Action and adventure

Page 40 of 42 Nightmare Objections were backgrounded by the feeling that there was something vulgar about the very idea of using the comics form to deal with adventure: it was somehow dragging 'culture' down. For instance, comics dealt in cheap thrills, sensationalism and visual stimulation (even when it came to words, they used slang instead of correct English). How could this possibly be preferable to reading a proper book? From this vantage, even those comics which adapted classic adventure stories (the 'improving' ones, once again, ironically) were merely vulgarizing literature. Individual issues provoked more intense reactions. The biggest fear was over violence, and especially the idea that this would brutalize children, and inculcate in them the philosophy that 'might is right'. Thus, war stories with their constant battle scenes and consequences-be-damned heroics were condemned, along with superhero titles and their endless punch-ups. The superhero comics were also attacked because it was feared that kids might try to punch their way through walls, like the Hulk, or fly out of windows, like Superman. As we have seen, the extreme violence in the American crime and horror titles was considered separately and was believed by some to lead directly to delinquency. Psycho strip << Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Next > End >>