Atomic Comics

Title Page Copyright Page

Download PDF (262.7 KB)
 

Contents

Download PDF (137.5 KB)
 

Preface

Download PDF (124.5 KB)
pp. xiii-xv

As atomic-themed comic books are a somewhat unusual theme for academic analysis, I should probably start with a word of explanation. I came of reading age in the late 1940s, a period . . .

Acknowledgments

Download PDF (73.9 KB)
p. xvii-xvii

In the fall of 2010, several months after my husband, Ferenc Morton Szasz, lost his struggle with leukemia, I met with Matt Becker, acquisitions editor for the University of Nevada Press, to . . .

Introduction

Download PDF (129.7 KB)
pp. 1-5

At 10:45 a.m. on August 6, 1945, President Harry S Truman revealed to the world that the Allies had dropped a new type of weapon on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. “It is an atomic . . .

Part I

Download PDF (56.7 KB)
p. 7-7

Chapter 1 Comic Strips Confront the Subatomic World: The Turn of the Century to the Early 1930s

Download PDF (148.6 KB)
pp. 9-21

In 1895, German scientist William Roentgen shocked the world by his announcement of the discovery of X-rays (“X” for unknown) that could penetrate solid matter. News of the “Roentgen rays” . . .

Chapter 2 The Comics and the Fissioned Atom: The Mid-1930s to August 6, 1945

Download PDF (277.5 KB)
pp. 22-40

The 1939 announcement of the splitting of Uranium235 (U-235) by German physical chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann sparked an overwhelming public interest in the promises of . . .

Part II

Download PDF (56.7 KB)
p. 41-41

Chapter 3 Coming to Grips with the Atom: Early Atomic Superheroes

Download PDF (870.2 KB)
pp. 43-66

In 1940 the American Physical Society, the main US professional physics organization, contained 3,751 members. Assuming that slightly over half had some interest in the subatomic world, this . . .

Chapter 4 Atomic Comic Utopias, Espionage, and the Cold War

Download PDF (442.4 KB)
pp. 67-86

In the wake of Hiroshima, a number of scientists and science writers quickly revived the earlier 1939–41 dreams of an atomic utopia. Tucked amid the dire warnings of future wars, predictions of . . .

Part III

Download PDF (56.8 KB)
p. 87-87

Chapter 5 American Underground Comix, Political and International Cartoonists, and the Rise of Japanese Manga

Download PDF (502.3 KB)
pp. 89-114

The rose-colored visions of nuclear power without consequence and the whistle-in-the-dark civil defense warnings faded amid the widespread social upheaval that followed the election of . . .

Chapter 6 The Never-Ending Appeal of Atomic Adventure Tales

Download PDF (431.5 KB)
pp. 115-132

A firm believer in the educational potential of graphic art, Leonard Rifas once observed that “Comic books are not the inconsequential, harmless escapist fun that people assume . . .

Conclusion

Download PDF (125.7 KB)
pp. 133-136

Although no artistic medium—film, art, fiction, song, theater, sculpture, history, photography, or opera—can ever encompass the entirety of the story of atomic energy, for over seven . . .

Notes

Download PDF (192.1 KB)
pp. 137-153

Bibliography

Download PDF (131.2 KB)
pp. 155-165

Index

Download PDF (132.0 KB)
pp. 167-179