[Comicsstudiessociety] Available for review worldwide - Korean War Comic Books by Leonard Rifas

[Mike Rhode]

I apologize to Leonard for the delay in offering this book - I had a
complete computer meltdown in July which entailed factory resets, and so
some things I had open to deal w/ got forgotten. I have a digital version
of this book, available immediately - for the first person to write to me
directly


Mike Rhode

mrhode at gmail.com



Comic books have presented fictional and fact-based stories of the Korean
War, as it was being fought and afterward. Comparing these comics with
events that inspired them offers a deeper understanding of the comics
industry, America's "forgotten war," and the anti-comics movement,
championed by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who criticized their
brutalization of the imagination. Comics--both newsstand offerings and
government propaganda--used fictions to justify the unpopular war as
necessary and moral. This book examines the dramatization of events and
issues, including the war's origins, germ warfare, brainwashing, Cold War
espionage, the nuclear threat, African Americans in the military,
mistreatment of POWs, and atrocities.

Perhaps I should clarify (as I do in my book)  that Wertham criticized
comic books, not just war comics, for their “brutalization of the
imagination.”

Here’s my Table of Contents:

0. Preface

PART ONE: COMIC BOOKS AND THE KOREAN WAR

1.       Introduction

2.       Realism, Harm, and Responsibility

3.       The Business

4.       Strips

5.       World War II

6.       Kurtzman

7.       Critics

ILLUSTRATIONS

PART TWO: THE KOREAN WAR IN COMIC BOOKS

8.       Origins

9.       Spies

10.   African Americans

11.   Germs

12.   Brainwashing

13.   POW!

14.   Griping

15.   Atrocities

16.   Politics

17.   Nuclear

18.   Subversives

19.   The Korean War in Comics Since 1953

Conclusion
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