ABSTRACT
The last genre of comics that I discuss in this book is what I call propaganda comics. I use the word “propaganda” in a neutral sense here to refer to persuasive messages that are designed to influence the position and attitude of a target audience, regardless of the factuality and merit of the messages. Many such comics have been used in political movements and campaigns. Figure 1 is an example. Created during China’s First Revolutionary War (1924-1927), it persuades peasants to join the war co-organized by the National Party and the Communist Party to fight against feudal landlords, warlords, and the imperialist power. Certainly, the comics genres we discussed in earlier chapters often inevitably or implicitly create persuasion (to instruct, for instance, instructional comics need to persuade readers that the instructions they offer are credible). But in propaganda comics, more so than others, we witness comics’ particular and sometimes extraordinary power to change people’s mindsets. One important reason for this power is that readers tend to perceive comics as something entertaining rather than utilitarian, which makes the medium effective at crafting covert messages. Even readers who are suspicious or hostile to a given topic may think that comics are “harmless,” so they do not immediately mount a defense or shut down the communication (and the persuasion) process. As cartoonist Peter Kuper put it, comics are “a perfect medium to address portentous subjects; the title ‘comics’ already suggests something funny, light, kid-friendly, so the reader doesn’t see the POW! coming” (as cited in Duncan & Smith, 2009, p. 249). Comics’ propaganda power has been utilized across time and place by all types of agents. During World War I, the U.S. government established a Bureau of Cartoons to guide and enlist the work of editorial cartoonists for war propa - ganda; during World War II, the Office of War Information not only sought the work of cartoonists but published their own cartoons (Edwards, 1997). More recently, Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult and terrorist organization responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway gas attack, had used comics to convert people to its beliefs (Gravett, 2004, p. 119).
