How The Jews Invented Comic Books
Author: Stephen Gerding
October 24th, 2005
Perhaps it’s because I’m not terribly religious myself, but I never really stop to think about what contributions people of different faiths make to various aspects of pop culture. This also is probably why when I read articles that do look at this sort of thing, I tend to agree with some of the more obvious deductions while scratching my head at the conclusions that seem somewhat more of a stretch. This piece on Jews inventing comic books is no different. I have no problem seeing the parallels they point out between the experience of Jewish immigrants and Superman - heard it before, it makes sense - but I never really saw anything in Ben Grimm’s character to indicate any specific religious affiliation at all.
From its inception, the modern comic book has been a friendly domain for Jews, from Marvel’s Stan Lee to Maus’ Art Spiegelman. Hawkman, the Flash, Thor, Superman and Batman were all created by overactive Jewish imaginations.
But like some dark secret held until the last cryptic panel, the Jewish connection to comics has only recently gotten any serious ink.
Why the Jews? How did the People of the Book become People of the Comic Book?
San Francisco-based writer Gerardo Jones, author of “Men Of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book,” says Jews did it by channeling “adolescent boys’ primal projections,” thus transforming a disreputable enterprise — the lowly comic– into a cornerstone of pop culture.
Most of the Jews who breathed life into the comics have origin stories worthy of a comic superhero: Depression-era teens dodging Yiddish hucksters and predatory gangsters, and displaying some superhuman chutzpah.
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3 Responses to “How The Jews Invented Comic Books”
October 24th, 2005 at 3:08 pm
The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay is, in part, an illustration of all of this. And there have been a few panels at ComicCon where some of the old timers have mentioned the religious homogenity, so to speak, of the early industry. The Superman thing in particular was mentioned a few times, and I think even Dan Didio piped up about it, back when he was in charge of just the Superbooks.
I’ve actually brought up Ben Grimm to New Yorkers and they disagree that there’s anything particularly Jewish about him. He is, instead, apparently a pretty archetypal mid-20th century lower class Manhattanite. Or that’s what they say.
October 24th, 2005 at 4:24 pm
Yeah, the Jewish expreience being transferred to comics is something I was familiar with, but I’d never really thought about comics as being a Jewish creation. For the most part, the article makes some solid arguments, but they lost me with the Ben Grimm thing (ha!).
I totally buy that Grimm is based on Kirby when it comes to the look of him and some of his personality traits, but I seriously doubt it was meant to go beyond that.
November 22nd, 2006 at 12:59 pm
the jews did not invent the comics. cortes did