Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 [Hardcover]

William W. Savage (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Comics were as popular and prolific in the period discussed in this book as films were the decade before and television would be the decade after; despite this, there are no serious academic studies that do more than give comics a token mention. Savage covers all the comics published in the era (as a result the study is very general, though amply footnoted), and shows how markedly they reflected both the incredible arrogance of postwar America and the incredible neurosis about Communism and "the Bomb." An excellent beginning to what should some day be a serious body of work on the subject. Recommended for subject collections. See also Denis Gifford's American Comic Strip Collections, 1848-1939 , reviewed in this issue, p. 70.--Ed.
- Keith R.A. DeCandido, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr; 1st edition (November 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806123052
• ISBN-13: 978-0806123059
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #820,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Info on Savage's book, March 21, 2005

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This review is from: Comic Books and America, 1945-1954 (Hardcover)

Antiwar literature entry: Index entry (p. 53)

[...]

But the war comics of the 1950s were different from the fantasy-driven titles published during World War II. They were darker, more realistic, and less jingoistic. "One thing to keep in mind is that from the end of World War II to the early 1950s, comic books were just as much an adult medium as a children's medium," explains Benton. "Many of the readers were young males in their 20s who missed World War II but had a desire ... to see war portrayed in a realistic fashion. Comic books allowed them to do that."

A few titles of the early 1950s, particularly those published by Timely Comics (later known as Marvel Comics), trumpeted the glory of war. But for the most part, publishers emphasized the negative consequences of global conflict, particularly in terms of human loss.

"There was a certain naïveté to the superhero stories published during World War II, and that changed abruptly in the 1950s," says William Savage Jr., a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma at Norman and author of Comic Books and America: 1945-1954 (University of Oklahoma Press, 1990).

"The only explanation I can come up with is that enough people ... in the comic book industry had participated in World War II and emerged from it with firsthand knowledge of what war was really like," says Savage. "It was a 180-degree turn from the gung-ho optimism of the World War II period to an almost totally pessimistic view of the individual in a combat situation. In my opinion, the war comics published during the Korean War were really the only antiwar literature of the day."