Comic Book Covers

The reason that these comic book covers are so important is because of the fact that they are created under prejudiced circumstances, making the Japanese look like horrible, savage people out to kill all Americans, both women and children.

The comic book cover I chose to analyze and relate to the class is one of The Fighting Yank series of comic books. This cover involves a few Japanese men attacking Americans and particularly holding the children hostage. The children are all tied up and look scared to death as the Japanese surround them with guns and knives and threaten to kill them. One Japanese soldier is even about to put snakes into the pit that holds the children. However, the “Fighting Yank” comes to the rescue and strangles one of the Japanese soldiers and then saves the children. This is depicting that America defeated the Japanese and that they were stronger than the Japanese army. The fighting yank represents America as a whole, not just a single fighter. The author uses him to represent the fact that America is much stronger and can force the Japanese out of the country and stop them from their horrible acts of killing women and children. The author also depicts the Japanese to be a savage and extremely ugly kind of people with evil looks on their faces to show that they are out to kill.

This image can be related to class material in many ways. First, it is depicting the Japanese as many often depicted the Irish, Native Americans, and African Americans. They are shown to be savage and barbaric as the Indians were in “The Tempest.” Also in relation to the “The Tempest,” the Japanese are shown to kill women and children and so awful as to torture them in unthinkable ways, just as the Native Americans supposedly did in the past. This comic book cover can also be related to another article we read for class, “Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination” in a different way, that shows how whites made this social category to separate them from other races, such as the Japanese. They developed the idea of whiteness and a sense of being higher in status than those of other races (like the Japanese) to justify the oppression of these groups. Like explained in Takaki’s “Pacific Crossings,” the Japanese were a strong group of people that fought for their rights and good pay, and were therefore put under more control by the whites, which lead to even more racism and oppression brought on by fear of them becoming too powerful.

I do not agree with how the Japanese were depicted in this comic book cover. While American was and still is a strong nation, I don’t think it was their idea to just kill off all of the Japanese because of the thought that they were barbaric and an evil kind. The Japanese are depicted to look ugly and cruel, which is the opposite of their beauty and good intentions. While there are some aspects of the Japanese that one may not fully agree with, it is not right to depict them in such a horrible way as to show that they kill children and women for no reason. This is just another example of the racist thought of many whites at a time of oppression of other racial groups and their belief that they were on top.