Atomic Comics: Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World

201 Pages·2012·1.869 MB·English

by  Ferenc Morton Szasz

Ferenc Morton SzaSz
atomic comics

Books By Ferenc Morton szasz
The Divided Mind of Protestant America, 1880–1930 (1982)
The Day the Sun Rose Twice:
The Story of the Trinity Site Nuclear Explosion, July 16, 1945 (1984)
The Protestant Clergy in the Great Plains and Mountain West,
1865–1915 (1988)
British Scientists and the Manhattan Project:
The Los Alamos Years (1992)
Scots in the North American West, 1790–1917 (2000)
Religion in the Modern American West (2002)
Larger Than Life: New Mexico in the Twentieth Century (2008)
Abraham Lincoln and Robert Burns:
Connected Lives and Legends (2008)

Cartoonists Confront
the Nuclear World
a t o m i c c o m i c s
ferenc Morton szasz
university of nevada press
reno & las vegas
University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada 89557 USA
Copyright © 2012 by University of Nevada Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Design by Kathleen Szawiola
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Szasz, Ferenc Morton, 1940–2010.
Atomic comics : cartoonists confront the nuclear world
/ Ferenc Morton Szasz.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-87417-874-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-87417-879-1 (ebook)
1. Comic books, strips, etc.—History and criticism
2. Atomic bomb in literature. 3. Cartoonists. I. Title.
PN6714.S97 2012
741.5'358–dc23 2011043536
The paper used in this book is a recycled stock made from 30
percent post-consumer waste materials, certified by FSC, and
meets the requirements of American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI/NISo z39.48-1992 (R2002).
Binding materials were selected for strength and durability.
FIRST PRINTINg
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
5 4 3 2 1
Frontispiece: Cover of Atoman #2 (Spark, April 1946)
to the family
Margaret; Eric; Chris and Scott;
Maria and Jonathan; and Tyler, Sean, and Matthew
 —all of whom have their own favorite cartoonists.

contents
List of Illustrations xi
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments, Margaret Connell-Szasz xvii
Introduction 1
part i  Before HirosHima
1 Comic Strips Confront the Subatomic World:
The Turn of the Century to the Early 1930s 9
2 The Comics and the Fissioned Atom:
The Mid-1930s to August 6, 1945 22
part ii  THe iNiTiaL reaCTioN: 1945–earLY 1960s
3 Coming to grips with the Atom:
Early Atomic Superheroes 43
4 Atomic Comic Utopias, Espionage, and the Cold War 67
part iii  aTomiC ComiCs CHaNge direCTioN:
THe mid-1950s To THe preseNT daY
5 American Underground Comix, Political and
International Cartoonists, and the Rise of Japanese Manga 89
6 The Never-Ending Appeal of Atomic Adventure Tales 115
Conclusion 133
Notes 137 Bibliography 155 Index 167
ix