Rewind: The Secret Origin of Comic Books

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2020

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A history of the comic book industry in New York City, how the energy and diversity of the city influenced the burgeoning medium in the 1930s and 40s and how New York’s history reflects out from the origins of its most popular characters. In the 1890s a newspaper rivalry between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzee helped bring about the birth of the comic strip and, a few decades later, the comic book. Today, comic book superheroes are bigger than ever — in blockbuster summer movies and television shows — and most of them still have an inseparable bond with New York City. What’s Spider-Man without a tall building from which to swing? But not only are the comics often set here; the creators were often born here too. Many of the greatest writers and artists actually came from Jewish communities in the Lower East Side, Brooklyn or the Bronx. For many decades, nearly all of America’s comic books were produced here. Unfortunately that meant they were in certain danger of being eliminated entirely during a 1950s witch hunt by a crusading psychiatrist from Bellevue Hospital named Frederic Wertham. FEATURING a special chat with comics historian Peter Sandersonabout the unique New York City connections of Marvel Comics’ most famous characters. Sanderson is the author of The Marvel Comics Guide to New York CityandThe Marvel Encyclopedia. WITH: The Yellow Kid, Little Orphan Annie, Batman, Doctor Strange and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! The episode is a rebroadcast of a show which first aired on July 24, 2015. boweryboyshistory.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The following episode on New York City and the history of comic books was originally released in July of 2015.
0:07.3	But we're re-releasing it today because this week I'm the guest star on the newest episode of the podcast This Week in Marvel,
0:15.3	the official podcast of Marvel Comics. So after you are done listening to this episode,
0:21.2	hop on over to that podcast where I speak with hosts Ryan Panagos and Lorraine Sink about more history-related New York City comic books.
0:30.0	I guess in the comic book business they call this an intercompany crossover like a Superman meets Spider-Man or Archie meets the Predator.
0:39.9	So please enjoy Excelsior.
0:42.6	Hey, it's the Bowry Boys.
0:47.1	Hey.
0:47.9	Support for the Bowry Boys is provided by our listeners.
0:51.9	Join us for as little as a dollar a month by visiting patreon.com slash Bowry Boys.
1:00.4	Hi there. Welcome to the Bowry Boys. I'm Greg Young and I'm tackling a subject that I've been dancing around on the show for years.
1:07.9	New York and the history of comic books.
1:11.1	Now we've done a few industry shows in the past focusing on New York City's role in the development of film, radio and television.
1:19.2	But comic books are a true homegrown industry and for at least 30 to 40 years starting in the 1930s,
1:26.9	almost every major publisher operated out of New York.
1:30.9	Many of the most iconic writers, editors and artists were mostly all born here in immigrant neighborhoods and many from Jewish communities.
1:38.8	In particular, superheroes often have a very specific connection to New York.
1:44.3	Just as a horror story often takes place in a haunted house or a western in a dusty frontier town,
1:50.5	a superhero story most often finds itself in an urban environment and for a lot of its history, that environment was New York City.
1:59.6	The energy and diversity of New York, the romance of the city, is critical to the medium's growth right up to the Hollywood blockbusters of today.
2:09.0	Now just a disclaimer, this is a bird's eye view, a very broad history, a very broad scope of comic books overall.
2:17.0	I apologize in advance for glossing over any of the great accomplishments of many of the most important creators here.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tom Meyers, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tom Meyers and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.