162 EDUCATIONAL COMICS
Wo r l d H i s t o r y. (After M. C. Gaines’s death in 1947, his son William Gaines inherited
the company and changed the company’s name and focus to “Entertaining Comics.” It
would ultimately come to be known simply as “EC.” )
George J. Hecht published the fi rst fact-centered, continuing comic book title on
the newsstands, True Comics, in 1941. Th e commercial success of True Comics, which
parents often chose for children as an alternative to more thrilling fare, sparked a genre
of comics based on real people and actual events, including Real Life Comics, Real Heroes,
Picture News, and similar titles.
In 1941, Albert Kanter began publishing the series that would become Classics
Illustrated, adapting literary classics to comic-book format. His competitors launched
similar, but short-lived series. Th e series became an instant hit, and the fi rst 26 titles sold
100 million comics by 1946. Unlike other comics, which were sold like magazines, Clas-
sics Illustrated titles were reprinted like books. Th e series eventually reached 169 titles.
In 1946, Malcolm Ater set up a company to create educational comics. One of his
fi rst commissions, a comic about Harry S. Truman for the Democrats in 1948, had a
circulation of three million copies. Th rough this successful comic, Ater won credit as
the originator of the “political comic.” In the 1950s, the average circulation for Ater’s
political comics supporting candidates (including pro-segregation candidates in the
South) was 650,000 to 700,000 copies. Th e average for his “industrials” (for U.S. Steel
and other corporations) was 1,000,000 copies.
During World War II, pioneering comic book artist Will Eisner began applying
his talent to educational projects for the military. Th rough American Visual Corpora-
tion, which he founded in 1948, Eisner spent several decades producing educational
comics for government, business, and military clients. Eisner distinguished two types
of “ instructional comics”: “technical instruction comics” (which explain how to perform
a specifi c procedure, such as unpacking an M234 nuclear warhead) and “attitudinal
instruction comics” (which condition attitudes toward tasks.) Eisner’s best-known
publication in these years was PS Magazine (subtitled Th e Preventive Maintenance
Monthly), created for distribution to those who operated and maintained Army equip-
ment. Virginia Commonwealth University has web-posted issues from the fi rst one in
June 1951, until December 1971, Eisner’s years as its art editor: http://dig.library.vcu.
edu/cdm4/index_psm.php?CISOROOT=/psm.
Propaganda and Psychological Warfare
During the early years of the Cold War, America’s entertainment comic books were
both a propaganda liability, exporting evidence of racism and gangsterism in the United
States, and a propaganda asset, spreading American cultural infl uence. At the same time,
the American government sponsored its own comic books and strips and psychological-
warfare leafl ets that served as anti-communist propaganda weapons.
Th e United States Information Agency (USIA) published millions of copies of pro-
paganda comic books. Th is cartoon war was not one-sided, but cartoonists in the Soviet
Union put their anti-capitalist messages into single-panel images, not comic books.
