Hillary Chute is probably today’s premier scholar of comics, so it’s no surprise that Why Comics? From Underground to Everywhere, her carefully researched analysis of this often-neglected art form, reads like a social and cultural history of the United States over the past 80 years. However, while the tome might well be used as a textbook, Chute is an accomplished prose stylist, and the many comics — a number in full color — that illustrate her argument make for an invigorating reading experience.
Chute’s history begins in earnest with the 1938 introduction of Superman in the first issue of Action Comics. The history of comics is full of ironies, so it should come as no surprise that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of one of the most famous characters on the planet, sold the rights to their work, in perpetuity, for $150. In 2014, a mint copy of their first comic was auctioned for more than $3 million, and of course they and their heirs have missed out on the hundreds of millions of dollars the various incarnations of Superman have generated over the intervening decades.
Fortunately, not all cartoonists have fared so badly. R. Crumb of “Keep on Truckin’” fame and his wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, live in a huge home in southern France; Harvey Pekar was the subject of a film, American Splendor, starring Paul Giamatti; and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was made into a Tony Award–winning musical. Yet it’s artists on the edge of popularity, those who push boundaries and get themselves into trouble, that seem to interest Chute the most.