Case Study: National Socialist Persecution and Genocide in Contemporary U.S. Comic Books

Abstract

Making use of a tailored methodology for the incorporation of comic books as primary sources for historians, this chapter is a case study focused on National Socialist persecution and genocide in contemporary U.S. public discourse, within the wider context of discussions of Allied ‘bystanders’ to the Holocaust. Analysing a sample of anthology comic book titles published by the Quality Comics Group during the Second World War, techniques of close reading and deconstruction are harnessed to highlight potential historical content. Cross-reference with relevant historiographical detail is the means by which this content is then assessed and categorised. This chapter seeks to contribute to an established historiographical area and also to reflect on how comic books function as evidence and the different types of record they may be said to constitute.