What the...?

But Richie Rich is a fascist!

I have this theory that people are influenced by the minutia surrounding the circumstances of their life whether it's true ot not. When I was younger and drawing comic books people were always a bit unclear about what I did exactly (what I do is even more confusing now). I would say that I drew comic books and about 65% of them thought I meant Sunday comics. About 34% thought I was a stand up comedian. There was of course the 1% that were bigger geeks than me (yes they do exist!) and understood exactly what I did.

When I was around four years old, my grandmother surprised me with a stack of old comics that belonged to my mother and my (13 years) older uncle during a Summer stay with her. This would have been around 1969-70 for me. I started drawing then with encouragement of my grandmother and never really stopped.

That means that the comics she gave me were from the early 1950’s (when my uncle went off to Korea) and the early 1960’s (pre-Kennedy assassination) before my mom discovered boys. Basically two extremes of comic content and style. One stack was pre-comics code the other was the aftermath. In the 1950’s the Comics Code authority did not exist and comics were pretty amazing. Especially horror comics. In particular EC horror comics. Right up until Dr. Fredric Wertham decided that comics were bringing about juvenile delinquency in his book Seduction of the Innocent.

The people that I would tell what my job was, would depending on their age, believe that I either did horribly graphic and vile (juvenile delinquent producing) work or sickly sweet but imaginative stories featuring super-heroes.

I think that because people that were impressionable pre-teens in the 1950’s (the target market of most comic companies) were told (this was during HUAC remember) that comics cause all sorts of the world’s ill’s the believed it.

These people were also told the marijuana cigarette could lead to a lot of sketchy if not downright evil things. So essentially my theory consists of the idea that if people are told to think a certain way that is pretty much what they do. Whether it’s the belief in the evil of marijuana or comics, or the communist threat for that matter. It’s not much of theory I know, but at least I’m not stoned and reading horrific comics any more. I’m reasonably sure that I’m not a delinquent any longer either…although that is dependent on who you ask.

via Dueling Modems

Thanks for the link Emberly.

Posted by shawn at April 1, 2003 09:16 AM