Terrence R. Wandtke

An examination of the popular horror comics of the 1950s and their re-emergence thirty years later. The popular horror comics of the 1950s not only frightened their readers, they also alarmed Cold War politicians who enacted the prohibitive Comics Code, sacrificing horror on the altar of good taste. Wandtke examines and explainsthe story of the resurgence of horror comics and introduces readers to the new shape of horror comics within the American culture in the 1980s. Terrence Wandtke is a professor at Judson University and the author of The Dark Night Returns (RIT, 2015).

This book traces the history of crime comics from their beginnings to the current resurgence and analyzes the cultural forces that give rise to influential works like Frank Miller's Sin City. Crime comic books in the 1950s caused controversy leading to their suppression and near extinction. Twenty-five years later, the dark hero, femme fatale, and bleak outlook of crime story comic books are even more striking and subversive. Terrence Wandtke traces the history of crime comics from their beginnings to the current resurgence and analyzes the cultural forces that give rise to influential works like Frank Miller's Sin City, Brian Azzarello's 100 Bullets, and Ed Brubaker's Criminal. The Dark Night Returns is the third book published in the RIT Press' Comics Studies Monograph Series. The series editor is Dr. Gary Hoppenstand, Professor of English at Michigan State University. TERRENCE WANDTKE is a professor at Judson University. His books include The Meaning of Superhero Comics (McFarland) and Ed Brubaker: Conversations (forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi). He is the founder of the Imago Film Festival.

For decades, scholars have been making the connection between the design of the superhero story and the mythology of the ancient folktale. Moving beyond simple comparisons and common explanations, this volume details how the workings of the superhero comics industry and the conventions of the medium have developed a culture like that of traditional epic storytelling. It chronicles the continuation of the oral/traditional culture of the early 20th century superhero industry in the endless variations on Superman and shows how Frederic Wertham's anti-comic crusade in the mid-1950s helped make comics the most countercultural new medium of the 20th century. By revealing how contemporary superhero comics, like Geoff Johns' Green Lantern and Warren Ellis's The Authority, connect traditional aesthetics and postmodern theories, this work explains why the superhero comic book flourishes in the "new traditional" shape of our acutely self-conscious digital age.