A few years ago, I wrote a grad-school paper for a class focusing on American history in the middle of the 20th Century. I based my essay on EC Comics, and the 'Gaines goes to HUAC' debacle, including an analysis of EC's stories and how the destruction of EC was an exmaple of McCarthiest attitudes being used as an assault on *liberalism* during this era. The paper is long, so I won't bore you all
But the point is I read some great EC stories, and anyone who knows EC knows they took on issues full-bore during this era that mainly were not spoken about in comics, particulurly race. And they were brillant. I can't recall the exact issue number or series, but the best one is the classic story where an Earthman visits a planet, but after seeing that the two species (one blue, one red) cannot co-exist, he decides they are not ready for contact with human beings. The final panel shows him remove his helmet, and he's a black man. The very first black man in space to be exact. It was shocking at the time, and it was amazing.
I'm intrigued by the dialogue b/t Eryk and Quis. Its often the art, and the use of it to highlight caricatures of races, that becomes the most blatant and unnacceptable thing, because its just so evident. Its amazing (and good I guess) that its something that I find so alien and so odd, since most commonly we haven't see art so readily blatant like that in popular comic books in so long. We've come a long way, and racism in today's teens, twenty-year olds, etc., although still certainly an issue, and a problem at that, is a much more open topic where progress is being made. By the time I got to college, 'political correctness' and topics of race were
old hat--old enough, that there was a sense that its was time to move forward and see changes settle into society without hindering anything (re: the melting pot notion is dead and buried). Affirmative Action is generally loathed on college campuses, while there is an active sense among all college students to promote African culture, Asian culture, etc., etc. and appreciate it without giving such a thing a second thought or thinking the act of doing so is even worthy of the smallest debate. I think a lot of people don't realize that issues of race have moved on in a way, whether people want them to or not, and generations of younger people are having discussions on race in a distinctly different way than are most commonly portrayed in popular media. And that's not a good thing--its a *great* thing.