Korean War Comic Books

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.

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.

Leonard Rifas
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 345
Bibliographic Info: 10 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2021
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4396-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4048-8
Imprint: McFarland

Preface 1
Part One—Comic Books and the Korean War  7
1. Introduction 8
2. Realism, Harm and Responsibility 16
3. The Business 24
4. Strips 33
5. World War II Comic Books 42
6. Harvey Kurtzman 50
7. Critics 54
Illustrations  83
Part Two—The Korean War in Comic Books  95
8. Origins of the Korean War 96
9. Spies 107
10. African Americans 112
11. Germs 126
12. Brainwashing 131
13. POW! 137
14. Griping Against the War 141
15. Atrocities 151
16. Politics 160
17. The Bomb 166
18. Subversive Comics 178
19. The Korean War in Comics Since 1953 185
20. Conclusion 201
Chapter Notes 207
Bibliography 277
Index 317