Superhero Comics and Bad Taste: The (Secret Identities) of Schlock, Camp, Kitsch, and Funk

Bad taste can be found in many places, including art, literature, music, and comics, and is generally disdained by the cultural elite. And bad taste it comes in many forms, including schlock, camp, kitsch, and funk. AThe general public often dismisses the entire comics medium as mere schlock, particularly pre-Maus. So, okay: what about superhero comics? Are they schlock? When are they camp? Can they be kitsch? And what about funk? Actually, the genre is so diverse that examples can be found in all these categories, and are perhaps not as bad as society’s taste-arbiters would have us believe. Join comics historian Michael Dooley as he travels from 1938 to 1970 to explore these four varieties of bad taste and investigate the relationships between Mort Weisinger and movie director Roger Corman; between Bob Kane/Bill Finger and poet/filmmaker Jean Cocteau; between Jim Steranko and art critic Clement Greenberg; and between Gilbert Shelton and jazz drummer Art Blakey.