PTC's Chris York releases new book, COMIC BOOKS AND THE COLD WAR, 1946-1962

PTC’s own Dr. Chris York, a favorite instructor among PTC students, has co-written and co-edited a new book, COMIC BOOKS AND THE COLD WAR, 1946-1962. York worked with his brother, Rafiel York, who teaches English at a high school in Jackson, Minn., to create and release the book, now available via Amazon.com and McFarland publishers.

"Comic books as an academic area is relatively new, and a significant gap in the literature exists," York says. "No one has done a lot of visual analysis of the comic books from the early cold war era that the book covers or has studied the narrative of the text themselves or the way the images relate to the text and the narrative," York adds.

At PTC, York teaches College Composition, Introduction to Creative Writing, Advanced Composition, and Popular Culture and American Social Dynamics. York has been an active participant in the Comics and Comic Art Area at the National Popular Culture Association Conference for nearly a decade, and his comics scholarship has appeared in the International Journal of Comic Art.

It’s well-known around PTC that York’s favorite comic book character is Batman; after all, he wrote his master’s thesis on the character: LETTERS FROM THE BATCAVE: POPULAR CONSTRUCTION OF THE BATMAN MYTH. York earned his master’s degree in American Studies from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in American Studies from Michigan State University.

More about COMIC BOOKS AND THE COLD WAR, 1946-1962
Conventional wisdom holds that comic books of the post-World War II era are poorly drawn and poorly written publications, notable only for the furor they raised. Contributors to this thoughtful collection, however, demonstrate that these comics constitute complex cultural documents that create a dialogue between mainstream values and alternative beliefs that question or complicate the grand narratives of the era. Close analysis of individual titles, including EC comics, Superman, romance comics, and other, more obscure works, reveals the ways Cold War culture – from atomic anxieties and the nuclear family to communist hysteria and social inequalities – manifests itself in the comic books of the era. By illuminating the complexities of mid-century graphic novels, this study demonstrates postwar popular culture was far from monolithic in its representation of American values and beliefs.

Photo at top: Dr. Chris York with a copy of his book, COMIC BOOKS AND THE COLD WAR, 1946-1962.