If it’s not true then people sure have been wasting a lot of time with Rorschach tests, dream interpretation, handwriting analysis, and the 23 or more different speculations about the secret meaning of The Wizard of Oz.
So let’s say there is something to it, taking that stance it stands to reason that an illustration heavy art form like Comic Books must be chockablock with hidden context, so hidden that even those who were doing didn’t know they were doing it.
On the whole the 50s were a pretty repressed era, and during the era the comics almost got repressed right out of existence though efforts from a number of different groups taking as their champion Fredric Wertham and his Seduction of the Innocent. (This ironically was published by the company that published Crown Comics in the 40’s)
One of the results was that comic book creators, a group already not very highly regarded, found themselves being put in an even more appalling light.
Yet still they soldered on, after all they were making money, just not as much as they use to.
Considering all this, what might we conclude is the secret hidden message Marvel (at the time mostly calling itself Atlas) was sending out with these covers?
These are just six examples from the future “house of ideas” which would not become totally Marvel for almost 10 years (though for some reason while there Western, Horror and War comics of the time were marked as being from Atlas, they had Millie the Model was marked as a Marvel comic.)
That’s an awful lot of missing and / or melting naughty bits, I wonder where they all went?
Ooooooh!
They floated about in Comic Book Limbo for two or three years then came out over at DC Comics.
Who would have guessed?
No comments:
Post a Comment