| | Comics get good play here on RoR. We all like Batman: the Dark Knight and Batman Begins and we all gushed over the much lighter Incredibles. Comics have been nominated on RoR as examples of the highest expression of Western Art (figure that, if you can, but there it is).
Except for the fact that the book was written in words, what, after all is Atlas Shrugged, but a big fat comic book? I mean, it would get lengthy with those soliloquies, but there is no doubt that Atlas would move into that genre quite easily. Just read a Mr. A and imagine that the size of the Empire State Building.
When I said that comics (and jazz) were good propaganda, John Armaos produced this graphic, which actually, I like.
My stepping off point for that was an old review of the book, Exporting the First Amendment.
From: "Michael E. Marotta" <MERCURY@LCC.EDU>
Subject: Book Review--Exporting the First Amendment
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 91 09:11 EST
********************************************************************
*** CuD #3.05: File 7 of 8: Review--Exporting the First Amndmnt ***
********************************************************************
BOOK REVIEW: Exporting the First Amendment: The Press-Government Crusade 1945-1952 by Margaret A. Blanchard, Longman Publishers, New York, 1986.
Freedom of the press was for everyone EXCEPT... Except for issues of national security (all nations agreed with that). Except for when the press in one place insults the politicians in another place (Egypt's King Farouk enjoyed the Riveria and Monte Carlo). Except when materials are injurious to youth (Scandanavia and France feared American comic books and the communists hated the daily comics because in the background was all this luxury). Except when opinions are injurious to the reputation of natural and legal individuals (a "legal individual" is a corporation). And indeed, while Eleanor Roosevelt was insisting that the press should be free, the United States was chasing "communist" writers at home and abroad.
The biggest problem explaining the lack of defense (or good offense) from the comic publishers was their own lack of philosophical foundation. It would have taken someone like Ayn Rand who was totally sure of herself down to her rock and root that she could stand in front of an audience -- a hostile audience -- and speak to them as if they were sitting in her living room having tea and those little Russian tea cakes. That's hard to do in front of a Congressional committee. She did it. Our comic guys did not. It is easy to be cool calm and collected fifty years later, but it would have been cogent to point to
Edgar Allen Poe for one and Shakespeare for another... The 1945 film adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1880) was already a classic... Frankenstein by Mary Shelley likewise was considered literature by that time, despite the horror of Hollywood's adaptations... Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde....
And what after all was the story of Medea all about?
It just seems to me that the comic guys were defeated by their own lack of integrity on the inside which disarmed them when they faced a threat from the outside.
All of that said... I have tried liking comics... I just don't... I spent 50 bucks on myself last birthday for Flash reprints. Waste of money... should have bought myself a gold coin...
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 3/24, 7:46am)
|
|
