Winner of the Fall 2016 StMU History Media Award for
Best Featured Image
Best Article in the Category of “United States History”
During the Great Depression and World War II, most Americans wanted to find happiness in anything. Throughout this era, there were not many places people could find happiness; so they began looking for entertainment in books. However, these were not just any ordinary types of books; they were indeed comic books.
Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was the founder of the first comic magazine, which was called New Fun. Although his comic did poorly, Malcolm was able to create a company called Detective Comics. The company was able to create a new magazine called Action Comics, founded in 1937.1 But before Malcolm was able to publish the new magazine, he fell into bankruptcy. Disregarding his personal setback, the company carried on without his involvement. The first issue in Action Comic was published in 1938. The comic consisted of an abnormal man who had incredible strength and wore a skintight suit, commonly known as Superman. In the span of a year, Superman had received his own book title and sold over 1.2 million copies per issue. It later became a radio show in 1940, opening with the phrase “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s…Superman!”2 Eventually other publishers began developing their own superheroes as well. The second comic, which was produced in 1939, is the now popularly known comic series Marvel Comics. By 1940’s Superman was joined by other heroes such as: the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, Batman, the Flash, and Wonder Woman.3 In fact, Wonder Woman was meant to represent the importance of women in the war effort. During the boom of new superheroes being created, Superman was still the most popular of them all.
Unfortunately the comic industry was attacked by educators, psychiatrists, journalist, and even the federal government. They believed comics had no beneficial outcomes for society; instead of bringing entertainment, they were promoting ideas of violence and crime. They also believed that not only did the comics bring harmful thoughts to young minds, but the thin paper was supposedly destroying their eyesight.4 Despite the numerous complaints, Congress took no legal action against the publishers of the books. With this incident, it helped create a trade system, known as the Comic Codes, to help prevent indecency in the industry.5
No one could have guessed that comic books would have created some issues for years to come. For example, various art teachers discovered that the students who disliked and were performing poorly in art class, were the same students who had an interest in comic books; they were often getting into trouble for sketching comics instead of paying attention.6 The students wanted to get away from reality and what better way to do so than by creating your own story-line in a comic book?
That is the whole reason comic books were created, to help distract people from the tough times they were experiencing in life. That is why most people enjoyed them, because they wanted to escape reality by reading about situations that could never happen in real life, by flooding the minds of people of all ages with imagination. It is not hard to see why Americans would be very entertained by the concept of superheroes; they were created to help prevent disasters and to comfort those who were frightened by real-world events. For that reason this era was the perfect time for comic books to emerge. Some people were opposed to them, but in general they helped society in several ways. Although comics may not be as popular as they once were, it gave Americans a new world to discover, even if it was just imaginary.
- Alan Brinkley, American History: Connecting with the Past Volume 2, 15 edition (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education, 2014), 676. ↵
- Brinkley, American History: Connecting with the Past Volume 2, 676. ↵
- Brinkley, American History: Connecting with the Past Volume 2, 676. ↵
- Robert L. Coard, “The Comic Book in Perspective,” Peabody Journal of Education 33, no. 1 (1955): 18. ↵
- Brinkley, American History: Connecting with the Past Volume 2, 677. ↵
- Jay Berkowitz and Todd Packer, “Heroes in the Classroom: Comic Books in Art Education,” Art Education 54, no. 6 (2001): 12. ↵
118 comments
Gabriella Urrutia
I was never really interested in reading comic books when I was younger. Its interesting to learn about when they were first created. I liked this article because it was very informative. I didn’t know that the comic book industry was attacked when it first started. Even though I don’t read them, I can understand how people saw them as a distraction from what was going on at that time.
Bruno Lezama
I have to admit that I am not a big fan of comic books. I haven’t read a comic before; however, I like the movies that came from a comic. It is interesting to know that comic books were made during the Great Depression. I can’t believe that comic books were criticized by a lot of people and also by the Federal Government. Now, thanks to this article, I know why comics were criticized during the Great Depression. Great Article!
Emmanuel Diaz
Though I am not a huge comic book fan as some people are, I do enjoy the stories that come along with every single character. I am currently taking a physics class and the form of being taught is through superheros and let me just say we have broken down many super heroes and how they have changed as time has progressed. I enjoyed the inspiration of this article and how it kept the mind’s distracted from horrible times in american history and I also enjoyed how true it was for the information as to why comics were actually made. great work!
Nelly Perez
I hardly read comic books and look at them as an escape. I can agree that most people in the world who are going through everyday struggles would read comic books to escape from reality. The Great Depression after the war was a tough time to go through. Families struggled to keep a job and provide for themselves. Most kids felt like they didn’t know who to talk to about what they felt.
Jacob Silva
I’ve always been a bit interested in comic books, mainly the movies they make out of them so I’ve never really knew the context behind the original making of comic books. I think it’s really interesting to know that the first comic books were made during the Great Depression. I also think it’s interesting to know that comics were initially heavily criticized and to know the reason behind that.
Michael Lazcano
I have never really gotten too invested into comic books, I had read some when I was younger but I was never a collector by any means. With that being said I do know that comics did provide a form of entertainment for me back when I was younger, and that’s exactly what was happening back then. I find it sad that people tried to discredit comics and make them seem like they were bad for kids at the time, a similar thing happened to video-games and now here we are. I think that we should look at things with more optimism instead of just shooting stuff down constantly. The World War was definitely a time of economic uncertainty for our country and I think comics had a perfect niche in that time.
Olivia Tijerina
I am impressed to learn the reason from what had brought up the upbringing of comics into the world. I now have a greater appreciation for comics because I can see now that it’s effects are for the same reason as it does for today. Moreover, people then are not going to the same event people are now but each event and each emotion tied along to it are real.
Elizabeth Maguire
I really enjoyed this article. I didn’t know that comic books were made during the Great Depression and were available during this time as well as the second world war. I never knew that these comics were attacked by educators, journalist, psychiatrist and the Federal Government. That was surprising to me. I also liked that they made Wonder Woman into comic to show the support women have and, even though, it wasn’t as famous as Superman, it still shows the effort of women. Overall this article was very enjoyable and interesting.
Ava Rodriguez
This is such an interesting article to read. It is amazing how something as successful as Marvel all was created during the Great Depression. I had no idea comic books became popular during the Great Depression. It is good to know that during the time of the Great Depression and WWII that people were able to escape that reality through comic books.
Makenzie Santana
I have now realized there are so many things that were used to try and lift people’s spirits in America during the great depression. Films, art, and comics were a little underrated for the kind of impact it had on society during one of the hardest times our country has ever been through. I didn’t realize there was so much opposition from higher authority against these comics.