Comics, Cultural History, and the World Wars

BOOK REVIEW Comics and the World Wars: A Cultural Record Jane Chapman, Anna Hoyles, Andrew Kerr and Adam Sherif Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou Lecturer in Film Studies University of Salford Jane Chapman, Anna Hoyles, Andrew Kerr and Adam Sherif’s book Comics and the World Wars: A Cultural Record published by Palgrave Macmillan is especially relevant and a welcome addition to the scholarly study of comics for two reasons: firstly there are few studies on wartime comics, namely comics directly created under wartime conditions. Secondly, it is a serious and sound effort to create a space for academic discourse on the potential of the use of wartime cartooning in cultural history. This book comes at a critical time when the academic study of comics has increased in literary studies, media studies and cultural studies, fulfilling, one could argue, Will Eisner’s (1985) wish for a serious scholarly reading of comics. Nevertheless, despite the increase in scholarly literature on graphic narratives on the one hand, and the recent widespread scholarly interest in cultural history on the other, so far the academic study of war comics has been limited to a few journal articles and books, while the whole area of wartime comics and their contemporary socio-cultural and historical value has generally been neglected. Here I am referring to Joseph Witek’s (1989) Comic Books as History, Edward Brunner’s (2007) article ‘Red Funnies: The new York Daily Worker’s “popular front” comics, 1926-1945’, Michael Cohen’s (2007) ‘Cartooning Capitalism: Radical Cartooning and the Making of American Popular Radicalism in the Early Twentieth Century’, Randy Duncan’s and Matthew Smith’s (2009) The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture as well as their edited collection (2012) Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, Adam Riches’s (2009) When The Comics Went to War: Comic Book War Heroes, and Jane Chapman’s and Daniel Ellin’s articles ‘Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World war trench publications as citizen journalism’ published in 2012 and ‘Dominion cartoon satire as Trench culture narratives’ published in 2014. In this climate, Chapman, Hoyles, Kerr and Sherif’s book uncovers a critical space for reassessing wartime comic books and strips within the context of cultural history In their book, Chapman, Hoyles, Kerr and Sherif investigate war comics differently. They examine wartime comics by providing detailed analyses of a range of First and Second World War wartime comics and their characters while placing them in their respective socio-cultural contexts of the time when they were created. As they discuss, wartime comic books and strips, like other sources, if they are to be considered as primary historical sources, they must be contextualized by one another and with the relevant historiography. This relational approach is then used on a range of case studies as in the subsequent chapters they focus on the records of mentalité (zeitgeist) at the Home Front and among servicemen, and the use of humor in trench publications and mainstream publications. The study of these wartime comics offers a record of change of attitudes at the Front and at the Home Front, as well as a record of verisimilitude by referring to real events of the time. Hence, the comics themselves become important sources for the cultural historian. While one might question whether their book overlooks the issue and value of subjectivity when it comes to mainstream press publications and their value as cultural records and sources of verisimilitude, Chapman, Hoyles, Kerr and Sherif’s argument is compelling in the case of propaganda comics, trench publications, the labor movement’s comic strips in English speaking countries, and the British Communist Party’s ones. By renegotiating a relational and relativist approach to wartime comics, which ultimately unearths their cultural and historical significance, in its analysis their book provides an interesting and crucial exploration of the little studied area of wartime comics and their value as a historical record and resource, and establishes space for further research in the field. Divided into seven chapters with an introduction and a conclusion, the book also includes a very interesting preface by Kent Worcester. The introduction to the book adequately sets out the aims and the methodology proposed while providing a snapshot of the chapters that follow. One of the authors’ first task is to present the reader with six areas of wartime comics that are explored in detail in the book by reference to specific contemporary comic books and strips of the First and Second World Wars. These areas are a good indication of their methodology in their approach to new cultural history, comics, subjectivity and subject location, as in the subsequent chapters they focus on the mentalité (zeitgeist) at the Home Front, trench publications, humor, comics as propaganda, women at war, and the communist ‘everyman’ as a democratic format. In their second chapter, Chapman, Hoyles, Kerr and Sherif present their methodology. Starting from the Derridean concept of ‘trace’ with the mark of the position of the comic artist on the narrative, the authors argue that the trace of the subjectivity of the comic artist/narrator becomes the trace of the “real” in relation to the comic strip’s contextual information, namely the date and place of publication. The issue for the historian then is to explore to what extent the real world has been filtered into the comic book or strip. This approach to wartime comics is then briefly tested on a case study, the first year of published Wonder Woman by William Moulton Marston and H. G. Peter in 1942. As the authors show, the Second World War was used here as the context while the shifting of the focus from the German ‘Gestapo’ or ‘Nazi agent’ to the Japanese in the comics reflects the intensification of the war in the Pacific, as well as the change in domestic federal policy. The contextualization of the war within the narrative, the shifting focus of the enemy, the change in domestic policy and the mentalité evidenced within the narrative mark the Wonder Woman as a valuable primary historical source. The third chapter discusses the use of humor and ridicule in the Daily Mirror’s cartoons created by William Kerridge Haselden in Britain pre and during World War I. An analysis of the comic strips shows that humor and ridicule were used to diminish the enemies on the one hand, and empower the British public on the other, while at the same time depicting actual events. The analysis also reveals that the cartoons worked on many levels as Haselden’s subject matters were always based in reality. While arguably the subjectivity involved, namely the artist’s point of view or the paper’s editorial standpoint, problematizes the verisimilitude of the strips as a form of record, the strips, nevertheless, are useful as cultural records of changes not only in the Home Front, but also in the wartime mindset and aspects of social class and gender roles. Furthermore, the authors argue that the closeness of the themes in the strips and the editorial policy on contemporary matters at the time points to subjectivity which in itself has its uses as a cultural record of the Daily Mirror. The forth chapter takes a bottom-up approach as it looks at comics made by soldiers in the trenches during the First World War as citizen’s journalism and into the ways in which citizen’s journalism can be historicized. The authors contend that these graphic narratives that crossed national boundaries are revealing through their irony, humor and satire of the attitudes of ordinary soldiers and their First World War experiences in relation to their daily lives at the fronts, their concerns and expectations, as well as their collective zeitgest. The fifth chapter explores the use of humor in English-speaking labor movement comic strips. As the authors argue, such an analysis leads to a cultural record of the mentalité of the Left in the First World War. The presentation and analysis of these strips, and in particular the character type of the ‘gullible worker’, an alternative version of the ‘everyman’, is particularly interesting as the publications of the Left reacted differently to their suppression at the time. While at the beginning of the First World War the labor movement publications were purely educational, subversive and accessible in their depiction of the ‘heroic worker’ versus the ‘fat man’, the capitalist, the introduction of the gullible worker, an international unheroic figure that appeared on strips in different countries as Mug, Block and Dubb, is attributed to communal humor that depicted feelings of superiority and group solidarity. In doing so, the authors establish that these strips offer a record of change in the labor movement in English speaking countries over time, as well as verisimilitude by referring to real events of the time. They also offer a cultural record of how First World War labor activists viewed both themselves and the non-unionized workers. The role of propagandist comic strips and their use by the Office of War Information (OWI) in the United States in both World Wars is the focus of the sixth chapter. Once OWI established that cartoons and comic strips are influential tools for propaganda, the question became to what extent could OWI rely on the editors and the graphic artists to follow the official guidelines. The ideas that run throughout the book are tested here on Superman that first appeared on the cover of Action Comics No. 1 in 1938. A close study of the publications of the super hero shows that they served as national propaganda to the war effort: to promote enlistment in the armed forces, the purchase of war bonds, to boost morale, and to identify and ridicule the enemies of the United States. At the same time, these strips demonstrate a strong cultural record of change in representations of heroism and of the enemy, as well as a twofold strong record of verisimilitude: not only through their content that was based on real events, but also through the inclusion of photographs of real people on the strips, such as General George Marshall and Admiral Husband Kimmel. The seventh chapter explores gender roles and values through an analysis of representations of women and pin-ups made by male creators for the servicemen during the Second World War that establish a record of mentalité in relation to male thinking at the time. The chapter also examines representations of female characters published by the mainstream press. The latter depictions, as the authors argue, establish a cultural record of change as after 1938 women characters started appearing in combat in the backdrop of real events. Finally, chapter eight investigates the Communist Party of Great Britain’s (CPGB) comic strips. Despite their obvious and explicit subjectivity and propagandist aims, these strips offer a cultural record of the CPGB’s policy towards the Second World War, its changing priorities, the transformation of women’s roles, as well as the Party’s intended audience. The argument is compelling. From the depiction of the war as a meaningless war in the service of capitalism, post ban publications support the war effort. These comics, as the authors state, through their verisimilitude, humor and the Party’s changing mentalité can be used as cultural records of the CPGB. The book concludes with a summary of the ways in which wartime comics offer a dynamic cultural record of change despite their interdependence with subjectivity, which has its own value in itself. Although this book attempts to cover an extraordinary amount of territory, Chapman, Hoyles, Kerr and Sherif deliberately leave the door open for future scholarship. For example, the discussion of subjectivity in relation to mainstream wartime comic books and strips is inspiring, but the authors do not continue on the path to thoroughly question these issues in relation to the comics’ verisimilitude. However, these are only small emissions. Chapman, Hoyles, Kerr and Sherif’s book is a valuable examination of First and Second World War wartime comics, and establishes space for further research in the field. Its greatest strength lies in the questions it generates to its readers: comic readers will likely find themselves thinking critically about the historical significance and usefulness of wartime comics. It also opens up a space for the neglected academic tradition in the use of comics as a sociocultural and historical resource. Finally, the authors’ rich style of writing, their analytical skills, and sound theoretical knowledge make this work pleasurable to read. It is a welcome and valuable addition to the scholarship of comics and cultural history. References Brunner, E. (2007) article ‘Red Funnies: The New York Daily Worker’s “popular front” comics, 1926-1945’, American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism and Bibliography, 17: 2, pp. 184-207. Chapman, J. and Daniel Ellin, D. (2012) ‘Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World war trench publications as citizen journalism’, Australian Journal of Communication, 39:3, pp. 1-22. Chapman, J. and Daniel Ellin, D. (2014) ‘Dominion cartoon satire as Trench culture narratives: Complaints, endurance and stoicism’, The Round Table: The CommonWealth Journal of International Affairs, Special issue: The Empire/Commonwealth and the First World War, 103: 2, pp. 175-192. Cohen, M. (2007) ‘Cartooning Capitalism: Radical Cartooning and the Making of American Popular Radicalism in the Early Twentieth Century’, International Review of Social History, 52:S15, pp. 35-58. Duncan, R. and Smith, M. J. (2009) The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture, New York and London: Continuum. Duncan, R. and Smith, M. J. (Eds.) (2012) Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, New York and London: Routledge. Eisner, W. (1985), Comics & Sequential Art, Florida: Poorhouse Press. Foster, J. (1990) ‘The Image of Australia and Australians in locally-produced comics’, Papers, 1, pp. 11-23. Riches, A. (2009) When The Comics Went to War: Comic Book War Heroes, Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Company. Witek, J. (1989) Comic Books as History: The Narrative Art of Jack Jackson, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Pekar. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.