Heroes

“The comic book format can be credited to a printing salesman, Maxwell Gaines, looking for a way to keep newspaper supplement presses rolling in 1933 by reprinting collections of popular newspaper comic strips in a half-tabloid format. As an experiment, he slapped a 10 cents sticker on a handful of the free pamphlets and saw them quickly sell out at a local newsstand.” In The Guardian, Art Spiegelman provides an excellent overview of the rise of comics and superheroes that dominate the marketplace today. (This piece was supposed to be an intro to a book, but Marvel nixed it.) Created in New York by Jewish immigrants, the first comic book superheroes were mythic saviours who could combat the Nazi threat. They speak to the dark politics of our times