Academic Publications

DISSERTATION

Commodifying Counterculture: William Gaines, EC Comics, MAD Magazine, and the Rise of the Corporate Anti-Establishment

This project uses comic books, magazines, interviews, newspaper articles, legal documents, sales figures, and academic texts to argue that from the dissolution of a “great audience” to the rise of a perpetually fragmenting media landscape, EC Comics is a prism for understanding how the corporate nature of entertainment production has changed in relationship to economic and cultural forces pushing for businesses to market towards ideological niche audiences. The dissertation functions as a critical business history of this media company and places Entertainment Comics, Inc. in relationship to the transformations of the mass media in 20th century America. EC Comics, and owner William Gaines, was one of the first entertainment entities to target a narrow and primarily young audience, while explicitly embodying anti-corporate politics. After MAD became the sole property of EC to remain in print following other comic book titles that were discontinued, the profitable deployment of cultural criticism through mass entertainment created a business strategy that influenced much of later media. Commodifying Counterculture draws from the cultural studies concept of the “circuit of culture” to situate EC as a formative episode of mass media production, consumption, and identity practices. Current scholarship on EC Comics and MAD Magazine are typically nostalgia pieces by fans, whereas my dissertation will theorize and place the production of these publications within the context of a changing consumer culture.

BOOKS

The Iconic Obama, 2007 - 2009: Essays on Media Representations of the Candidate and New President. Ed. Nicholas Yanes and Derrias Carter.

Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.

I wrote, co-wrote, or contributed the following to this book collection:

  • Essay, “The Modern E Pluribus Unum Man: How Obama Constructed His American Identity from His Global Background”, co-written with Etse Sikanku (16 - 27)

  • Conclusion essay, “What Happened to Obama-Mania?” (236 – 244)

  • Interview, “Comics and Politics: An Interview with Larry Hama, Creator of Barack the Barbarian” (128 - 130)

  • Interview, “France’s News Media and Obama’s French Popularity: Interview with Sébastian Compagnon” (231 - 235)

  • Appendix, “A Bibliography of Obama in Comics” (245 - 249)

ARTICLES

“A History of African American Religion in Comic Books.” Unionist Popular Culture and Rolls of Honour in North of Ireland During The First World War: A Collection of Diverse Essays in Popular Culture. Edited by Nanette Norris. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellon Press, 2011.

Co-authored with Enrica Picarelli. “America’s ‘improvised’ democracy in Battlestar Galactica Re-Imagined and Stargate SG-1.” Popular Culture and 9.11. Edited by Sara Quay and Amy Damico. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2010.

“Graphic Imagery: Jewish American Comic Book Creators' Depictions of Class, Race, Patriotism and the Birth of the Good Captain.” Captain America and the Struggle of the Superhero: Critical Essays. Ed. Robert Weiner. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009.

BOOK REVIEWS

A review of Kim Toffoletti, Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007), Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies (October, 2009) [online journal]

A review of John Springhall, The Genesis of Mass Culture: Show Business Live in America, 1840 to 1940 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), Journal of Popular Culture Vol. 42 #1 (February 2009)

INTERVIEWS

Co-wrote with Robert Gutsche, Jr., Derrias Carter. “How to Understand Obama’s Election News Coverage: An Interview with Daniel Berkowitz.” Obama-Mania: Critical Essays on Representations of President Barack Obama in Popular Culture. Ed. Nicholas Yanes and Derrias Carter. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.

Co-wrote with Robert Weiner. “Interview with Randall W. Scott.” Graphic Novels in Libraries and Archives: Essays on Readers, Research, History and Cataloging. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010.

MASTERS THESIS – Florida State University – unpublished

“Graphic Imagery: Jewish American Comic Book Creators’ Depictions of Class, Race, and Patriotism” (2008). Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations. Paper 1162. (Click here for .pdf)