Korean War Comic Books - by Leonard Rifas (Paperback)

About the Book

"Comic books have presented fictional and fact-based stories of the Korean War, as it was being fought and afterward. Comparing these comics with events that inspired them offers a deeper understanding of the comics industry, America's "forgotten war," and the anti-comics movement, championed by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who criticized their brutalization of the imagination. Comics-both newsstand offerings and government propaganda-used fictions to justify the unpopular war as necessary and moral. This book examines the dramatization of events and issues, including the war's origins, germ warfare, brainwashing, Cold War espionage, the nuclear threat, African Americans in the military, mistreatment of POWs, and atrocities."--

Book Synopsis

Comic books have presented fictional and fact-based stories of the Korean War, as it was being fought and afterward. Comparing these comics with events that inspired them offers a deeper understanding of the comics industry, America's "forgotten war," and the anti-comics movement, championed by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who criticized their brutalization of the imagination. Comics--both newsstand offerings and government propaganda--used fictions to justify the unpopular war as necessary and moral. This book examines the dramatization of events and issues, including the war's origins, germ warfare, brainwashing, Cold War espionage, the nuclear threat, African Americans in the military, mistreatment of POWs, and atrocities.

Review Quotes

"Rifas does a magnificent job of telling the story of comic books and the Korean War conflict through various prisms, a much-ignored subject matter in comics scholarship...Comic scholars need to add Korean War Comic Books to their bookshelves. Leonard Rifas has written a book that is also accessible to the non-comic scholar because he gives you all the information you need to understand the comics and the war."-Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

About the Author

Leonard Rifas has been a cartoonist, comic book editor, founding proprietor of the educational comic book company EduComics, and a pioneering comics scholar. He teaches at Seattle Central College.