Comic Books and Wars

Today I will be reviewing the article, “Written in Red, White, and Blue: A Comparison of Comic Book Propaganda from World War II and September 11,” by Cord Scott. In the article Scott compares comic book propaganda with the attacks of Pearl Harbor and the September 11. Scott brings out that writers of comic books would use their comics as a form of propaganda to get their readers to join the army and support their country. He goes on to name a few comic book characters that appear with a patriotic duty such as Uncle Sam, Blackhawk, Fin, Boy Commandos, and Citizen V. He mentions that by the end of the World War II comic books had accomplished its goal of getting people to join and support the war. 

In the article Scott states,"As the threat of war in Europe turned into reality in 1939, comics in the United States incorporated the real villains into their story lines. The villains in the books had exotic names and came from yet familiar locales, but adults recognized the true origins," which shows how comic books were used as a form of propaganda for the war back in the 1940's. He goes on to say how different ethnicities were stereotyped and as the wars continued the more the stereotypes increased. Many would argue that by doing this that comic books were being racist but I would have to disagree. The writers of comics were just portraying the "enemies" of the United States during the war in the worst possible way to try to influence their readers and to get them to join the army. "Youth, especially younger people who are formulating ideas (and are the basis for marketing of comic books), needed to be given these characterizations and the subtle stereotypes, so that when the time came children would help in the war effort," Scott says in his article and I would have to agree with him because comic books were very successful in getting many youths to join the army because of the way they did portray the "villains".

Overall I really enjoyed reading this article by Scott because he had brought out many good points about propaganda in wars. Although the enemies of the U.S. were portrayed very stereotypical there was a very good reason to this which Scott helped his readers understand.