to drive out American oil companies.” Ironically, the backlash against the publishers of horror comics from state and federal lawmakers came just as the youth culture and the readership of comic books was changing. Despite efforts by individual writers, artists, and publishers to make comic books relevant and continue their mass appeal, sales declined, prices rose, and readers became older, defining themselves as “fans” and “collectors.”