The laboratory cat / Brent J. Martin ; Mark A. Suckow, editor-in-chief.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Martin, Brent J.

Contributor:

Suckow, Mark A.

Series:

Laboratory animal pocket reference series

The laboratory animal pocket reference series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cats as laboratory animals.

Laboratory animals--Handbooks.

Laboratory animals.

Cats--Handbooks.

Cats.

Physical Description:

136 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Boca Raton, Fla. : CRC Press, [1998]

Summary:

With sequential panels, word balloons, continuing characters, and powerful links between picture and story, the Sunday funnies that first appeared in late nineteenth-century U.S. newspapers enjoyed instant popularity. Comic strip characters and conventions soon were appropriated for marketing a variety of products. First Buster Brown was licensed to sell shoes and other goods; by the 1930s comic characters were being transformed into toys and dolls, and comic stripstyle ads were touting a vast array of products, from Grape-Nuts cereal to Rinso detergent.

Contending that comic strips contributed to the expansion of a mass consumer culture driven by visual images, Ian Gordon shows how, in addition to embellishing a wide array of goods with personalities, the comics themselves increasingly promoted consumerist values and upward mobility. He details how "Gasoline Alley" advocated the enjoyment of cars and how 1920s working girl Winnie Winkle became an avid seeker of a middle-class lifestyle. Documenting the invention of the comic book in the 1940s, Gordon also describes the emergence of a super-licensed Superman, whose girlfriend Lois Lane even went on a shopping spree during a period of wartime rationing.

Emerging just as Americans were beginning to define themselves less by what they made and believed and more by what they bought, comic strips were from the outset commodities sold by syndicates to newspapers nationwide. Ian Gordon demonstrates that the strips' most enduring role has been not only to mirror a burgeoning consumer culture but also to actively promote it.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 109-127) and index.

ISBN:

0849325676

OCLC:

38100049