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by Daniel Worden (Author)
In Petrochemical Fantasies, Daniel Worden reveals the entwined history of comics and fossil fuels in the United States. From the 1840s to the present, comics have depicted the power, pollution, and rapid expansion of energy systems--especially the explosive growth of coal and oil. In the 1930s, some of the first comic books were the gas station giveaways Gulf Funny Weekly and Standard Oil Comics. And in recent years, comics have become one of the major sites for visualizing life after oil, a striking reversal of the medium's early boosterism.
Surveying the work of acclaimed artists such as Nell Brinkley, George Herriman, Jack Kirby, Winsor McCay, and R. F. Outcault and recovering little-known works, Worden advances a new history of American comics in the Anthropocene. From late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century editorial cartoons and superhero comics that visualize our modern energy culture to contemporary comics grappling with climate crises, Petrochemical Fantasies places comics, environmental humanities, and energy studies in conversation with each other to unearth the crucial but overlooked history of comics' place in US energy culture.Author Biography
Daniel Worden is Associate Professor of Art at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he teaches and writes about comics, print, and visual cultures. He is the author of Neoliberal Nonfictions: The Documentary Aesthetic from Joan Didion to Jay-Z, the editor of The Comics of Joe Sacco: Journalism in a Visual World and The Comics of R. Crumb: Underground in the Art Museum, and the coeditor of New Directions in Print Culture Studies: Archives, Materiality, and Modern American Culture.
