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Friday, September 16, 2022

Anti-Foreign Imagery In American Pulps and Comic Books

It’s hard to imagine that there was time in the United States when blatant bigotry of foreigners was prevalent in magazines, books and comic books, TV and at the movies.

Such practices are frowned upon today (and rightly so) and most Americans (except for some far left and right radicals) are content living with people of other ethnic and social backgrounds.

Still, like the immigration glut in the early 1900s many people still cast a weary eye toward foreigners today.

From 1920 to 1960 such practices were at their disgusting peak. I’m going on 70 years old and I can remember such prejudices-especially as it pertained to the Japanese and Germans after World War II.

I recall when was a young lad that my mom would stop at the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores the days she had to go to the clinic for shots each week.

Comic books were two for a nickel and she would always pick up a stack totaling about one dollar.

Among the comics would always be some from the Golden Age published during the time World War II was raging.

I used to think it was funny when comic book artists depicted the Japanese as bucktooth yellow demons and the Germans as monstrous, hunchback killers.

It was common practice to do so during the war. It made the enemy less human and therefore easier to hate and kill.

Author Nathan Vernon Madison and McFarland & Company Inc., Publishers look back to 1920 to 1960 in the book Anti-Foreign Imagery In American Pulps and Comic Books to examine and explore the why and how such racial animosity came about.

It’s fascinating to discover why an dhow the government, society and population of the United States as a whole justified such behavior.

This book delves into those responsible for the imagery, how it was circulated and encouraged and how it was justified.

A series of essays filled with historical data and examples examines four decades of hate mongering and animosity.

2 Timothy 2:15 (NKJV) “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

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