Comics for Film, Games, and Animation

CHAPTER 17

The Battle of Generations

The Great Depression spurred a period of creativity and innovation that led to the creation of the comics medium. World War II pushed that era into the mainstream and a storytelling language was developed. Then came the postwar boom, and with it a renewed sense of American prosperity and greatness. Comics were ostracized, burned, regulated, and neutered to the point of outright blandness. From that emerged a sense of rebellion in other media, like music, when rock and roll was born, and in film, where movies like Rebel Without a Cause and others became rallying cries for the youth.

The first years of the 1960s, though appearing neat and tidy thanks to the Kennedy era, was actually an era of simultaneous ...