The main philosophical issue facing us today regarding the status of comics in the mainstream press is whether we should revive the practice of putting full-page comics in the newspapers or periodicals.
The idea of giving a full newspaper page to a single cartoonist each week to have free reign with may shock you, but this was common pratice in the early 20th century. Artists like George Herriman, Windsor McKay, and many others made the most of their active imaginations in a full page of the newspaper each.
Now the common practice is to divide the page into sections and give three sections proportionate space, each to a different cartoonist.
This practice augured a new age of commerce and industrialization for America. It featured art that was spectacular and inventive and gave rise to leading minds and visionaries of the time. It influenced culture more than the world deserved or called for. Likewise, the practice was discontinued for economic reasons.
Curtailing this practice butchered art to make money. Comics were demoted to second class artwork and were no longer taken seriously as fine art.
Restoring the full page comics would give America back its humanity and its mission: to lead the coming generations to the future of our world. It would also improve the economy a hundredfold, even though at the expense of penny pinching newspapers. A little generosity on their part would restore economic investment in the arts and give the country more entertainment value.
Notably, France has made achievements that did not happen in America because the French created periodicals that were specifically for this purpose. They took the comic section out of the newspaper and printed it as a magazine. The famous French magazines Pilote and Metal Hurlant are good examples of this practice. I think this gives the 9th art in France the edge it needs over the American comics publishers.
Giving cartoonists back their freedom pushes their work to new limits, generating a supply of invaluable and pricless works of original comic art that will accrue value for generations. This practice will fill a real human need that if left unsatisfied will demotivate people to work at their jobs. Full page comics are the compensation for our willing expenditure of our time and energy working for our daily wages in symolic form. Everyone will recognize and respect that, and will work to build tomorrow inspired by a new American dream of the 9th art.
I plan to revisit this issue in a future article once I have discovered the real reasoning behind the frustrations that led to demise of the full page comics. It seems that this issue is not only one of psychological relevence, but massive sociological impact. I believe, though the psychology, as a science itself, does no disservice to the idea of promoting this practice. With this article, the issue remains mostly sociological and anthropological as an issue of culture and economics. All economic objections must be answered with convincing evidence in order for the idea to succeed in the private sector.
I suspect that the real objecting opinions stem from racial prejudice against the representation of minorities in the comics in the way they were caricatured in the full page comics of the early 20th century. The further reason is the objection that minorities be granted representation in even racist and derogatory ways, which may actually have represented them accurately to racists, and given them a voice and a face and name in the daily paper.
I think this issue is so incendiary and possibly an issue of life and death to the aspiring cartoonist wishing to publish full-page comics that legislation granting cartoonists explicit protection under the constitution with full civil and human rights may even be necessary to resolve the issue peacefully without starting a full blown war. This is true because in large part I think this sociological issue may have been an underlying factor in the building to the second world war.
You may say that in itself is an objection. But I say that not only did the full page comics incite and provoke racist rage at the establishment media in a way that history does not fully acknowledge or chromicle enough to establish the basis of a justification to fight and die for a fascist cause, it was the actual fuel that lit the fire of democratic machinery that eventually won that war against the forces that were opposed to free speech.
You may say I’m reading too much into history. That is true, I am. I’m making an analogy that suitably and accurately creates a historical parallel that allows me to craft a lens that shows where America sits today, perilously, in the present day and age. Consider it a parable, or a lesson.
The world has still all the old tendencies and recreates its systemic biases every generation and will continue to do so until we change the fundamental causes psychological, sociological, and anthropological for the recategorization of dissent into discontent.
I really dislike using comics as a symbol for racism, because it avoids all the major obstacles and issues. I think full page comics as an issue is overblown. I think further that using this issue to project prejudice and hate onto a group of people is arbitrary at best, and hides the real issue, which is a political deception that has not been given proper attention and concern.
Writing this article may me enemy of the state status, but it has already become such an obstacle for myself and others that I think I need to speak the truth to power and accept the possibly dire consequences of this action.
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