“From the Heroic to the Depraved” Mainstream and Underground Comic Books at Northwestern University Library
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Jason Nargis and Benn Joseph “From the Heroic to the Depraved” Mainstream and underground comic books at Northwestern University Library n display cases on the grand third floor of realization of the narrative. These artworks are IMcCormick Library, often graced by rare, first also saturated with information documenting edition monographs and the longhand letters of changing expressions of visual rhetoric and historical figures, some primary color drawings societal norms, with the themes, styles, plot- of men in tights (and some in nothing at all) ting, pacing, and iconography all speaking to recently spent six months entertaining and ed- a particular cultural time and place. ucating the Comic Northwest- books are ern Univer- one of the sity commu- most ef- nity. There fective and is nothing popular like a comic mass media book ex- of the 20th hibit with century, but an “explicit the story of content” graphic, se- warning to quential art get college begins long students cu- before the rious about first “funny library hold- Detail of Northwestern comics exhibit. pages” ap- ings. With peared in this show, curators Benn Joseph and Jason American newspapers. McCormick Library’s Nargis presented an overview of the history exhibit “From the Heroic to the Depraved” and scope of the comic book archive in the focused predominantly on traditional comic Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special books, but contextualized the origins of the Collections. art form through the 18th and 19th centuries From a 16th-century BC Egyptian Book of the with early examples of satirical broadsides, the Dead to contemporary minimalist Web-based “modern moral subjects” of William Hogarth, comic xkcd, the interweaving of text and im- Blake prints, wordless woodcut novels, and age has formed a powerful and unique form more. As an easily reproducible, affordable, and of communication and storytelling spanning millennia. Comics, or sequential visual stories, Jason Nargis is manuscript librarian, e-mail: j-nargis@ create a shared space of creation and compre- northwestern.edu, and Benn Joseph is manuscript librarian at Northwestern University Archives, e-mail: hension, since it is the combination of the artist’s [email protected] and the viewer’s imaginations that permits the © 2012 Jason Nargis and Benn Joseph May 2012 261 C&RL News accessible format, these works had significant num Age (pre-1938) comics. The library holds social impact. The curators wished to showcase extensive runs of titles mostly from the Silver the quality and depth of the library’s holdings, Age (approximately 1950–1970) of mainstream but also to delineate the progression of the comics as well as the so-called “Underground form and the evolution of visual storytelling Comix” of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The x over time. Even without label text, the art can was included to differentiate these works from simply stand and speak for itself; comics are just mainstream titles, and also to possibly hint at fun and present visually arresting and dynamic the X-rated nature of their content. scenes that can perhaps serve as a gateway into Our title holdings are unusually complete other parts of special collections and primary because the contributors were true collectors, source materials. though there are still some missing issues. Once This collection has a unique status at the the collection is completely cataloged, it will McCormick Library as being the only archive be easier to identify gaps and make acquisi- initiated by a donation from an undergraduate. tion decisions. Our comics archive is almost When religion major Juan Cole offered his 1,100 exclusively donation-based, so any purchases comic books to curator Russell Maylone in 1972, will have to fill a glaring hole. The catalog will he could not have known what a snowball also improve casual discovery and reading of effect his gift would have. Within a year, four titles, which we encourage since this is a “use” other donors had come forward, the collection collection. Many of the comics in our collection, had grown to 3,600 issues, and superstar comics including Amazing Spider-Man #1, have been creator and publisher Stan Lee was speaking read many times. at the dedication ceremony. While students With so many comics, and incomplete re- would browse the collection as a break from cords, it was difficult to choose what to include their studies, the library also saw the comics in the exhibit. We began by reviewing the paper as a legitimate research source. The works of card catalog that existed for a good portion popular culture contain a wealth of information of the collection, and created lists of items to about the society that created them. A scholar consider based on their age and genre. The un- might focus, for example, on characterization derground titles had originally been a separate of women, minorities, or communism over archive, so the several hundred issues making time. One professor recently included numer- up this highly complete collection were easier to ous comics portraying journalists in an exhibit peruse. Limited exhibit space, and a huge scope, on the profession; another assigned issues of made for challenging and stimulating decisions. Fantastic Four from 1966, in which the super- Mention comic books to an average person hero “Black Panther” debuts in the jungles of and they are probably not going to think of Africa, to illustrate constructions of “blackness” a 15th-century illuminated Bible, but that is in American culture. precisely where the “From the Heroic to the The exhibit represented just a portion of the Depraved” exhibit begins. This Biblia paupe- comic book holdings of the McCormick Library. rum (Paupers’ Bible) is a reproduction of the With the collection approaching 25,000 items, Codex Palatinus Latinus 871 from the Vatican donations continue to pour in, and the staff is Library, and displays multiple bible scenes with working to fully catalog all issues. Alumnus vibrant color and action. The Paupers’ Bible Adam Beechen recently gave Northwestern the was a picture bible genre developed in the majority of his contemporary mainstream collec- late Middle Ages, using sequential images and tion, totaling about 3,500 issues, with complete even speech scrolls (a precursor to our speech runs of many major titles and graphic novels. bubbles). Usually written in a vernacular lan- Joseph Lambert, a retiring chemistry professor guage rather than in Latin, they were, despite at Northwestern, recently gifted the library a the name, actually quite expensive. In these large run of comic book adaptations of classic books the image was no longer subservient to literature containing some Gold Age and Plati- the text, but occupied the center of the page and C&RL News May 2012 262 bore an equal role in the telling of the tale. This first superhero created by a female cartoonist). is just one example of how the combination Lacking either of the two issues of Lobo (the first of images and written words has a long and African American character to headline his own powerful history of reaching, entertaining, comic, published by Dell in 1965), we included and influencing audiences of all ages. While the January 1972 issue of Green Lantern, where many years separate this Bible from Batman, DC Comics debuts their first African American the essential machinations of the art form are superhero in a mainstream headlining role (i.e., the same, and in the exhibit we briefly chart the word black was not in the publication’s this continuity through the centuries. title). The background research needed to make Mainstream comics are commonly associ- these decisions was one of the most enjoyable ated with the superhero genre, generally con- portions of the project. sidered to have begun in 1938 with the debut Underground comix developed amid the of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s Superman, in counterculture turmoil of the late 1960s. Liber- Action Comics #1. Numerous superheroes with alized attitudes towards sex, drugs, music, and similar powers soon followed: Captain Marvel, government informed the stories and characters The Flash, Spider-Man, The Human Torch, and of these stories, often presented with a prevail- others. There is very little in our collection that is ing sense of satire, sarcasm, or even paranoia. pre-1938, though we do have a few Mutt & Jeff As it did for many elements of this new culture, compilations, as well as a number of “Big Little the San Francisco Bay Area served as the cradle Books” from the 1930s, some of which chronicle for the comix movement. There, leftist politics the first appearances of Dick Tracy, a creation met private printing know-how (an effect of of Northwestern alumnus Chester Gould. the music poster printing industry) allowing Comics often reflect wider elements of cul- artists to professionally print small runs of their ture, such as when the United States entered work. While they were absolutely a form of World War II and superheroes were written protest against the status quo and censorship, into battles against Axis powers. In one of the comix was also a brutally honest form of self- library’s issues of Human Torch Comics, the expression in an age when many were search- hero fights General Rommel in the Battle of ing for a voice of their own. While the majority El Alamein. Changes in society’s moral climate of comix contained highly sexualized fantasy are also reflected in comics, evidenced in the images of women, leading to well-founded horror and true crime genres. The violence claims of misogyny, there was also a dedicated and gore of these stories were quite popular group of female artists and publishers promot- immediately following World War II, perhaps ing women’s liberation through comix.