Thursday, September 30, 2010

Comic Art Propaganda / Fredrik Stromberg

Comic Art Propaganda: a graphic history by Fredrik Stromberg. 176 p.

The author spends a little too much time discussing whether particular comics can be counted as successful examples of propaganda, but he provides a broad array of comics, of many types and from many countries, that fit his basic categories of topics: war, religion, politics, etc. My favorite was probably the social engineering section--which, as the author points out, is a type of propaganda that almost never succeeds because it's usually deadly dull: Don't smoke! Stay in school! An example I really liked uses the character of Popeye the Sailor Man to give speeches to children about the different types of jobs available, although of course they had to change the character's iconic manner of speaking, so what was the point of using him in the first place? Using Bugs Bunny to lecture about automotive safety is also pretty weird--somehow, "responsible" is not the first word I'd associate with Bugs--but that book has the title "It's Fun to Stay Alive!" so it gets extra points.

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