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How a Comic Book Can Fix America
Graphic novel “Concrete Park” has the secret sauce to healing society
Jewish teens Jerome Siegel and his artist friend Joe Shuster created the character Superman in 1933, the same year Hitler came to power. (In case you were still wondering if anyone knew what Hitler was about before the Holocaust).
Side note. If you’re a reader, I recommend the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay.” It’s a great historical-fiction novel using the Superman comic creation as a voice to fight Nazi evil as the backdrop.
In real life, these young adults created Superman to fight the growing threat of fascism and Nazism. Superman was their symbol of hope over oppression.
For decades, many superheroes were symbols of the hard fight against hatred and bigotry. That’s waned in recent times, but about a decade ago, a new comic book-graphic novel, “Concrete Park,” found a renewed way to tackle the hardest racism to fight.
The unconscious type living deep within us. The kind that infects everyone. Even the most well-intended people.
To understand how “Concrete Park” got here, it’s important to know the history of comic heroes.
