Ink & Outrage: The Secret Activist History of Comic Books

Before superheroes flew across movie screens, comic books were already shaking the foundations of society. In this episode, we crack open the panels of history to reveal the bold, subversive roots of the comic book industry—where capes and speech bubbles met protest and propaganda.

Join us as we explore how early comic creators tackled racism, fascism, sexism, and war, often under the radar and sometimes under fire. From Wonder Woman’s feminist origins to the punk-fueled zines of the ’80s and the guerrilla art of street comics today, we trace how graphic storytelling became a powerful tool for resistance, identity, and cultural transformation.

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Transcript

00;00;00;13 - 00;00;29;23
James
Before the atomic bombs dropped, before the United States chose a side. The superhero threw the first punch right at Hitler's jaw.

00;00;29;25 - 00;01;09;16
James
Hey, everyone! Welcome to Lattes & Art, the podcast for creativity, culture and a little caffeine collide. I'm your host, James William Moore. On today's episode, we're donning a cape and soaring into the world of activist art in an unexpected form. The Golden Age of Comic books. We're talking about how Jewish creators, often sons of immigrants, outsiders in their own country, used superheroes like Superman, Captain America and Wonder Woman to challenge fascism, fight for justice, and inspire resistance.

00;01;09;18 - 00;01;50;22
James
All of this was before the United States officially joined the war. These weren't just for entertainment. These were bold acts of cultural defiance, inked in courage and distributed for a dime. So grab your favorite espresso drink, settle in, and join me as we flip through the pages of resistance, resilience, and righteous punches to the face of tyranny. On today's episode of Ink and Outrage, the secret activist History of Comic Books.

00;01;50;25 - 00;02;28;22
James
The 1930s America was tired, broken by depression, millions jobless, hope in short supply across the ocean. Fascism rose. But not just in Europe. In the heart of New York City, American Nazis filled stadiums, raising arms to salute a foreign dictator. Anti-Semitism was not hiding in the shadows. It was marching in the streets. And yet, from cramped apartments in Brooklyn, something unexpected began to stir a new generation of Jewish American artists.

00;02;28;24 - 00;02;59;14
James
First generation kids outside leaders picked up pencils not to draw portraits, but for war. They didn't have platforms or publishers, but they had paper. They had ink and they had fury. They created something the world had never seen. Mythic heroes who fought fascists while the real world hesitated. Captain America, Superman, wonder woman. Not just entertainment. Symbols of defiance.

00;02;59;16 - 00;03;29;16
James
Hope in red boots and blue tights. Punching tyranny where governments wouldn't. A year before Pearl Harbor, before the United States joined the fight of World War Two, a comic book superhero beat them to it. And a world still reeling from war, depression and dust. Pop culture offered more than just escape. It offered a mirror, a rallying cry, and sometimes a fight.

00;03;29;18 - 00;04;06;11
James
The movies gave us larger than life heroes. The radio brought voices of hope into every kitchen and comic books. They handed everyday kids a battlefield of ideas, one panel at a time, before leaders took sides. Artists did before headlines called it evil. Cartoonists named it. They didn't wait for permission to stand up. They drew the line literally. This was how culture moved hearts, how ink and imagination became ammunition in the war of public opinion.

00;04;06;14 - 00;04;15;14
James
When the stakes were high and the silence was dangerous, pop culture spoke.

00;04;15;16 - 00;04;49;22
James
March 1941, one year before Pearl Harbor. The United States was still on the sidelines of World War Two, but on comic books stands across the country. The first blow had already been struck. Captain America, created by two sons of Jewish immigrants from New York, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. Captain America wasn't just a superhero. He was a warning, a statement, a shield raised against rising fascism.

00;04;49;25 - 00;05;20;10
James
Kirby and Simon didn't wait for permission to pick sides. They crafted a hero who stood for the values the United States hadn't yet decided to fight for. And when Captain America number one hit shelves, it didn't just make waves. It drew fire. Nazi sympathizers right here in the U.S. began threatening their creators by phone. Some even showed up at the Timely Comics office in Manhattan, demanding retribution.

00;05;20;13 - 00;05;34;22
James
Jack Kirby. He didn't flinch. He stood up, walked to the door and said, tell them I'll be right down.

00;05;34;24 - 00;06;04;22
James
Captain America was more than muscle and patriotism. He was a vessel for outrage, justice and hope. An emblem forged by two young Jewish men who saw fascism for what it was and refused to stay silent. They didn't just imagine a hero. They invented the moral background of a nation still trying to find its own captain America wasn't born in a lab.

00;06;04;25 - 00;06;34;16
James
He was born in the Bronx by boys who knew what it meant to feel powerless, and what it meant to fight back and Captain America wasn't the only one. 1938 before Captain America again, before Pearl Harbor, before the war, had a name in US newspapers. Superman arrived. An alien from another world, but a symbol of something deeply human.

00;06;34;18 - 00;07;04;14
James
He was created by two kids from immigrant Jewish families, Jerry Segal and Joe Shuster, sons of working class parents who knew struggle all too well and their world power often belonged to the corrupt. So they imagined a champion who would take it back. In those first stories, Superman wasn't fighting aliens or flying around the globe. He was taking on slumlords, warmongers, and crooked politicians.

00;07;04;17 - 00;07;36;21
James
His enemies were real. And so was his mission. He wasn't just a superhero. He was an immigrant story. A child sent away from destruction. Landing in a new world, hiding his identity, but using his gifts to protect others. Clark Kent was the mask, the humble, overlooked outsider. Superman was the dream, the ideal. What we all wish we could be when the world looked hopeless while politicians hesitated.

00;07;36;27 - 00;08;08;27
James
Superman had no patience for tyrants. He was punching dictators and smashing borders. Long before the United States decided to. To millions of readers, especially working class and immigrant youth. Superman wasn't a fantasy. He was empowerment. He showed that being different can be strength. That justice didn't have to wait for the powerful to act. One more red, white and blue and the other wore a cape.

00;08;08;29 - 00;08;42;06
James
But both stood for something bigger than themselves and the resistance. It was just getting started. 1941 just as the United States entered World War Two, a new kind of warrior stepped onto the page. Not in armor. Not in a cape, but in red boots, a golden tiara, and an unbreakable lasso. Her name? Wonder woman, created by psychologist William Moulton Marston.

00;08;42;08 - 00;09;17;05
James
Wonder woman wasn't just another superhero. She was an experiment, a challenge, a radical idea wrapped in satin tights while Superman fought with might and Captain America with morale. Wonder woman fought with truth. She smashed weapons of war, challenged toxic power, and showed boys and girls alike that strength didn't have to look like a clenched fist. She came from an island of warrior women trained in justice and compassion.

00;09;17;07 - 00;09;50;02
James
Her mission to bring peace to a world torn apart by male dominated violence. She did it with style, intellect, and a golden lasso that forced you to speak the truth. Wonder woman became more than a comic. She was a symbol, appearing on war posters and nurse kits and factory murals. Not just a mascot for patriotism. A feminist icon decades ahead of her time to women, she was proof that heroes didn't need saving.

00;09;50;05 - 00;10;25;27
James
To men, she was a challenge. Could strength look like empathy? Could peace be powerful in a world flooded with violence? She offered something else. Equity. Courage and conviction. She didn't just defeat villains. She redefined what it meant to be a hero. Together, they weren't just comic book characters. They were activists and inc. Born of fear, forged in resistance and read by millions who needed someone to believe in.

00;10;25;29 - 00;10;57;04
James
And as the United States prepared for real war, these superheroes were already fighting one in the minds, dreams and imaginations of a generation. Now, I want to take a pause here and pull the cover back on some underlying code that was embedded into Wonder Woman's original comics. Beneath the golden lasso, the Amazonian strength and the patriotic talent, Wonder Woman was never just another superhero.

00;10;57;07 - 00;11;37;12
James
She was something far more subversive. Her creator, William Moulton Marston, was a Harvard educated psychologist, the inventor of an early lie detector, and the architect of an unconventional household. He lived with two women, both highly educated, both lovers, both contributing to his vision of female empowerment. Marston believed that women were inherently more capable of compassion and leadership than men, but he also believed that submission, willing submission to loving authority, was a moral good.

00;11;37;14 - 00;12;07;16
James
And he laced those ideas directly into Wonder Woman's pages in nearly every issue. Diana is tied up, chained or restrained, only to free herself or turn the tables on her captors. To modernize, it reads like fetish. And it was. This is a quote from Marston. The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force, to enjoy being bound for Marston.

00;12;07;16 - 00;12;26;01
James
These scenes weren't just titillating. They were philosophical. He saw bondage as a metaphor, an emblem of power, exchange, trust, and the belief that society could be restructured under a more loving feminine authority.

00;12;26;03 - 00;12;57;13
James
The Lasso of Truth wasn't just a weapon. It was a symbol of consensual submission to justice. In a world torn by violence and domination. Wonder woman asked, what if power didn't mean control? What if it meant truth? Wonder woman was more than a feminist fantasy. She was an invitation to rethink power, gender, pleasure and peace. And she wore her revolution and red boots.

00;12;57;15 - 00;13;29;10
James
By the early 1940s. Comic books were no longer just a fad. They were a national obsession. Millions of copies printed every month, devoured by kids, teens, and even soldiers. But as war loomed for the United States, comics weren't just telling stories. They were shaping beliefs. Comics became part of a larger cultural machine alongside film, radio and posters, fueling a growing appetite for patriotic purpose.

00;13;29;12 - 00;14;05;03
James
Heroes didn't just stop bank robbers anymore. They stopped saboteurs. They fought axis spies. They rallied readers to buy war bonds and conserve rubber. Superman urged citizens to be vigilant. Wonder woman told girls that strength wasn't just for men. Captain America reminded everyone what was at stake. Freedom, democracy and decency. The line between heroism and propaganda. It started to blur.

00;14;05;05 - 00;14;49;29
James
With this power came peril. Comics didn't just fight fascists. They sometimes reinforced ugly stereotypes. Japanese soldiers were drawn as monsters. Germans as buffoons. Even allies like Russians or immigrants were flattened into caricatures. As their influence grew, comics faced backlash. Critics feared they were too violent, too political, too influential for young minds. And they were right. Comics were powerful because beneath the capes and catchphrases, they were asking readers to choose sides.

00;14;50;02 - 00;15;30;06
James
And millions did. Kids didn't just read about battles. They acted out the stories on playgrounds and classrooms and letters to soldiers. The comics gave them a sense of agency, a sense that even they had a role to play in fighting injustice. To some, comics were just pulp and fantasy, but to others they were morality tales, portable, accessible, and powerful, super simplified, super serialized and super charged with meaning.

00;15;30;09 - 00;16;14;11
James
Comics become the frontline of culture, not by accident, by design. Long before Superman soared or Captain America threw his punch, another art form was throwing its own punches. Not with this, but with scissors and glue and fury. Dadaism emerged in the wake of World War One, a reaction to the absurdity of violence, nationalism and blind obedience. It was messy, it was angry, and it was brilliant.

00;16;14;13 - 00;16;52;03
James
Through photo montage and found text data, artists created visual art that mimicked the chaos of modern life while mocking its delusions. Artists like John Heartfelt turned propaganda into parody, repurposing official images to expose the truth underneath. Sound familiar? The visual language of comic books. Bold text, explosive panels, moral binaries owes more than a little to the data. As tradition of disruption.

00;16;52;05 - 00;17;31;15
James
Both used exaggeration to reveal hypocrisy. Both mashed up pop culture with politics, and both asked their audiences to see differently, to resist easy narratives. Data wasn't just rebellion. It was an early blueprint for art, as confrontation. For using mass media, posters, newspapers, comics as tools of agitation where data cut up the world to make sense of it. Comics stitched together stories that gave us heroes to face it.

00;17;31;18 - 00;18;10;19
James
Whether through jagged collage or inked capes. The goal was the same not to decorate the page, but to detonate it. By the 1960s, America had changed. The war was in Vietnam. The revolution was in the streets and comic books they had split into. While mainstay comics were bound by censors. In the Comics Code Authority, a new wave of artists busted through the panel borders raw, raunchy political.

00;18;10;21 - 00;18;49;29
James
They were called underground comics with an ax inspired by Dadaist collage and fueled by counterculture rage. They tackled war, racism, drugs, sex, gender and capitalism. Uncensored, unfiltered, and totally unauthorized, the tactics of data reemerged. Cut and paste. Satire. Typewriter. Poetry. Grotesque. Distortion of power figures. But now it was all stapled, photocopied and passed hand to hand in head shops and dorm rooms.

00;18;50;02 - 00;19;26;29
James
This wasn't just art. It was a cultural virus spreading doubt, defiance and dirty jokes with a razor sharp point. By the late 70s and early 80s, the underground went even deeper. Punk scene's DIY, anti-establishment, often feminist picked up the visual lineage of both comics and Dada. Grimy, crooked, loud pages screamed with urgency. No future, no borders, no bosses.

00;19;27;01 - 00;20;01;10
James
The margins were speaking again, and this time they were armed with glue sticks and rage. And then, on the sides of buildings and alleyways and abandoned spaces, a new prophet with a stencil emerged. Banksy, like the dollar, is like Kirby. He used the language of the streets to speak truth to power. Fast. Anonymous. Satirical. Viral. The tools had changed.

00;20;01;13 - 00;20;38;10
James
Spray paint instead of pencil. Instagram instead of newsstands. But the goal was the same expose the lie. Celebrate the people. Mock the tyrants. Today, the legacy lives on in the pages of graphic memoirs, webcomics and intersectional heroes. Comics are still fighting the fight for racial justice, for gender equity, for trans visibility, for the climate, for the truth. And yes, kids are still reading them.

00;20;38;12 - 00;21;17;15
James
From Dada is in smoky cafes to teenagers scribbling zines in basements to superheroes smashing propaganda on the printed page. The artist's hand remains clenched and it's still drawing ink as small a drop, a smear, a whisper. But on the right page, in the right hands, it becomes a sword. For nearly a century, artists have used comic books and visual storytelling to do more than entertain.

00;21;17;18 - 00;21;52;10
James
They've challenged tyranny, mocked power, and offered hope when hope felt in short supply. Their methods changed from glue and scissors to pencils and panels to paint in pixels. But the message stayed sharp. Art is not neutral. Art chooses. Art fights. And in a world still fractured by war, racism, climate collapse and disinformation, we need that fight more than ever.

00;21;52;12 - 00;22;24;17
James
Comic books, zines, murals, memes. They are the cultural kindling of resistance. And sometimes they're the only thing that cuts through the noise. Maybe you were inspired by Superman. Maybe you fantasized of being Captain America. Maybe you wanted to march side by side with Wonder Woman. Maybe your story is still waiting to be told. Ink alone doesn't change the world.

00;22;24;19 - 00;22;33;09
James
But ink can change people and people change the world.

00;22;33;12 - 00;22;53;07
James
Whether you draw it, write it, stencil it, or wear it on your chest. Never underestimate the power of an idea. When it's inked in resistance and printed in truth. I'm James William Moore, and this has been Lattes & Art, presented by J-Squared Atelier.