Aryan Superman (Jonny Bates) v Holacaust

Text-only Version: Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.



whirlysplat
Jonny Bates v Holacaust

I put this up

http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.c...ults,1:104727,1

Truncated version

Madness or modernity?: The Holocaust in two Anglo-American comics


Robert Eaglestone

Royal Holloway, University of London


Abstract:


This article looks at the ways in which the two Anglo-American comics, Desert Peach and Miracleman, explain the Holocaust. I highlight their differences from Maus, the starting point for nearly all discussions in English about comics and the Holocaust. Donna Barr's Desert Peach is about the fictional younger brother of Erwin Rommel, the 'Desert Fox'. The stories are rather like a World War II German version of M*A*S*H. However, her account of the Holocaust offers the widely accepted and widely criticized 'good German' story: that, although the SS and Nazi High Command were perpetrators in the genocide, the 'Honourable' German army were bystanders who did not commit atrocities. Her basically liberal paradigm means that 'Nazi madness' is the only explanation. In contrast, Alan Moore's superhero allegory, Miracleman suggests that there is an inextricable alliance between modernity and the death camps. By highlighting the similarities between this and Adorno's discussion of the 'myth of the Enlightenment', I suggest that this story, in which blond Aryan superheroes take over the world is a conscious allegory for the Holocaust and is both a warning about the power of Enlightenment thought and an analysis of it.


Keywords:

Alan Moore, Art Speigelman, Donna Barr, Graphic Novel, Holocaust Historiography, Theodor Adorno

The references of this article are secured to subscribers.


I expect fanboys to know who holacaust is

Text-only Version: Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.