GiantSize Malaise Comic Books and 1970s America

<p><i>Giant-Size Malaise: Comic Books and 1970s America</i> is an examination of how a group of often-ignored popular culture texts can teach us about life in the United States during an uncertain decade. Focusing on mainstream comic books (mostly those published by Marvel and DC), <i>Giant-Size Malaise</i> illustrates how creators and the industry as a whole responded to important events and trends of the 1970s, including the Vietnam War, Watergate, the "crisis of confidence," the women’s rights movement, and race relations in the post-Civil Rights era. <br/> <br/> The book also examines how these responses emerged from an industry struggling to deal with diminished sales and changes in the marketplace. <i>Giant-Size Malaise </i>is a portrait of a cultural form on the cusp of leaving the mass audience behind and exchanging it for a more loyal (but more exclusive) fan-oriented one. These two forces—societal discomfort and an industry in crisis—combined to produce a disorderly mosaic of unique stories and quirky, memorable characters that this book argues is one key to understanding the unruly complexity of the 1970s. Featuring discussions of series ranging from <i>Conan the Barbarian</i> and <i>Green Lantern</i> to <i>Howard the Duck</i> and <i>Hero for Hire</i>, <i>Giant-Size Malaise</i> offers a new way to understand an endlessly fascinating decade.</p>