Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Dr. Chris York, instructor at Pine Technical College, and his brother Rafiel York, a teacher in Jackson, Minnesota, have combined forces to be editors of the new book Comic Books and the Cold War, 1946 - 1962: Essays on Graphic Treatment of Communism, the Code and Social Concerns (McFarland 2012).  A copy of this resource is now on the "New Resources" shelves of the college's Learning Resource and Technology Center. 

Congratulations to Chris and Rafiel!

Shown below, the book's focus is detailed on the publisher's website.

About the Book
Conventional wisdom holds that comic books of the post-World War II era are poorly drawn and poorly written publications, notable only for the furor they raised. Contributors to this thoughtful collection, however, demonstrate that these comics constitute complex cultural documents that create a dialogue between mainstream values and alternative beliefs that question or complicate the grand narratives of the era. Close analysis of individual titles, including EC comics, Superman, romance comics, and other, more obscure works, reveals the ways Cold War culture--from atomic anxieties and the nuclear family to communist hysteria and social inequalities--manifests itself in the comic books of the era. By illuminating the complexities of mid-century graphic novels, this study demonstrates that postwar popular culture was far from monolithic in its representation of American values and beliefs.