Berger, Arthur Asa. The Comic-Stripped American: What Dick Tracy, Blondie, Daddy Warbucks, and Charlie Brown Tell Us About Ourselves. New York: Walker and Company, 1973. Rpt. Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1974. 225 pp. ISBN 0-14-003867-1 (paper).


FOREWORD by Charles M. Schulz . . . xi
INTRODUCTION . . . 1
THE COMICS PAGE, VALUES, AND AMERICAN SOCIETY . . . 5
PART I. THE INNOCENTS: THE FORST GENERATION OF COMICS
THE YELLOW KID: Urban Poverty in the Good Old Days . . . 23
THE KATZENJAMMER KIDS: INfantile Disorders of the Left and Right and Center . . . 35
MUTT AND JEFF: The Politics of Failure . . . 47
KRAZY KAT: The Social Dimension of Fantasy . . . 60
PART II. THE MODERN AGE OF COMICS: THE SECOND GENERATION--OR AFTER THE FALL!
LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE: The Abandoned Years . . . 79
BUCK ROGERS: The New Renaissance Hero of the Space Epics . . . 93
BLONDIE: The Irrelevance of the American Husband . . . 102
DICK TRACY: The Avenger--Evangelical Protestant Style . . . 112
FLASH GORDON: The Triumph of the Democratic Will . . . 133
DISSOCIATION IN A HERO: Superman and the Divided Self . . . 146
BATMAN AND THE ARCHAIC EGO: The Artistocrat as Reformer . . . 160
POGO AND HIS FRIENDS IN THE OKEFENOKEE SWAMPS: A Study in the Irony of Democracy . . . 172
PEANUTS: The Americanization of Augustine . . . 181
PART III. THE AGE OF CONFUSION: THE THIRD GENERATION OF COMICS
MARVEL COMICS: MAchines, Monsters, and the Myth of America . . . 199
EROTICOMICS: Or "What Are You Doing with That Submachine Gun, Barbarella?" . . . 208
MR. NATURAL AND HIS FRIENDS FROM THE UNDERGROUND: Infantile Disorders of the Cerebellum and Crotch . . . 216

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