Proposal to Establish an Online Archive of Golden Age Romance Comics

INTRODUCTION

Statement of Problem

Paper-based artifacts are disintegrating and disappearing. For humanities scholars, assembling and preserving textual materials for study has become a priority. To respond to the situation of vanishing materials, people have begun creating archival-quality digital archives of images, texts, and sounds to preserve the artifacts of American history, literature, art, and popular and folk cultures.

But storing artifacts in a CD library somewhere solves only half the problem. The other half of the problem is access: how do we make these texts and images widely available for study? Posting them on the world wide web is the obvious answer, and many high-quality sites now exist for the purpose of displaying rare and/or disappearing works. Among these are the "Dickinson Electronic Archives," "The William Blake Archive," "Uncle Tomšs Cabin and American Culture," "Jonathan Swiftšs Gulliveršs Travels," "The Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive," and the "Victorian Women Writers Project," to name just a few. Many of these sites offer views of artifacts, like Whitmanšs field notebooks and Dickinsonšs first drafts, which could otherwise not be seen at all, or would at least require a long journey. This democratizing feature of the web is very well-suited for humanities studies of all kinds.

My purpose here is to propose the creation of a digital archive and web resource for a mid-century genre of comic book known as the "romance comic." Like other paper artifacts, romance comics are disappearing quickly, and I believe them to be relevant to many fields of inquiry.

Objective

At this time there is no scholarly resource on the web for the study of golden era romance comics, and the aim of this project is to provide one. These books are not particularly highly valued among traditional comic fans, nor are they widely collected; thus they are falling apart and falling out of circulation. By creating an electronic archive of these materials and by posting them on the web, the genre will become available, and remain available, to scholars of popular art and culture, romance literature, American history, and womenšs studies, to name just a few relevant disciplines. This web resource will provide an easily-navigable site with high-quality scans of each page every comic.

Background

Romance comics were one of five major genres of adult comics which boomed after World War II. The so-called "golden-age" of comics began in 1935 and ended with the self-imposed Comics Code of 1954. The period of interest to this archive is the łthird phase˛ of the golden era, from 1948 to 1954. During this period comic readership was at its height, and adults, both men and women, were a major piece of the market. These years saw comic sales approach 60 million issues per month, and a 1950 government-sponsored study of an Ohio town revealed that 54 percent of all comic readers were over 20-years old, and that the average reader bought about 11 comics per month.

For the first and last time, adult women were major consumers of comics. And although the genre is largely dismissed by comics aficionados today, it was created by two of the most revered artists and writers of the time: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, who kicked off Young Romance in 1947. By 1949 there were 120 romantic titles on the market, most aimed at an adult audience. In fact, comics with more explicit themes, which were very common before the code, often carried a bright orange label which read "For the more ADULT Reader of Comics."

The comics were written and drawn by men, and they tended to reinforce notions that a womanšs primary goal in life was to marry. However, these stories very frequently dealt with complex, mature issues. Their protagonists were almost always working women, and their problems were often quite realistic. Workplace power struggles between the sexes, out-of-wedlock children, marital infidelity, and divorce were tackled between stories of pure escapist fantasy. In this manner, romance comics responded to needs that were historically significant: young, working women saw representations of themselves as intelligent, modern women--women who valued love and dreamt of romance, but who also negotiated life in the real world--a world of common obstacles and fears.

PROPOSED PLAN

Scope

The site will include as many of the comics as possible, focusing mainly on the pre-code era, 1948-1954. There will be little in the way of analysis: a simple introduction to the genre, and links to sites which discuss romance comics, post war culture, and other contemporary representations of women will be offered.

Methods and Resources

I will first capture and store archival-quality images of the comics, then create the website. My method for capture is an Epson flatbed scanner, with images scanned at 500 dpi, stored on CD, then compressed to 72 dpi JPEGS for transfer to the internet. There will be no altering of the images for color, size, or clarity. The objective is to make the images look on the computer screen as much as possible like the originals. Again, the project is two-fold: a CD library of very high-resolution scans will be saved for posterity, and the scans will then be altered for the web and made available on the site to anyone who wishes to view them.

For the time being, the work will be done at the University of Marylandšs electronic imaging lab. I am using Photoshop to create additional graphics, and basic HTML-encoding for the sitešs pages. Each issue is listed chronologically on the sitešs the table of contents, with thumbnail links of each comicšs cover next to their titles (see Appendix A). Bibliographic information is included on the cover page of each issue. Users can turn the pages like a book, by using "Next" links, or they can jump directly to any page, or to any story in a given issue using the links offered on each page.

Most of the current collection of books has been purchased through eBay auctions, and eBay will probably continue to be the primary source of materials for the site. Antique-type shops, while less convenient, are another possible resource.

Timetable

The site is already underway, and will be maintained and upgraded indefinitely. Given the required budget, the site could offer 100 books or more within 12 months. Scanning the pages, burning them to CD, reconfiguring them to be web-deliverable, adding them to the site, and writing the corresponding HTML pages is time-consuming labor. In addition, bidding on comic auctions takes time. Without a break in material inflow, I project each comic to take about five hours of work.

My Qualifications

I am a humanities scholar, having graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bacheloršs degree in English in 2001. My foci of concentration were Rhetoric, Language, and Writing, Creative Writing, and Archeology. I am experienced in desktop publishing, copywriting and editing, web design and digital imaging. I am also a collector of romance comics and a student of the genre.

Estimate of Cost

The project will require funds for labor, for computer equipment, and for the comics themselves. I have estimated the work of collecting, capturing, and delivering the inaugural collection of comics to the web will take about 12 months, working 10 hours per week, for a labor cost of $9,600. An archive of 100 books will cost approximately $500, based on current prices. I should have no need to purchase more hardware or software at this time, but eventually upgrades may be necessary. Webhosting will require another $500 per year. After the first year, a per annum maintenance labor fund of $1000 should be sufficient, in addition to another $100 for additions to the collection. The projected total for the creation and maintenance of the project is $10,600 for the first year, and $1100 per year thereafter. Not included in this projection but of possible concern are issues of copyright. Many of these comics are technically still under copyright, and although the publishing companies are largely no longer in existence, and the original writers and illustrators are not credited, it is conceivable that one or more copyright holders could demand some sort of compensation. I do anticipate this occurring, but it is a possible future expense.

CONCLUSION

Summary of Key Points and Recommendation

Like other paper-based texts, comic books are deteriorating and disappearing. Romance comics in particular, since they are not highly-valued collectibles, are harder and harder to come by. This genre in particular is important to have available for study, as anecdotal evidence, surveys, and sales records indicate that they were very popular among young women after World War II and well into the middle 1950s. In an era in which adult readership was at an all-time high, romance comics certainly were very influential in shaping the identities of at least two generations of women: as workers, as sexual beings, and as Americans, to name just a few.

These works need to be saved, and digital imaging is the best current technology to do so. They also need to be made available for study. Following the leads of other humanities scholars, my recommendation is to create this simple and economical, but thorough and high-quality web resource for the study and enjoyment of mid-century romance comics.