Cartoon artists have been using their medium as a vehicle for social criticism ever since the Yellow Kid took on slum life; here, a dozen chapters explore how contemporary comic-strip images
and narratives portray social groups and issues. Essays look at topics including Superman's role in romanticizing commercialism, sexual violence in Japanese manga comics, Wonder Woman as
Americanized immigrant, the consequences for comic book characters who come out as gay, and Dilbert as a workplace revolutionary. The contributors are academics in journalism and
communications, most of them at US universities. Though the book includes a number of illustrations, the b&w reproductions make the cartoons look flat and fuzzy. There is no subject index.
Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
