Download or read book Working Class Comic Book Heroes written by Marc DiPaolo and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributions by Phil Bevin, Blair Davis, Marc DiPaolo, Michele Fazio, James Gifford, Kelly Kanayama, Orion Ussner Kidder, Christina M. Knopf, Kevin Michael Scott, Andrew Alan Smith, and Terrence R. Wandtke In comic books, superhero stories often depict working-class characters who struggle to make ends meet, lead fulfilling lives, and remain faithful to themselves and their own personal code of ethics. Working-Class Comic Book Heroes: Class Conflict and Populist Politics in Comics examines working-class superheroes and other protagonists who populate heroic narratives in serialized comic books. Essayists analyze and deconstruct these figures, viewing their roles as fictional stand-ins for real-world blue-collar characters. Informed by new working-class studies, the book also discusses how often working-class writers and artists created these characters. Notably Jack Kirby, a working-class Jewish artist, created several of the most recognizable working-class superheroes, including Captain America and the Thing. Contributors weigh industry histories and marketing concerns as well as the fan community's changing attitudes towards class signifiers in superhero adventures. The often financially strapped Spider-Man proves to be a touchstone figure in many of these essays. Grant Morrison's Superman, Marvel's Shamrock, Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta, and The Walking Dead receive thoughtful treatment. While there have been many scholarly works concerned with issues of race and gender in comics, this book stands as the first to deal explicitly with issues of class, cultural capital, and economics as its main themes.

Download or read book Warhol s Working Class written by Anthony E. Grudin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-10-20 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Andy Warhol’s creative engagement with social class. During the 1960s, as neoliberalism perpetuated the idea that fixed classes were a mirage and status an individual achievement, Warhol’s work appropriated images, techniques, and technologies that have long been described as generically “American” or “middle class.” Drawing on archival and theoretical research into Warhol’s contemporary cultural milieu, Grudin demonstrates that these features of Warhol’s work were in fact closely associated with the American working class. The emergent technologies Warhol conspicuously employed to make his work—home projectors, tape recorders, film and still cameras—were advertised directly to the working class as new opportunities for cultural participation. What’s more, some of Warhol’s most iconic subjects—Campbell’s soup, Brillo pads, Coca-Cola—were similarly targeted, since working-class Americans, under threat from a variety of directions, were thought to desire the security and confidence offered by national brands. Having propelled himself from an impoverished childhood in Pittsburgh to the heights of Madison Avenue, Warhol knew both sides of this equation: the intense appeal that popular culture held for working-class audiences and the ways in which the advertising industry hoped to harness this appeal in the face of growing middle-class skepticism regarding manipulative marketing. Warhol was fascinated by these promises of egalitarian individualism and mobility, which could be profound and deceptive, generative and paralyzing, charged with strange forms of desire. By tracing its intersections with various forms of popular culture, including film, music, and television, Grudin shows us how Warhol’s work disseminated these promises, while also providing a record of their intricate tensions and transformations.

Download or read book Super Black written by Adilifu Nama and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Super Black places the appearance of black superheroes alongside broad and sweeping cultural trends in American politics and pop culture, which reveals how black superheroes are not disposable pop products, but rather a fascinating racial phenomenon through which futuristic expressions and fantastic visions of black racial identity and symbolic political meaning are presented. Adilifu Nama sees the value—and finds new avenues for exploring racial identity—in black superheroes who are often dismissed as sidekicks, imitators of established white heroes, or are accused of having no role outside of blaxploitation film contexts. Nama examines seminal black comic book superheroes such as Black Panther, Black Lightning, Storm, Luke Cage, Blade, the Falcon, Nubia, and others, some of whom also appear on the small and large screens, as well as how the imaginary black superhero has come to life in the image of President Barack Obama. Super Black explores how black superheroes are a powerful source of racial meaning, narrative, and imagination in American society that express a myriad of racial assumptions, political perspectives, and fantastic (re)imaginings of black identity. The book also demonstrates how these figures overtly represent or implicitly signify social discourse and accepted wisdom concerning notions of racial reciprocity, equality, forgiveness, and ultimately, racial justice.

Download or read book Third Class Superhero written by Charles Yu and published by HMH. This book was released on 2006-09-05 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A compulsively readable collection” of short fiction from the author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Publishers Weekly). With deadpan humor and originality, Charles Yu spins Kafkaesque tales of modern identity and insecurity in this whip-smart debut. In 401(k), a couple living in the Luxury Car Commercial subdivision are disappointed when their exotic vacation turns into a Life Insurance/Asset Management pitch. The author struggles to write the definitive biography of his mother in Autobiographical Raw Material Unsuitable for the Mining of Fiction. And would-be superhero Moisture Man must come to terms with the darkness in his heart. Throughout the collection, Yu’s characters run up against the limitations of their artificial story lines while tackling the terrifying aspects of existence: mothers, jobs, spouses, and perhaps most terrifying of all, the need to express feelings. Heartbreaking and hilarious, Third Class Superhero marked the debut of an author who has been a PEN award finalist, and whose novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe was named one of Time’s best books of the year. “The post-collegiate braininess of many of Yu’s stories is like the music of the Talking Heads, making the familiar seem off-kilter. . . . Takes a Kafkaesque turn in its comic examination of the essence of identity.” —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book Superheroes Are Everywhere written by Kamala Harris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Vice President Kamala Harris comes a picture book with an empowering message: Superheroes are all around us--and if we try, we can all be heroes too. A #1 New York Times bestseller! Before Kamala Harris was elected to the vice presidency and named the Democratic presidential nominee, she was a little girl who loved superheroes. And when she looked around, she was amazed to find them everywhere! In her family, among her friends, even down the street--there were superheroes wherever she looked. And those superheroes showed her that all you need to do to be a superhero is to be the best that you can be. In this empowering and joyful picture book that speaks directly to kids, Kamala Harris takes readers through her life and shows them that the power to make the world a better place is inside all of us. And with fun and engaging art by Mechal Renee Roe, as well as a guide to being a superhero at the end, this book is sure to have kids taking up the superhero mantle (cape and mask optional). Praise for Superheroes Are Everywhere: "This [book] offers a solid message: a superhero could be anyone, including you." --Booklist

Download or read book Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics written by Frederick Luis Aldama and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics offers the first thorough exploration of Latino/a superheroes in mainstream comic books, TV shows, and movies--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Heroes in the Night written by Tea Krulos and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Watchman didn't arrive in a Batmobile but drove a tan, four-door Pontiac. He was in costume, of course—a trench coat, motorcycle gloves, army boots, a domino mask, and a red hooded sweatshirt emblazoned with a W logo. Journalist Tea Krulos had spoken to him over the phone but never face-to-mask. By the end of the interview, he wasn't sure if the Watchman was delightfully eccentric or completely crazy. But he was going to find out. Heroes in the Night traces Krulos's journey into the strange subculture of Real Life Superheroes, random citizens who have adopted comic book&–style personas and hit the streets to fight injustice. Some concentrate on humanitarian or activist missions—helping the homeless, gathering donations for food banks, or delivering toys to children—while others actively patrol their neighborhoods looking for crime to fight. By day, these modern Clark Kents work as dishwashers, pencil pushers, and executives in Fortune 500 companies. But by night, only the Shadow knows. Well, the Shadow and Tea Krulos. Through historical research, extensive interviews, and many long hours walking patrol in Brooklyn, Seattle, San Diego, Minneapolis, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Krulos discovered what being a RLSH is all about. He shares not only their shining, triumphant moments but some of their ill-advised, terrifying disasters as well. It's all part of the life of a superhero. As the Watchman explains, &“If everyone made little changes in what they did, gave a little more to charity, watched out for their neighbors, we wouldn't have the problems that we have.&”

Download or read book War Politics and Superheroes written by Marc Di Paolo and published by McFarland Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Superhero adventure comics have a long history of commenting upon American public opinion and government policy, and the surge in the popularity of comics since the events of September 11, 2001, ensures their continued relevance. This critical text examines the seventy-year history of comic book superheroes on film and in comic books and their reflections of the politics of their time. Superheroes addressed include Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Superman, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, and topics covered include American wars, conflicts, and public policy. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Download or read book Contagious Imagination written by Jane Tolmie and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2022-07-27 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributions by Frederick Luis Aldama, Melissa Burgess, Susan Kirtley, Rachel Luria, Ursula Murray Husted, Mark O’Connor, Allan Pero, Davida Pines, Tara Prescott-Johnson, Jane Tolmie, Rachel Trousdale, Elaine Claire Villacorta, and Glenn Willmott Lynda Barry (b. 1956) is best known for her distinctive style and unique voice, first popularized in her underground weekly comic Ernie Pook’s Comeek. Since then, she has published prolifically, including numerous comics, illustrated novels, and nonfiction books exploring the creative process. Barry’s work is genre- and form-bending, often using collage to create what she calls “word with drawing” vignettes. Her art, imaginative and self-reflective, allows her to discuss gender, race, relationships, memory, and her personal, everyday lived experience. It is through this experience that Barry examines the creative process and offers to readers ways to record and examine their own lives. The essays in Contagious Imagination: The Work and Art of Lynda Barry, edited by Jane Tolmie, study the pedagogy of Barry’s work and its application academically and practically. Examining Barry’s career and work from the point of view of research-creation, Contagious Imagination applies Barry’s unique mixture of teaching, art, learning, and creativity to the very form of the volume, exploring Barry’s imaginative praxis and offering readers their own. With a foreword by Frederick Luis Aldama and an afterword by Glenn Willmott, this volume explores the impact of Barry’s work in and out of the classroom. Divided into four sections—Teaching and Learning, which focuses on critical pedagogy; Comics and Autobiography, which targets various practices of rememorying; Cruddy, a self-explanatory category that offers two extraordinary critical interventions into Barry criticism around a challenging text; and Research-Creation, which offers two creative, synthetic artistic pieces that embody and enact Barry’s own mixed academic and creative investments—this book offers numerous inroads into Barry’s idiosyncratic imagination and what it can teach us about ourselves.

Download or read book The New Mutants written by Ramzi Fawaz and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-01-22 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2017 The Association for the Studies of the Present Book Prize Finalist Mention, 2017 Lora Romero First Book Award Presented by the American Studies Association Winner of the 2012 CLAGS Fellowship Award for Best First Book Project in LGBT Studies How fantasy meets reality as popular culture evolves and ignites postwar gender, sexual, and race revolutions. In 1964, noted literary critic Leslie Fiedler described American youth as “new mutants,” social rebels severing their attachments to American culture to remake themselves in their own image. 1960s comic book creators, anticipating Fiedler, began to morph American superheroes from icons of nationalism and white masculinity into actual mutant outcasts, defined by their genetic difference from ordinary humanity. These powerful misfits and “freaks” soon came to embody the social and political aspirations of America’s most marginalized groups, including women, racial and sexual minorities, and the working classes. In The New Mutants, Ramzi Fawaz draws upon queer theory to tell the story of these monstrous fantasy figures and how they grapple with radical politics from Civil Rights and The New Left to Women’s and Gay Liberation Movements. Through a series of comic book case studies—including The Justice League of America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, and The New Mutants—alongside late 20th century fan writing, cultural criticism, and political documents, Fawaz reveals how the American superhero modeled new forms of social belonging that counterculture youth would embrace in the 1960s and after. The New Mutants provides the first full-length study to consider the relationship between comic book fantasy and radical politics in the modern United States.

Download or read book Comics through Time 4 volumes written by M. Keith Booker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 2104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing especially on American comic books and graphic novels from the 1930s to the present, this massive four-volume work provides a colorful yet authoritative source on the entire history of the comics medium. Comics and graphic novels have recently become big business, serving as the inspiration for blockbuster Hollywood movies such as the Iron Man series of films and the hit television drama The Walking Dead. But comics have been popular throughout the 20th century despite the significant effects of the restrictions of the Comics Code in place from the 1950s through 1970s, which prohibited the depiction of zombies and use of the word "horror," among many other rules. Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas provides students and general readers a one-stop resource for researching topics, genres, works, and artists of comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels. The comprehensive and broad coverage of this set is organized chronologically by volume. Volume 1 covers 1960 and earlier; Volume 2 covers 1960–1980; Volume 3 covers 1980–1995; and Volume 4 covers 1995 to the present. The chronological divisions give readers a sense of the evolution of comics within the larger contexts of American culture and history. The alphabetically arranged entries in each volume address topics such as comics publishing, characters, imprints, genres, themes, titles, artists, writers, and more. While special attention is paid to American comics, the entries also include coverage of British, Japanese, and European comics that have influenced illustrated storytelling of the United States or are of special interest to American readers.

Download or read book Superheroes and Economics written by Brian O'Roark and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At first sight, superheroes and economics seem to occupy completely different dimensions – but a clash of dimensions is a classic comic book storyline! In this first-of-its kind book, an economist and a business writer assemble an A-team of academic talent to explore the intersection of superhero mythology and economic theory in ten accessible chapters. Superheroes and Economics uncovers basic economic truths that are integral to the comic stories from some of the genres most famous names. The authors of the chapters look at ways that economic principles can add authenticity to imagined universes, and how familiar superhero stories can demonstrate concepts used by economists to forecast the behavior of markets and individuals. If Spider-Man is so smart, why isn’t he rich? What are the economic implications of a tech entrepreneur like Tony Stark actually inventing Iron Man armor? What does the 80-year career of Wonder Woman tell us about the evolving role of women in the workplace? This unique book extends the scope of comics studies to encompass social sciences. It offers a great way to introduce both fans and students to topics like opportunity cost, growth, inflation, and cost benefit analysis, as well as more advanced concepts like moral hazard, utility functions and economic growth. This text can be used to supplement economics courses using colorful examples that any pop culture fan can relate to.

Download or read book Hot Pants and Spandex Suits written by Esther De Dauw and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The superheroes from DC and Marvel comics are some of the most iconic characters in popular culture today. But how do these figures idealize certain gender roles, body types, sexualities, and racial identities at the expense of others? Hot Pants and Spandex Suits offers a far-reaching look at how masculinity and femininity have been represented in American superhero comics, from the Golden and Silver Ages to the Modern Age. Scholar Esther De Dauw contrasts the bulletproof and musclebound phallic bodies of classic male heroes like Superman, Captain America, and Iron Man with the figures of female counterparts like Wonder Woman and Supergirl, who are drawn as superhumanly flexible and plastic. It also examines the genre’s ambivalent treatment of LGBTQ representation, from the presentation of gay male heroes Wiccan and Hulkling as a model minority couple to the troubling association of Batwoman’s lesbianism with monstrosity. Finally, it explores the intersection between gender and race through case studies of heroes like Luke Cage, Storm, and Ms. Marvel. Hot Pants and Spandex Suits is a fascinating and thought-provoking consideration of what superhero comics teach us about identity, embodiment, and sexuality.

Download or read book Superheroes Can t Save You written by Todd Miles and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2018-04-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comic superheroes embody the hopes of a world that is desperate for a savior. But those comic creations cannot save us from our greatest foes—sin and death. Throughout the history of the Church there have been bad ideas, misconceptions, and heretical presentations of Jesus. Each one of these heresies fails to present Jesus as the Bible reveals him. In Superheroes Can’t Save You, Todd Miles demonstrates how these ancient heresies are embodied in contemporary comic superheroes. Miles compares something everybody already knows (who the superheroes are) with what they need to know (who Jesus is), in a book that makes vitally important Christian truths understandable and applicable to a wide audience.

Download or read book The Cinematic Superhero as Social Practice written by Joseph Zornado and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-06 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the cinematic superhero as social practice. The study’s critical context brings together psychoanalysis and restorative and reflective nostalgia as a way of understanding the ideological function of superhero fantasy. It explores the origins of cinematic superhero fantasy from antecedents in myth and religion, to twentieth-century comic book, to the cinematic breakthrough with Superman (1978). The authors then focus on Spider-Man as reflective response to Superman’s restorative nostalgia, and read MCU’s overarching narrative from Iron Man to End Game in terms of the concurrent social, political, and environmental conditions as a world in crisis. Zornado and Reilly take up Wonder Woman and Black Panther as self-conscious attempts to reflect on gender and race in restorative superhero fantasy, and explore Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy as a meditation on the need for authoritarian fascism. The book concludes with Logan, Wonder Woman 1984, and Amazon Prime’s The Boys as distinctly reflective fantasy narratives critical of the superhero fantasy phenomenon.

Download or read book Thirst written by Kerry Hudson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the prize-winning author of Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma Winner of the Prix Femina Etranger London, in the frayed heat of summer. Alena is shoplifting shoes when Dave catches her in the act and so begins an unlikely relationship between two people with little in common and everything to lose. But the past is a dark place. And both of them have secrets they’ve no idea how to live with – or leave behind. Yet still they find themselves fighting with all they’ve got for a future together. But is love enough? 'Accomplished... Beautiful... Heart-wrenching' Independent on Sunday Shortlisted for the Prix Femina Prize

Download or read book The Psychology of Superheroes written by Robin S. Rosenberg and published by BenBella Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2008-03-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This latest installment in the Psychology of Popular Culture series turns its focus to superheroes. Superheroes have survived and fascinated for more than 70 years in no small part due to their psychological depth. In The Psychology of Superheroes, almost two dozen psychologists get into the heads of today's most popular and intriguing superheroes. Why do superheroes choose to be superheroes? Where does Spider-Man's altruism come from, and what does it mean? Why is there so much prejudice against the X-Men, and how could they have responded to it, other than the way they did? Why are super-villains so aggressive? The Psychology of Superheroes answers these questions, exploring the inner workings our heroes usually only share with their therapists.