Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

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representations of such villains slain and brought to justice. While performing an
instructional function for youth, the works could be read as possible vehicles for
promoting indoctrination too. Even though these comics offered their target audience an
opportunity to escape the harsh realities of wartime through fiction, they also were
constructed with content with a distinct focus upon current affairs. Clearly, political ideas
and moral ideals were essential structural features for this type of entertainment.
While superhero narratives flourished, in 1946 Gaines sold his share of the
ownership of All-American to Jack Liebowitz. Liebowitz moved promptly to merge the
company with DC into National Comics; he then consolidated this company into a larger
corporate entity called National Periodical Publications (Jones 223). Gaines then used
his proceeds to establish his own comics line: EC or Educational Comics. Titles from
this line included Picture Stories from the Bible and Picture Stories from American
History (Inge 139). When he died a year later, his son William took control of the
company and made significant changes that would impact the entire industry. Opting to
take EC in a new direction, William switched the name of the company to Entertaining
Comics. Releasing titles in the horror genre like Tales from the Crypt and Weird Tales,
William's biggest impact came with the release of Harvey Kurtzman's Mad Magazine in
April of 1952 (Inge 216, Reidelbach 14). Targeting an adult audience rather than a
strictly juvenile one, Mad included satirical parodies of television shows, advertisements,
other examples of popular culture, and events like the McCarthy hearings (Tabachnick
11). The publication's incorporation of real life issues notes a willingness on the part of
the reading public to listen to and engage dissent through a type of mediation.
In 1954, two years after Mad's release, a book published by a psychiatrist named