ABSTRACT
This chapter describes theory of politics of the common man as found in comics. The comics can be characterized as having the following attributes: continuing characters, speech in balloons, and a left to right sequence of boxes and balloons. American heroes and superheroes do arise out of the American experience and must have meaning to children socialized in America. Americans are cultural or spiritual orphans free to create ourselves without the burden of a past or of institutions— but the cost is great. In Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie, the distinction between the political cartoon and the comic strip disappears, for the strip is one long political diatribe in support of conservative values and politics. Superman is an essentially middle-class figure who forgoes fleeting pleasures, as Nietzsche said supermen should, and attains "happiness and dominance through the exercise of creative power".
