Scholarship on the Spinner Rack: Rutgers University Press’ Comics Culture Series

Frank Miller's Daredevil and the Ends of Heroism by Paul Young

By Richard D. Deverell

Academic scholars over time have begun to take both content of comics and their impact on American culture very seriously. The Comics Culture series of monographs from Rutgers University Press demonstrates that commitment. The series currently comprises six monographs curated by editors Corey K. Creekmur, Craig Fischer, Jeet Heer, and Ana Merino. The works cover material from Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics no. 1 (1938) through Alan Moore’s Watchmen in 1987.

Some, like Paul Young’s study of Frank Miller’s tenure as writer of Daredevil, tell deeply personal narratives at the same time they analyze a particular work. Others, like Qiana Whitted’s examination of EC Comics, delve deeper into well-known historiography in order to uncover new meaning. As a body of work, the Comics Culture series reflects the growing diversity of comic book scholarship.

Frank Miller's Daredevil and the End Heroism

The series begins with Paul Young's Frank Miller's Daredevil and the Ends of Heroism. Young, a professor of film and media studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, engages both with Miller's work on Daredevil and how it compares to Miller's later legacy in comics. Young argues, "Daredevil was an early volley in the industry's shift from an oligopoly that assigned work-for-hire staff and freelance creators to write, draw, letter, color, and edit the adventures of corporate trademark characters to a more complex market in which retention of rights to characters and stories has become a common work incentive for creators." Further, Young acknowledges Miller's use of the comics medium to tell more expressionist stories.

Young's focus on the medium itself relies on the theories of Scott McCloud as well as his own belief that proper study requires examining the comics themselves, printed on off-white newsprint rather than computer-retouched reprints. He also draws upon the techniques of film theory, specifically those for analyzing Soviet montage and film noir, as well as studies of crime novels. Young concludes that Miller's run on Daredevil helped the creator movement in comics and the weakening of the Comics Code. Further, it coincided with other shifts in media, such as in film tastes, and with the introduction of the direct sales system of comics, which also shook up the industry. Ultimately, Young uses his examination to reconcile the creative talent of Frank Miller in the 1980s with his later intolerance in the 2000s. Young's work also demonstrates the more personal nature of the Comics Culture monograph series, as this reconciliation acted as a catharsis for his inner conflict over the trajectory of Miller's work.

Twelve Cent Archie

Bart Beaty’s Twelve-Cent Archie, the fourth monograph in the series, continues the personal analysis of Young’s book. Beaty, an English professor at the University of Calgary and author of other comic book history monographs, examines a limited run of the Archie comics from the 1960s to counter the trend in comics studies that favor auteurism. Further, rather than order his book into regular chapters, he uses a multitude of short, 1- to 3-page chapter breaks to replicate the story length of the Archie comics. In this way, he challenges notions of what defines a monograph. These sections examine everything from character development, location, continuity (or lack thereof), race, gender, and the medium of comics itself. This level of close analysis offers a great opportunity for limited theoretical examination based on a handful of examples within the limited time frame of the twelve-cent run.

Though Beaty occasionally references events beyond the comics, either in the industry or other artifacts of popular culture in the 1960s, these are used primarily for context only when necessary. In rejecting auteurism in comics scholarship, Beaty counters the trend both from comics readers and scholars to dismiss Archie as unworthy of analysis or serious consideration. He also acknowledges gaps in the archive, as many of these comics have not been reprinted nor included in public collections and are only available through comics dealers for private purchase.

Analyzing Superman and the Watchmen

Superman: The Persistence of an American Iconby Ian Gordon

The second and third monograph in the series follows more established analytical discourses, though they also look to new archives and seek to complicate the power of branding. In the series' second book, Ian Gordon tracks the history of the Superman brand. Gordon, a professor of history at the National University of Singapore, writes in Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon, "At any given time, or place, in his history, Superman is, and has long been, an amalgam of factors including myth, memory, nostalgia, intellectual property regimes like copyright and trademark, authors, readers, fans, collectors, comic books, comic strips, radio series, movie serials, television shows, animation, toys and collectibles, and feature films."

Gordon draws upon mythological studies, auteur theory, an examination of the power of branding, and more to present a multi-layered analysis for a better understanding of Superman the character. Though Gordon's work retreads some of Superman's history, his most significant insight is in the public history of the character. Rather than tell the usual story of two boys from Cleveland or the making of various films, he explores and explicates how these events developed as the result of interactions between forces such as copyright law, merchandising, and fan interpretation. This focus offers a valuable shift in the historiography for the field of comics studies.

Andrew Hoberek's Considering Watchmen: Poetics, Property, Politics, the series' third monograph, primarily responds to Sara J. Van Ness's "Watchmen" as Literature: A Critical Study of the Graphic Novel. He argues that the book did not sufficiently address the nature of literature itself. Van Ness's book also took for granted that the forms of comics should be grouped among primarily prose works, using the example of omitting film from lists of the best recent works of literature.

Hoberek, a professor of English at the University of Missouri, demonstrates that works like Alan Moore's Watchmen find a more natural place among this list due to the ability of readers to portray them as having a single author – or as a collaboration between one author and one illustrator, in the case of Watchmen – which reinforces a preference toward auteurs.

In portraying Moore and Gibbons as auteurs, Hokerek examines the self-conscious manner in which they used the comics medium both to elevate and deconstruct comic books while also commenting on the nature of the superhero as a subgenre. The layered storytelling of Watchmen, which critics cite when discussing its literary value, developed over the course of its serialized publication. Hoberek further examines how Moore articulated his politics through the comic, questioning the “nostalgia of eighties conservatism” as a defense against “Cold War anxiety” with a frankness rarely seen in mainstream American comics then appearing on the newsstand.

Referencing the nature of the business, Hoberek argues that the rise in auteurs was only possible through the shift to a direct market for comics sales as opposed to the older, newsstand based model. He explains, "Moore and [Dave] Gibbon's story has been – both covertly and overtly – enormously influential on what has very recently become the newly genre-positive mainstream of contemporary literary fiction." Hoberek's work serves not only as a valued contribution to comics studies, but a primer in the theory that underlies that work. He interweaves elements of literary criticism with interviews of Alan Moore and others in the comics industry to paint a complex picture that demonstrates how comics can be both literature and a distinct medium.

Wonder Women: Bondage and Feminism

Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948 by Noah Berlatsky

The fifth book in the series, Noah Berlatsky’s Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948, draws upon queer theory, performance theory, and gender theory in his analysis with comparisons to other examples of media targeted to women, such as Twilight and gothic literature, as Berlatsky argues, “Wonder Woman, the original comic, was much more interesting, beautiful, and worthwhile than Wonder Woman the popular icon.”

The editor of comics and culture blog, The Hooded Utilitarian, and author of several articles on gender and comics, Berlatsky’s monograph offers a more critical assessment of the material that Jill Lepore likewise analyzed in her book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman. His passion leads him to argue that the iterations of Wonder Woman following Marston and Peter’s run are superfluous. While some of the storylines and interpretations were undoubtedly weak or flawed, each successive generation of readers and writers reworked the character to meet the demands of their time, much like the Greek myths on which Marston and Peter drew for the character. His goal that his book will encourage others to read Marston and Peter’s comics to discover a “work created in the spirit of feminism, of peace, of queerness, and of love” is noble, but his conclusions may alienate some readers. He does, however, show where future studies may apply queer theory in analyze Diana of Themyscira.

EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest

EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest by Qiana Whitted

Finally, Qiana Whitted’s EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest concludes the Comics Culture series for the time being. Witted, a professor of English and African American studies at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC, previously contributed to Rutgers’ University Press’ essay collection, The Blacker the Ink. In EC Comics, she argues, “The narrative, aesthetic, and marketing strategies of ‘the EC way’ constitute one of the most effective means through which questions of social justice were explored in American comic-book culture after World War II.” Whitted’s work builds upon that of Amy Kiste Nyberg, Bradford W. Wright, David Hajdu, Carol Tilley, and others who examined EC comics, the end of the medium’s Golden Age, and the rise of the Comics Code Authority. Unlike those works, however, Whitted “takes a different approach by analyzing the creative choices and critical significance of the message stories within the EC brand against the larger ideological contexts of the late 1940s and 1950s.”

Whitted discusses EC Comics’ use of “preachies,” or social justice stories, to articulate messages that critiqued the U.S. government’s ability to follow its own policies. She writes, “These stories make a case for racial justice by appealing to Americans’ civic and religious beliefs. In doing so, they condemn racism as the betrayal of the nation’s democratic ideals, particularly in light of the Korean War and the Truman Doctrine’s positioning of the United States as the international standard-bearer for democracy.” Few comic book histories of this period go beyond the rise of the Comics Code Authority to examine the work in the larger context of Cold War America. In this regard, Whitted offers an innovative approach to material familiar with many comics scholars. Her focus on psychology, literary technique, and fan reaction enables her to go beyond the familiar historiography of Nyberg, Wright, Hajdu, and Tilley while also demonstrating the scholarship that sets Rutgers University Press’s Comics Culture series apart from others.

Conclusion

With six monographs so far, Rutgers Comics Culture series demonstrates the intersectionality of comic book history and the variety of methods scholars can use in examining that history. The series also reflects the diversity of comic book fans in academia, with African American studies, English, film and media studies, history, and journalism all represented among the authors. Taken together, the monographs serve as a reading list for those looking to understand the scope of the field while also posing questions for future contributors.