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Eaglestone, Robert. "Madness or Modernity? The Holocaust in Two Anglo-American Comics." Rethinking History 6. (2002): 319–30. Added by: joachim (8/10/09, 11:48 PM) Last edited by: joachim (1/6/10, 6:49 PM) |
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| Resource type: Journal Article Language: en: English Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1080/13642520210164535 BibTeX citation key: Eaglestone2002a Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: "Desert Peach", "Marvelman", "Maus", "Miracleman", Adorno. Theodor W., Barr. Donna, History comics, Holocaust, Modernity, Moore. Alan, Spiegelman. Art, Superhero, United Kingdom, USA, War Creators: Eaglestone Collection: Rethinking History |
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This article looks at the ways in which the two Anglo-American comics, Desert Peach and Miracleman, explain the Holocaust. I highlight their differences from Maus, the starting point for nearly all discussions in English about comics and the Holocaust. Donna Barr's Desert Peach is about the fictional younger brother of Erwin Rommel, the ‘Desert Fox’. The stories are rather like a World War II German version of M*A*S*H. However, her account of the Holocaust offers the widely accepted and widely criticized ‘good German’ story: that, although the SS and Nazi High Command were perpetrators in the genocide, the ‘Honourable’ German army were bystanders who did not commit atrocities. Her basically liberal paradigm means that ‘Nazi madness’ is the only explanation. In contrast, Alan Moore's superhero allegory, Miracleman suggests that there is an inextricable alliance between modernity and the death camps. By highlighting the similarities between this and Adorno's discussion of the ‘myth of the Enlightenment’, I suggest that this story, in which blond Aryan superheroes take over the world is a conscious allegory for the Holocaust and is both a warning about the power of Enlightenment thought and an analysis of it.
Added by: joachim Last edited by: joachim |