Comics as Propaganda in WW2

[Music] all right hello welcome to comic tropes i'm your host chris before i get too far with this episode i want to plug something that i worked on this is a new comic book that's out called locksaw i'll have the description on where you can buy it in the details of this youtube description uh but i lettered this book and it's a really fun story i think uh you'll all enjoy it about transforming robots and the mystery of why they can no longer change into other vehicles so yeah i did the lettering on this uh book i think it's a lot of fun and i just wanted to put that out there again details in the description below but today what i want to do in this episode is go back and take another look at the golden age of comics from the 30s through the 40s but i'm not going to be looking at some weirdo golden age character today like for instance the lone warrior who had a sidekick instead i want to talk about how throughout world war ii comic books were used as propaganda and it really wasn't just the us also our allies and enemies used comic books to influence children inspire citizens and inform soldiers i want to talk about all of that stuff i do want to let you know that some of the depictions of race and ethnicity at this time were racist so this is just my disclaimer to let you know that yeah some of the imagery you'll see has that in it and that's just how it was presented at the time and i can't get around it but mostly we're going to be talking about how and why comic books were used as propaganda so without any further ado please consider hitting like and subscribe and let's get into the topic at hand world war ii started in 1939 but the us at the time was doing everything they could to be isolationist world war one had been very expensive for the nation and the u.s tried to avoid involvement in foreign affairs even refusing to join the league of nations but while that was the foreign policy of its day that didn't mean that every u.s citizen agreed with it early comics like captain america showed a hero punching hitler and getting involved in the war against nazi germany almost a year before the us actually joined the war perhaps it's no small surprise that that comic was created by famous jewish artists joe simon and jack kirby who obviously had strong feelings about what was happening back in europe looking back it seems like it would be a no-brainer to have a hero fight the nazis but at the time it was not a popular opinion with everyone the german-american bund for instance was made up of americans and had been around since 1936 that group's goal was to promote a positive view of nazi germany they even protested at timely comics lobby once in another early example of promoting the war effort we can take a look at look magazine from february of 1940 which featured a comic in it superman grabs hitler and stalin and takes them to a league of nations meeting in switzerland for the two death spots to be tried for their crimes it was pure wish fulfillment as many early superhero comics were at the time and notable for comparing stalin to hitler since allied forces would later work side by side with russia to defeat nazi germany but when japan attacked the us on december 7th foreign policy changed immediately president fdr committed u.s troops to both the atlantic and the pacific theaters of battle this would be very expensive and the u.s treasury decided to fund the effort by offering debt securities these would be known as war bonds and they would offer low yield returns to help raise money for manufacturing and other war effort needs posters and endorsements from hollywood celebrities would sell to adults but even children were advertised to through comic books it may seem odd by today's standards to advertise directly to children to financially support the war effort but when you consider that cartoons were used to advertise cigarettes up through the 1960s raising money for war bonds seems tame in comparison comic books being used as propaganda in other words was nothing new now propaganda just to be clear isn't inherently a bad thing it simply means that you're using a chosen medium to influence somebody's opinion with your own and golden age comics were very political the stories being told in comics at the time usually had superheroes going up against corrupt businessmen and politicians that were taking advantage of the poor and disenfranchised however when you look at the war effort comics all of a sudden characters are now being changed and had their characteristics altered to fit a particular narrative the us government advertised war bonds and war stamps with an aggressively patriotic message implying that it was your duty to help fund the war effort or comparing today's soldiers with the minutemen militia who helped the country earn its independence it was very effective and comic book publishers bought in right away for example batman originally was shown using guns in his first year of existence because he was derived from pulp heroes like the shadow who also brandished firearms nevertheless batman rarely used the guns against people he first used a gun in a fight against a vampire in detective comics number 32. he only used them against actual people in batman number one from march of 1940 against hugo strange's henchmen and he even laments having to use them within a year of his debut batman became staunchly anti-gun after batman number one came out editor whitney ellsworth spoke with batman creators bob kane and bill finger and insisted that batman should not use guns anymore in an effort to grow batman beyond his pulp roots and establish his status as a superhero as early as batman number four batman uses dialogue telling robin explicitly to never use weapons to kill and so with that persona firmly established over the next several years it seems completely out of character to see him handing a rifle over to a service member once america had formally joined world war ii sure batman would be against nazis and the bund but would he really be the type of person to supply a firearm to someone else or the kind of person to appear on covers mowing down his opponents gleefully it was an odd fit it made a lot more sense for captain america to promote war bonds since he was an actual army service member serving in the war effort many covers by timely comics who eventually became marvel comics would showcase its heroes battling axis powers like these intricate and exciting pieces by alex schomburg but hardly any of their covers promoted war bonds specifically that was much more in vogue with national publications who eventually became dc comics soon a wide swath of covers for superman or world's finest comics were promoting war bonds as well as war stamps war stamps were specifically aimed at kids a bond would cost at least ten dollars and most children didn't have that kind of money but they could buy stamps that would eventually add up to ten dollars to allow them to exchange it for a war bond wonder woman had become a very popular character in sensation comics and when the first issue of her self-titled comic came out she promoted war bonds and wore stamps in a big way first one of her stories ends with her explaining that to be a patriot you should purchase war stamps wonder woman evolved to be a more pacifistic character but her origins were tightly tied to battling the nazis so it made sense what was surprising was that the editors volunteered the entire back cover of wonder woman number one to the u.s treasury department a letter from the secretary of treasury henry morgenthau extols the virtues of buying war bonds and stamps letting the millions of readers know that their money could buy the us a lot of planes and guns why would the publishers volunteer so much valuable real estate where they could normally place a paid ad to something promoting the war effort well two reasons first of all keep in mind everybody at the time was swept up with political fervor the propaganda by the us government was very effective in making sure that everybody felt the need to do their part and then second it's worth remembering that comic books were very popular with the army at this point when the war started there were 15 million comics published every single month and two years into the war that number grew to as much as 25 million copies every month and the biggest customer the single biggest customer was the us army they bought millions of comic books to entertain their troops and also help battle illiteracy that was a real thing at the time and what that led to was a lot of service members ended up getting hooked on the characters and storylines in fact it fundamentally changed the industry following the war because following the audience it led to them being more interested in things like crime horror sci-fi but during the war effort it meant that propaganda supporting the war effort was being directed at the right audience there was also a close relationship between publishers and the government through an intermediary in 1942 the advertising research foundation determined that the most read section of newspapers was comics a later study by the market research company of america learned that half the population of america was reading comics the government noted this and they had the bureau of intelligence perform research for the office of war information to analyze how they could use comics to help the war effort richard l graham notes in his book government issue comics for the people 1940s to 2000s saying quote perhaps it was the comics portrayal of the enemy during this time that was most troubling to the owi the bureau of intelligence observed that mainstream comic strips at the time had no trouble using exaggerated physical stereotypes depicting nazis as teutonic buffoons and the japanese as blood drooling torturers while these characterizations of the enemy as the other provided an impetus for hatred and stirred strong emotional reactions at home and abroad they were often accompanied by portrayals of the enemy as lazy and posing little threat the owi felt these depictions were too simplistic and misleading and could lead to overconfidence although this didn't necessarily stop the owi from using similar depictions in its own materials and it's true in a moment we'll take a look at some of the covers that were promoting war bonds and it depicts superheroes having a grand old time meanwhile at the time the us government was hiring popular existing artists or artists were getting their start in military publications using cartoons and comic books to promote the war effort will eisner illustrated army manuals using the character joe dope to show what not to do the us government hired terry and the pirates artist milton caniff to illustrate a pocket guide to china with sadly uninformed comics illustrations designed to teach the troops how to identify japanese from chinese people disney created pamphlets comics and even cartoons to promote the military the government had illustrator ben roth put out a comic book aimed at filipinos trying to convince them how evil the japanese were other countries were using similar ideas within comics at the time both england and germany put out comics aimed at french readers trying to convince them how they were actually ahead in the war and more likely to win germany also released comics for portugal trying to convince the neutral nation to join them japan made a comic that suggested they would bring all the asian races to prominence throughout the world if they were victorious back in the u.s war themed comics became very popular the petroleum administration for war aimed at raising funds for fuel created comics like coming in on a wing and a prayer and undercover war these were as pro-war as you could get but featured engaging artwork and gained a lot of readers it is interesting that so many superheroes promoted war bonds on their covers but would often have to work hard to come up with reasons why their heroes couldn't simply end the war themselves in 1942 the superman comic strip featured a story called the failure to explain why superman was not allowed to participate in the war clark kent sees a recruiter but he's so eager he accidentally uses his x-ray vision and reads the eye chart in the next room and is disqualified but by 1943 the height of the war bond effort superman found that he could help in other ways he could fly mail to the troops or help them with kitchen duty the comics at this time were so patriotic you could argue they were jingoistic the u.s soldier was portrayed as so capable they didn't need superman's help is this better than the alternative captain america and captain marvel for instance were given fictional nazi enemies that prevented them from easily winning the war for the allies knowing the history of why comics were used as propaganda in the war effort is important and it is interesting to see that it wasn't just the u.s a lot of countries used comic books as propaganda during world war ii that said some of these superhero covers where they're promoting war bonds specifically are pretty hilarious some intentionally some in retrospect so let's take a look at what in my opinion are 10 of the best covers dc made promoting war bonds one of the first pro-military covers after pearl harbor is world's finest comics number seven from the fall issue of 1942 with art by jack burnley it's either trying to show us how powerful america's navy is or superman batman and robin are all having phallic insecurities similarly the following issue in december has the trio of superheroes selling war stamps to children with great big smiles which in a way transcended a fictional illustration and worked quite literally as the superheroes did sell kids on buying war stamps that september superman number 18 debuted with a dramatic cover by fred ray showing superman riding a bomb into battle along with the army's air forces why throw a bomb when you can catch a glimpse of your terrified enemies seconds before wiping them out by 1943 covers were as over the top patriotic as you could get in this february issue of batman jack burnley depicts batman and robin gleefully mowing down their enemies out of character but at the same time jingoism was the rule of the day the spring issue of world's finest in 1943 again by jack burnley is an example of what the office of war information did not want it shows the heroes making buffoons out of the access leaders by tossing old vegetables at them jack burnley also drew the cover of detective comics 78 in august of 1943 it features a patriotic flair associating superheroes with both revolutionary soldiers and modern day service members in lockstep here's another jack burnley cover for the september issue of world's finest comics this cover features another way americans were asked to help out with the war effort growing your own vegetables in a community victory garden so that food could be rationed similarly burnley drew the cover for the spring 1944 issue of world's finest comics focusing on rationing paper the dated reference to a paper hanger was slang for a czech forger covers got a bit sillier in 1945 as the allied forces had started to turn the tide in this july issue of detective comics artist dick sprang shows batman's butler alfred innocently approaching a criminal who confesses to a crime only for alfred to explain he was simply there to recommend that he buy a war bond finally dick sprang illustrated the cover to the august issue of batman where batman gleefully hands over a rifle to a soldier some of these covers really make the war look like it was fun a few of them have the heroes acting a bit out of character and all of them were wildly patriotic i actually have a couple books that i'd like to recommend if you want to learn some more about this and see more artwork that was produced across comics cartoons comic strips all sorts of propaganda materials i've got some recommendations there but first let's take a brief diversion and take a look at the fan art that came into the channel this week and then i'll be right back emily mcdowell illustrated this amazing cartoon you can find more by emily on her instagram pete sent in this colorful illustration where i'm giving my traditional greeting pete has more on instagram matt westwood from the uk drew this exciting piece titled comic tropes and dinosaurs dinosaurs are cool j andrew world classes up the joint with this nice logo you can see more by jay andrew on twitter brian long created this artwork where i'm in a jack kirby inspired outfit and i'm teaming up with harvey's black cat a public domain hero william mello imagines what would happen if infotron and his robot family ever turned against me you can see more by william on instagram finally marcos depicts me as though i'm in jojo's bizarre adventure and infotron is my spirit you can find more by marcos on instagram and twitter folks if you have some fan art that you would like to submit i'm always happy to feature that on this channel as long as it has something to do specifically with comic tropes i don't have enough time to just feature everybody's artwork i hope you understand that but if you'd like to do that you can always send art into comic tropes gmail.com and then on top of showing it i like to pick a winner to get a gachapon prize while they last i'm probably gonna phase this out soon but there's still some more nice prizes that i picked up in japan so let's uh spin the ball hopper and pick a winner by the way the prizes come out of the gachapon machine that was donated by lunar shine store all right so spinning these around there we go and this week's winner is going to be number one number one i don't feel like i've picked number one in a while that was this artwork so congratulations uh let's take a look at the prize that you won and then um i have some books to recommend to you but i also wanted to mention one last thing about um why the military liked using comic books to educate their soldiers as well as sort of push the publishers to promote things and that was to battle a literacy so illiteracy was a big problem with the military at the time and comic books were selected as a potential way to start engaging people in fun reading activities and to sort of help with diagrams and illustrations that could explain things visually and rely less on the written word all right so we've got a prize here it looks like this one is a star wars themed i can sort of see the star wars logo there and um as to what it is i'm not 100 sure this is got a big bag in it that's all taped up but um i'll figure if i can figure that out i'll put an image there to show you what this is congratulations i will be mailing that out eventually um yes i'd mentioned that there were some books that you can learn more about this propaganda effort during world war ii so let me just grab my notes here there were two books uh that i found that looked really really good one of them is called cartoons for victory from phantom graphics that actually pulls a lot of um images from the collection of uh warren bernard who is a great guy who um he might not remember me but i've met him many times when i've helped on the small press expo that's a convention that he he has largely helped organize and and works on every year um one of many key people and he has a really deep vast comic book collection and he's generously like shared a lot of some really rare art in that book cartoons for victory another good book is uh the 10 cent war that one is definitely available on amazon it's a paperback as a hardcover as a kindle edition has a lot of history both great books to learn more and see more i think the fun sometimes is just pouring over the artwork at the time a lot of the artwork itself is always gorgeous the unfortunate thing is just how um it can be sometimes racist it can definitely be jingoistic which is just sort of over the top patriotic but it's still interesting because it's a real part of history um and it's interesting to see that comic books were such an important part um yes it was aimed at children to get them to buy war bonds and war stamps but at the time a lot of people were reading comics and um probably about 70 million people at the time reading comic books in the early to mid 40s 70 million readers which was about half of the us population at the time pretty impressive numbers anyway uh thank you so much for uh joining me for this diversion down uh the comic book history world um i started out looking at some pretty funny characters and i just kind of got obsessed with this topic and and i was just like well this is what i'm passionate about so that's what i'm putting out this week um thank you very much uh please remember to hit things like like and subscribe leave a comment those things all really help the channel it helps the episode potentially get promoted to new viewers if it's got significant engagement by people subscribing or hitting like leaving comments those things are all really help but if you want to help the channel in a bigger way just keep in mind that i do have a patreon and i will post exclusive things there for instance i'm probably going to do some exclusive videos just sort of talking off the cuff about comic books that i've worked on i'm going to create like one or two about the new marvel 616 documentary series on uh disney plus so those are the kinds of things that i like to do there i also uh mail out automatically you know like um comic tropes exclusive enamel pins once you've donated a certain amount lifetime so um to a lot of my viewers there i'm i'm bagging these i'm uh in the process of mailing a lot more out just just so you know you probably have one coming to you if you've been supporting me on patreon for a little while um anyway yeah thank you so much for joining me i've got some pretty exciting topics coming up some artists that i'm pretty passionate about and some artists that have been uh very very influential and important that i'm not necessarily like always a fan of but i think that what their work is for the comics industry is so notable it's like you have to talk about it so definitely got some exciting topics coming up thank you so much and until i see you next time keep reading comics see ya you

Channel: ComicTropes

Views: 71,799

Keywords: Comic books, Golden age, World war 2, Propaganda, Batman, Superman, Captain America, War comics, Ww2, Foreign comics, Manga

Id: FzT9I-9N5c4

Length: 26min 0sec (1560 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 28 2020