Ever since discovering Doonesbury in the early Seventies (I think somewhat less of it now) and John Kreuttner's The Boggle, I've loved political humor and political cartoons. The poor sods living [sic] under Soviet communism were masters of the former.
Example:
Shortly after the end of the 1956 Hungarian revolt, three strangers find themselves in a cell in the Lubyanka prison in Moscow. Finally one of them introduces himself. "Comrades, brothers! What are you in here for? Me, I'm in here for supporting the forces of Imre Nagy!"
The second man looks up, laughs, and says, "You know, that's a good one. I'm in here for opposing Imre Nagy!" The two laugh uproariously and turn to the third man, who has hasn't yet said a word.
"Well, what about it, brother?" they ask him. "What are you in for?"
Miserably, the third man looks up, shaking his head sadly. At last, he shrugs his shoulders.
"Well...I'm Imre Nagy."
And: two Russians are exchanging their thoughts on the afterlife. Dmitry asks Ivan, "So, going to hell when you die. Would you rather go to the Communist hell or to the capitalist hell?" Ivan responds immediately, "Why, the Communist hell of course. There's bound to be a fuel shortage there!"
I learned both of those and more from the scandalously unavailable Main Street, USSR, by journalism legend Irving R. Levine.
Cartoons get the message out, too, and can deliver quite a blow. Here you can find Hayek's classic, The Road to Serfdom in cartoon form. Pretty good treatment, I think, although humor is neither the intent nor the result. I like the way it leads to its ending. And here is a cover of Famous Fantastic Mysteries from June 1953; the cover story was Ayn Rand's Anthem. I wonder about that issue and its editors: Rand shared the issue with Kafka's Metamorphosis. Are graphic novels that serious today?
Appropriately enough, I saved the most contemporary for last: everybody else blogs them and links them, so I'll follow suit. Cox and Forkum can be found here, and blogger Dean Esmay interviews them here. (Hat tip on that goes to Objectivism Today.)
Sorry, no mention of P.G. Wodehouse, The Simpsons, P.J. O'Rourke, or Yes, Minister. If you haven't already found those yourself, then laughter is probably not a high priority for you.
UPDATE: Ian Hamet has an interesting rumination on just what the Anthem illustrated periodical may have been: comic, illustrated pulp magazine, what have you. Check it out: Ian, though he slanders me shamelessly, is clearly knowledgeable in this area. For the record, Ian, I'm sure the publication was legal and sanctioned by Ayn Rand.
Posted by Craig Ceely at August 2, 2003 09:03 PMThanks, Craig. :-)
Posted by: Dean Esmay at August 2, 2003 10:46 PMCraig,
I'm unsure that that cover is actually for a "graphic novel." It doesn't seem quite right to me.
First of all, the artistic style is far closer to that of the covers of paperbacks and pulp magazines of the time than to comic books. There's just not enough black from ink pens and brushes, and it's in more than four colors (or so it looks to me).
Further, that title is not one that rings a bell for me (among my many areas of useless knowledge is a fair overview of the history of American comic books). I could be wrong, but...
Which comic publisher put it out? Traditionally, comic companies brand the front cover, whereas pulp publishers did not. It definitely wasn't Timely (Marvel), nor National (DC), nor E.C. (creators of Tales from the Crypt and MAD).
Further, while there was a glut of pulps in the early 50s, comics were in a slump from roughly 1947 to 1961 or so.
My guess is that this was a pulp magazine, with one illustration per story, which qualifies it as neither a comic nor a graphic novel (a form which didn't arrive until the 1980s).
Okay, I've thought way too much about this. I'll do a post on it tomorrow, maybe.
:)
Posted by: Ian Hamet at August 3, 2003 12:15 PM