Mysterious Travelers - Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity (Hardcover)

Steve Ditko (1927-2018) is one of the most important contributors to American comic books. As the cocreator of Spider-Man and sole creator of Doctor Strange, Ditko made an indelible mark on American popular culture. Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity resets the conversation about his heady and powerful work. Always inward facing, Ditko's narratives employed superhero and supernatural fantasy in the service of self-examination, and with characters like the Question, Mr. A, and Static, Ditko turned ordinary superhero comics into philosophic treatises. Many of Ditko's philosophy-driven comics show a clear debt to ideas found in Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Unfortunately, readers often reduce Ditko's work to a mouthpiece for Rand's vision. Mysterious Travelers unsettles this notion. In this book, Zack Kruse argues that Ditko's philosophy draws on a complicated network of ideas that is best understood as mystic liberalism. Although Ditko is not the originator of mystic liberalism, his comics provide a unique window into how such an ideology operates in popular media. Examining selections of Ditko's output from 1953 to 1986, Kruse demonstrates how Ditko's comics provide insight into a unique strand of American thought that has had a lasting impact.

General

Imprint:	University Press Of Mississippi
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Great Comics Artists Series
Release date:	February 2021
Authors:	Zack Kruse
Dimensions:	229 x 152mm (L x W)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	304
ISBN-13:	978-1-4968-3053-1
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Collections & anthologies of various literary forms Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social theory Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > General Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > Popular culture Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > General
LSN:	1-4968-3053-9
Barcode:	9781496830531

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