Love in the Time of the Korean War

This article examines the role played by comic books in justifying the Korean War to adolescent readers in the United States. Specifically, it argues that romance comics—perhaps the most widely read youth publications of the early 1950s—helped to prepare teenaged girls for the trials and tribulations that an emerging Cold War would entail. Love-themed comic books dealt with issues like dating and marriage at a time of mass mobilization and international political emergency, and in doing so, attempted to redefine the meaning of courtship and sexual maturity during a new era of permanent national security crisis. By studying this enormously influential literary genre, we gain important insight into both the popular cultural dimension of a “forgotten war,” as well as a richer appreciation of the ways in which girls have been asked to make their own sacrifices on the altar of American military preparedness

Art · Comics · Literature · Political science · Romance · Sociology · Anthropology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Comics and Graphic Narratives · History · Japanese History and Culture