DBWI: Comic books werent outlawed?

What if the comic book industry wasnt ordered to shut down following the senate subcommittee hearings in 1954? Would we see science fiction series like stan lee's "incredible hulk" novels done in comic book form?
 
Our society would be intellectually poorer. We came across some old comics in my grandparents' attic a few years ago. What a waste of paper, ink and creative talent those things were. I can imagine what classics such as the "Calvin and Hobbs Anthology", "Golden Book of Dilbert Office Tales", the "Blondie and Dagwood" novels and even the "Incredible Hulk" novels (which I found wanting on several levels - but that's just personal taste) would be like if done in comic book form, and its not a pretty image. Comics belong on the dung heap of literary history!
 
At this point I chuckle and say "only in America". Then again, if this didn't happen, we'd have a lot more of this silly Superman nonsense that they keep foisting us with in the movies. And again, I guess the amount of people necessary in producing some of those old comics- writing, pencilling, inking, coluring, lettering- and it only takes one person to write a normal book. Better to take a leaf out of Japanese manga, where most of the work is done by the one person, possibly with an assistant. (I dare say manga wouldn't have been so popular though, although with the American market open to comic books, I wonder whether that might have an effect?)
 
What if the comic book industry wasnt ordered to shut down following the senate subcommittee hearings in 1954? Would we see science fiction series like stan lee's "incredible hulk" novels done in comic book form?

Those novels were an excellent modernisation of "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". I can't see literature like that being reduced in stature to a mere comic. The sheer pathos of Dr Bannister's lonely journey from town to town could never be captured in such a medium.

Cheers,
Nigel.
 
Goodbye USA

Though the government in Washington likes to present the outlawing of comic books as a triumph of intellectualism, all should recall how it was the first serious weakening of the First Amendment, and the reason the Department of Intellectual Integrity was created. And now, you live in an intellectually blighted and regimented society where people are afraid to imagine, to dream, or present new ideas, lest they be come under its purview, or the various other departments. And worse, the new generation isn't even aware of how times were different, since that has been expunged from the schools, and the current Board of Censorship is very thorough. Thank goodness for the internet, and holes in the great firewall on the Northern border. Here in Canada, we still have our freedoms, and watch the USA slide quickly down into mediocrity and tyranny.

Perhaps this was the best thing that ever happened to Canada...the stark warning the rapid decline of American schools has reminded us that kids need to imagine, to dream, as well as learn.

I had the good sense to leave when the suppression got through the supreme court, and now, I can never return until freedom returns.
 
Of course, where the American's "failed", the Europeans "succeeded". Not only are Asterix and Tin Tin the comic book giants of the world, the British "invasion" of the 1960s saw the underground comic book world explode with embargoed copies of the Eagle, Commando and War Picture Library sneaking across the Atlantic. More traditional comic books like the Beano and the Dandy fared less well.
 
Top