Politics in the Gutters

Abstract

A growing number of political communication and media scholars are attending to representations of American political processes and institutions in entertainment content, mostly agreeing that there is considerable democratic value in the inextricable link between politics and popular culture. Yet few of these studies have yet considered comic books and their related media as a source of “politainment.” This volume demonstrates the rich and relevant political content of comic books and their related media. From biographies to biopunk, superheroes to science-fiction, humor to horror, and articles to allohistories, comic books offer depictions of the American political arena as site of White masculinity, mired in cynicism and disaffection that is tempered by perpetual hope and optimism. Though such themes and narratives may be found in other pop culture media, comics are important because they are as often proactive as they are reactive in their political content. From the time Captain America punched Hitler in the face nine months before Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entrance into World War II, comics have not only depicted current trends but also the trajectory of those trends. This book familiarizes scholars, teachers, and students of American politics with the presidential and campaign content of comics, exhibiting how comics reflect and shape our political knowledge and attitudes. It is also written for comics studies scholars and students, offering the perspective of rhetoric and political communication to the interpretation of comics content.