Ferenc Morton Szasz. Atomic Comics: Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World. Reno University of Nevada Press, 2012. xv + 179 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-87417-874-6; ISBN 978-0-87417-879-1.
Ferenc Morton Szasz.
Atomic Comics: Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World. Reno
University of Nevada Press, 2012.
xv + 179 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN
978-0-87417-874-6; ISBN 978-0-87417-879-1.
Reviewed by Sean Cashbaugh (American Studies, University
of Texas
Austin)
Published on H-War (September, 2012)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey
Cashbaugh on Szasz, _Atomic Comics_
As much of the scholarly discourse surrounding the Cold
War argues, the terrifying, yet awe-inspiring, reality of atomic power and weapons
affected nearly all aspects of American popular culture. In _Atomic Comics:
Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World_, historian Ferenc Morton Szasz
demonstrates the ways comic books, comic strips, and cartoonists tackled this
reality. He argues that the oft-maligned and sometimes forgotten cultural form
created a space for ordinary citizens to wrestle with the complexities of the
atomic age in the twentieth century. As he writes, "All cartoonists share
one thing in
common: with a few strokes of the pen, they can simplify
complex issues for the average reader" (p. 4). Comics helped make the
nuclear age explicable to a curious public overwhelmed by the reality of atomic
power and weapons. In three chronologically arranged sections, he describes how
this occurred throughout the twentieth century.
While Szasz's claims regarding the reception of these
comics are relatively unsupported, _Atomic Comics_ nevertheless nicely conveys
the myriad ways popular culture negotiated the ideological landscape of the
Cold War.
In part 1, "Before Hiroshima," Szasz describes
how comics between
1900 and 1945 introduced the public to a "completely
different way of comprehending the universe" (p. 4). Chapter 1 details how
science fiction and comics writers easily dramatized the unseen world of atoms
through the adventures of characters like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon,
championing the world such science promised to bestow, as scientists and
science writers struggled to explain the complexities of atomic science to
curious audiences. Chapter 2 focuses on the content of comics during World War
Two, when such utopianism waned as atomic weapons became a reality. The
government censored most public discussion of atomic weapons, but the lowly
status afforded to comics allowed them to explore such issues with minimal
restrictions. Though more interested in entertainment than education, Szasz
suggests that comics of this era "correctly introduced the basic outlines
of the atomic era" when they described weapons "of unlimited power
that could destroy cities in an instant," something artists and writers
were all too happy to point out in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (p.
37).
Part 2 examines the ways comics approached the atomic age
inaugurated by the bombings with a combination of enthusiasm and anxiety,
celebrating atomic possibilities in an attempt to contain the very real threat
they posed. In chapter 3, "Coming to Grips with the Atom," Szasz
identifies how comics editors and writers initially sought to educate youth via
didactic narratives that laid out the stakes of the nuclear age. For instance,
popular characters Dagwood and Blondie appeared in _Dagwood Splits the Atom_
(1949), wherein the central characters "shrank to atomic size to explain
nuclear fission through a combination of illustration and rather dense
text" (p. 51).
Because these were largely unpopular with readers,
publishers turned to adventure stories with new and established
characters--such as Atoman, Captain Marvel, and Superman--who fought villains
who used atomic power towards nefarious ends. Chapter 4 explores common
atomic-themed subgenres, such as the spy narrative, linking the world of atomic
power to Cold War political concerns.
Part 3 examines the long-range impact of the nuclear
world on comics, highlighting the emerging critique of atomic power and weapons
that Szasz suggests first appeared in the 1960s. Chapter 5 explores the various
antinuclear comics that emerged between the 1960s and 1980s, identifying how
"underground comix," political cartoons, and Japanese manga
conceptualized antinuclear positions. For instance, underground comic
_Forbidden Knowledge _(1977) graphically depicted "atomic carnage"
with images of "melting flesh" and "women impaled by flying
glass" (p. 90). In this chapter, Szasz importantly broadens the American
focus of the book and thinks transnationally, exploring the antinuclear comics
of Japanese writers and artists. He looks specifically at Osamu Tezuka's _Astro
Boy_ (as manga in 1952 and on Japanese TV in 1963) and Keiji Nakazawa's
_Barefoot Gen _(1973-85 and as live-action films in 1976 and 1980 and anime in
1983 and 1986), and analyzes the ways they grapple with the Japanese experience
of nuclear trauma and violence at the hands of the American military.
Chapter 4 brings readers to the contemporary era, and
identifies traces of atomic culture in well-known series and characters, such
as Spiderman, whose power derives from an atomic spider bite.
_Atomic Comics_ is a short book, with 179 pages including
the index, but provides an exhaustive account of the ways the "nuclear
world"
crept into the illustrated panels of comics and cartoons,
and how artists and illustrators chose to represent this world. The author
thoroughly engages his primary sources, clearly supporting his claims regarding
comics' treatment of nuclear issues. However, his claims regarding the ways the
public actually used comics warrant further development. For instance, in
chapter 2 he suggests that with the scant attention granted to atomic issues in
the mainstream press during World War II, popular culture necessarily filled
the gap, citing a single statistic: "20 percent of adults read comics
avidly"
(p. 40). Such claims would have been much more persuasive
had he drawn upon evidence pertaining specifically to comic audiences.
Explicit engagement with secondary literature that makes
similar claims would have also been helpful. Paul S. Boyer's classic _By the
Bombs Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age
_(1985) comes to mind, as Szasz's work fits into the history scholars like
Boyers have mapped out. Such references appear in his footnotes, but Szasz's
claims regarding audiences could have been much stronger had he brought his
broader cultural historical framework to the foreground of his text.
Despite this, _Atomic Comics_ is a useful text, serving
as a lucid introduction to the various intersections of popular culture and
social issues during the Cold War. In a more general sense, it clearly
identifies the ways all manner of popular cultural forms express the
ideological conditions of their historical moment, thus serving as a succinct
introduction to the study of popular culture and history. Szasz's prose is
accessible and jargon-free, friendly to both undergraduate and general readers,
and the text is filled with images of the works he describes. It could
fruitfully appear on undergraduate syllabi in American studies, history, and
popular culture courses.
Citation: Sean Cashbaugh. Review of Szasz, Ferenc Morton,
_Atomic
Comics: Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World_. H-War,
H-Net Reviews. September, 2012.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.