Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the White House Historical association and our 2023 symposium, the white house in Popular Culture hosted by the good morning, everyone. Welcome to the White House Historical association and our 2023 symposium the white house in Popular Culture hosted by the association and our good friends, our partners, the john w. Cloogy center at the library of congress. My name is stewart mcloren, and i have the privilege of being the president of White House Historical association, and i see many familiar friends and faces here today. And, of course, those who are joining us by cspan and through our own digital coverage, its great to have all of you joining us here today as well. I ought to recognize three of my colleagues who have been involved and on point for this. Many here at the association have played a role in making today happen at these annual symposiums which theyre actually a yearlong effort to put together. We focus on the cloakium partners in the fall and partner with the cloogy center, and then that evolves over the course of the year and culminates in this wonderful symposium that youre gathered with us here today to enjoy. The three colleagues that i would like to recognize specifically today for their leadership is dr. Colleen shogan who is the Senior Vice President and director of the david m. Rubenstein National Center for white house history, and were very excited that colleen has been nominated by President Biden to be the next archivist of the United States. [ applause ] and we are hopeful that there will be Senate Confirmation soon, and we will hate to miss her. She has contributed a significant amount to our success over the past three plus years here, and shes not going very far. And as you all know, we have a close tie and relationship with the national archives, particularly our wonderful friends at the president ial libraries which we all enjoy. Dr. Matthew costello is our senior historian. Hes in the back here. And matt has been very involved, and well be hearing from him later today as part of this program. And my colleague grace mccaffrey has been in charge of every logistical element of pulling this together and making it happen. And it makes me really happy when i dont have to worry about any of those things. So grace has done a wonderful job with that. So thank you, grace. We have a very special moment. We have a video greeting from the chairman of the board of directors of the White House Historical association. It is the white house his teer Cal Association sometimes. The chairman of the board of the White House Historical association, the honorable john f. W. Rogers. Good morning, everyone, my name is john rogers, and i serve as the chairman of the board of directors of the White House Historical association. And although i cant be with you in person, i know that youre going to have an interesting day ahead with engaging speakers and conversations over how the white house and Popular Culture intersect. I had the privilege of working in the white house across two different administrations, but mainly during the reagan years. As you undoubtedly know, the reagans starred in many movies, and they loved watching movies, particularly at camp david. They certainly enjoyed watching classic films such as singing in the rain quiet and stagecoach, but they never missed the chance to view the latest contemporary hit like e. T. And raiders of the lost ark, and the karate kid. President reagan implicitly understood that president s need to remain in touch with whats popular in the country, and he certainly did that through film. Movies and other forms of Popular Culture offer insights into who we are as americans and also who we as spier to be. I hope you are looking forward to hearing from more of our speakers today about this dynamic and how Popular Culture shapes our perspectives of the presidency and the people who have held that office. Finally, id like to thank our partners from the john w. Cloogy center at the library of congress. Both of our organizations are committed to the study and the preservation of history, as well as supporting new research and programming that inform and educate the public. The Association Symposium offers us this unique opportunity every year to connect and inspire people to learn more about the white house and its larger cultural significance as a symbol of our democracy. Thank you again for joining us at the decatur house, and i hope you enjoy the day. Thank you to john as our chairman and also like to recognize carla hayden, the library of congress who serves as the next member of our official board of directors for her leadership over the entire Library System as part of our partnership today. As john mentioned, the White House Historical association and the cloogy center have much in common. We also share similar beliefs in making history more accessible and more available and relevant to all audiences, and we are very, very grateful for this partnership. Todays symposium explores the relationship between the presidency, the white house and Popular Culture. For many people their only interaction with the white house and the presidency is through popular mediums such as television, films, comics, cartoons and other such very familiar outlets. Because of this, Popular Culture holds an Important Role in our society, not only for entertainment purposes but for informing its audiences and shaping their understanding of our countrys institutions. Todays panel, and if youve seen the program, its a really robust and exciting panel of presenters, they will discuss a variety of perspectives and include historians, Entertainment Industry experts, actors and scholars, and they will discuss how the presidency and the white house shapes Popular Culture and how the public understands these institutions. Todays lunch that you walked by and caught a glimpse of is actually going to be beautiful in the setting today, and its actually going to give a little hat tip to a pop cultural moment thats happening this weekend. Weve all seen the its hard to miss, the coronation of the king that will take place tomorrow, and certainly theres a great amount of history and synergy between the monarchs of the United Kingdom and the royal family and the president s of the United States and the white house. So theres going to be a fun tribute in the faree, in the menu items and in the celebration of the lunchtime together that pays tribute to the coronation. Im actually wearing my little commemorative coronation pin today to participate in the pop culture moment. And i hope some of you have had the opportunity to see my podcast that was released just today with karen pierce whos the current ambassador of the United Kingdom to the United States. She is extraordinary. And i had the privilege of just listening to her. And i think you will enjoy her comments on the special relationship and the coronation as well. And thats available on our website. Well, i have a few sort of housekeeping reminders before we dive in. Our white house history shop is open throughout the day, and as our special guest, you will receive a 10 discount if you go in there and tell them youre here for the symposium. Our parting gift for you today will be an issue of our white house history quarterly, and this one is an issue on the white house and television. I know many of you already subscribe to this. So if you have this issue, take this one and give it to a friend. Our publications, and this one in particular, our quarterly magazine, is one of the favorite things of mine here at the association. It goes back to the very beginning of our mission with mrs. Kennedy in 1961 when just a year later she had us accomplish our very first guide book, and that was the first publication, and now we produce awardwinning publications that are deep and rich and scholarly and wonderful for you to enjoy yourself, as well as give to others. The next issue which will be out in early june every issue that comes out, i tell marsha anderson, our chief publishing officer and her staff that its better than the one before, and the one thats coming out in june is going to be on the white house and new york. And it is fantastic. You dont want to miss that one. At the conclusion of the days wonderful presenters and panels, we will have a reception out in the courtyard, and i hope everyone will stay and enjoy that time of fellowship together. So my contribution to todays program is complete. Ill get off the stage and let the festivities begin. I want to thank the cloogy center once again, my colleagues, and most importantly, all of you. Your participation and engagement with us on these important topics, it is very important and encouraging to us in our work. And for every one of you that sits here today, there are thousands more who follow us online, our social media, digital resources, our friends such as cspan, and if someone in your life doesnt yet know about the work of the White House Historical association, please introduce them to us. There are so many great and wonderful causes out there in the world, and i know many of you are supporting hospitals and universities and Community Groups and organizations. But theres one white house. And that belongs to all of america and all of the American People. And your support for that, given our nonprofit and non partisan status, makes what we do possible. So thank you very much. And with that, i would like to welcome our very good friend, hannah summers who is representing the library of congress today. She is the associate librarian for research and Collection Services at the library of congress, and they are an extraordinary historic institution that our country and certainly our congress could not do without. So, hannah, ill turn it over to you. [ applause ] good morning, everyone. Its really wonderful to be here. Thank you for that introduction. As stewart mentioned, im hannah summers, i am the still new associate librarian for researcher and Collection Services at the library of congress. And i want to welcome you today to the wonderful symposium on the white house in Popular Culture which is a joint effort between the john w. Cloogy center at the library and our host today, the White House Historical association. The cloogy center is an integral part of our efforts in researcher and Collection Services to build and steward the collections of the library of congress. And just as importantly, to help facilitate access to those collections by researchers from around the world. We have an Important Mission at the library to engage, to inspire and to inform congress and the American People with the universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity. The john w. Cloogy center helps us fulfill that mission. Its a vibrant scholarly center on capitol hill that brings together world class researchers from the United States and abroad to energize one another, to disstill wisdom from the librarys rich resources and to interact with policy makers and the public. The Center Offers opportunities for senior scholars and post doctoral fellows to do research in the library of congress collections. It also offers free public lectures, conferences and symposia, including one that helps sow the seeds for todays event. Many of the ideas and historical insights being discussed today were first presented during a scholarly workshop hosted at the Jefferson Building at the library last november the library of congress is delighted to be a part of todays event. And i encourage everyone to come visit the library and register for a reader card if you dont already have one, and spend some time exploring the resources of the Worlds Largest library. To begin todays program, id like to introduce dr. Kevin butterfield whos the director of the cloogy center, and hes the moderator of our first panel which is on the presidency in comics and cartoons. So, kevin. Ways in which we have used welcome. Pleasure to t moderate our first panel. Were going to be exploring the white house in both comics and cartoons, from George Washingtons time to ours. The ways in which we have used prints and other forms of media to reach and to shrink the distance between the American People and our political leaders are things that we can explore, and obviously its both entertaining and enlightening to do so. I dont want to say ul that much to introduce our panel because our biographies are in the program that you have in front of you. We will be moving from chronological more or less from sarah duke to megan halesspan to jesse holland, all who have a close connection to the library of congress, im proud to say. Sarah duke works there, as does megan, and jesse actually spent a good amount of time as a distinguished visiting scholar at the kluge center. Hes also a journalist and journalism professor. I think i actually have the clicker. Theres not much you can do without this. Let me hand things over to sarah to begin our exploration of the white house in comics and cartoons. Sarah. Thank you, kevin. I must express my gratitude for being invited to speak to you today. I am sarah duke, and in 1972, just six days after e watergate breakin, herb blang, the editorial cartoonistfor the Washington Post drew this editorial cartoon featuring footsteps leading away from the white house. He had alady drawn two editorial cartoons featuring the physical appearance of Richard Nixon and implicating him in the breakin. So why draw the white house . Thats what were going to explore today. Bulets go back to a moment in time as were celebrating the coronati of charles iii tomorrow. Im going to remind you that we foug a war and this is the sacking of washington in 1814, 109 years ago. The White House Historical association owns the original drawing for this, but the library of congress is the only William Strickland engraving from it. Benjamin latrobe was given a unique opportunity to rebuild the white house in a new way with that lovely colonnade on the southern facade. And i apologize, this is real hard see, but this is a collection thats near and dear to my heart because im processing it now, and it john ruben smith, and he traveled up and down the eastern seaboard, documenting the new republic in drawings and prints. When one thks dead ancestors or somebody elses dead ancestors, but the gairn types also feature buildings and ndscapes, and this is the white house in 1846. And while the northern facade was depicted less regularly in print, perhaps because it was a less grand entrance, heres an image from a calendar in 1822. So im laying the groundwork, this is what the building looks like by the 1840s, everybody comes to know what the building looks like, and it doesnt need to be labeled. So when William Henry harrison who perhaps had the longest 19thcentury Election Campaign and the shortest presidency ran, he didnt need to label the white house. Its there as part of his destination. And thats what happenin litho graphic editorial cartoons. The white house is a destination. Polk, running for presidency, its a foot race, but, again, the white house is a destination. When you think of courier, you ink of bucolic landscapes. Th did a lot of editorial cartoons. They had political opinions, and their inion was that horatio seymour, governor of new york was the man for president , not Ulysses Grant who was depicted dragging the chicago platform across an abyss. We all know how that turned out because nremember who har arabico seymour is. During the american civil war, the white hoe becomes part of the emblematic patriosmof preserving the union. And so it appears on a lot of civil war envelopes, civil war envelopes, we have a huge collection of them. Theyre really pick torial, and they are deserving of research, if anybody wants to delve into them. We literally have volumes of civil war envelopes. So white houses destination, white houses patriotic symbol. So why am i showing you the west side . Because by the mid and late 19th century, the facade thats depicted tells the story of what the content of the cartoon is. And the first story that gets told is the presidency becomes important enough that there are spoils to be had, and those spoils come out of the side, come out of the front. Nobodys going to take wealth out of main entrance. So its the side of the building that gets depicted. And puck magazine, it was a weekly publication from about the 1850s to 1917 side, spoils of presidency, its the side. Want to know what cleveland is thinking . You go to the side. Why doesnt the side appear in editorial cartoons anymore . I think that is because we dont associate spoils with the presidencyanymore. In my transition from facades, im bringing you this teddy ruse veltz, running as a train wreck, hes larger than life, squashing the white house. Well, that gives wilson the entry, right . And speaking of wilson, now were getting into the south facde, its not 100 of the time, but when the south is depicted, its the personality of the president thats the issue. Now, youre going thats not the white house. No, its not the white house. Its a summer house, its the shadow white house, but it resembles the south facade so spectacularly, and poor president wilson is just trapped by the s of all the issues he has to deal with, and it is according to conser cartoonist John Mccutchen of chicago, hes not doing it too well. However, whenwe get to the largerthanlife presidency of Franklin Delano roosevelt, oscar caesara of working for the New York Times imagined a white house thats overtaking washington as the personality of the president and his strength as a president redraws the map. We get to truman who gave us the white house that we more know and love today, and he remodeled it. Herb lock, the Washington Post cartoonist reminds us that hes remodeled , but he cant quite fulfilhis promise as president because bo will run with him in his first campaign. Lia banes johnson, larger than life, everything ming up roses as he gets to pass legislation and settle issues, its almost like a honeymoon between him and herb block. And we have a great editorial cartoon collection of more than 14,000 drawings at the library, in part because mr. Block got tired of johnson asking for every cartoon that depicted him and just said theyre not available. We have pretty much every cartoon he drew after the joadministration. South facade, the tapes are discovered in the existenc of the tapes discovered in 1973, and Edward Suarez whos e aritor of the new york tiepic it smashing into the white house. A little premature. It takes another year. Jimmy cart, american he kind of we stilthink of him as a peanut farmer and not the executive he was. But this is certainly an image. And this is by mike peters from the dayton daily news. South facade, the savings and loan mess with Herbert Walker bush who just wanted it to go away. And now im going to switch to the north facade. We talk about the north facade, 90 of the time were talking about the power of the presidency. And why is that . Because the south facade is glorious, Everybody Knows what it looks like, its the image that gets depicted to americans. But if you know washington, you know the power is on the north side. So january industrial curve from the Franklin Delano roosevelts administration, everybody is lining up for patronage. This is a wolf that so closely resembles Joseph Mccarthy. You could call it a caricature of him, and its the white house, the Eisenhower White house deflecting mccarthy. Another year to go. And herb bleang was no fan of the way eisenhower trted mccarthy. There are plenty of cartoons calling him out for not being strong enough. But here the white house is deflecting him. The bay of pigs. This is a conservative cartoonist, gabe crockett. And we now think of the bay of pigs as a successful partay on partof john f. Kennedy against the ruians, but crockett wasnt so sure. He thought the chkens had come home to roost. And then i get to return to the cartoothat i introduced the session with, and its mr. Block, d its the north facade because hes challenging the corruption in the presidency and the power of the presidency during the Nixon Administration when he drew this cartoon. Its not about the rsonality of the president s. He had already done that in the days after the watergate break in. During the reagan administration, cartoonist when they dealt with the white house tended to depict it as callous and cold, and here is gary trudeaus character from dunesberry, falling asepin the snow, north facade clinton during his administration, he hasnt even moved in yet, its inauguration day, and other occupants are ready and willing to greet him, whole host of issues. We get to his second guration, and this is pat alifont cks the cat. Was a recurring character for many years during the clinton administration. He was fairly negative in his commentary, d the line is one is obliged to spend the next four years ruling all of the people all of the time, and puck who was alifonts little dingbat says i suppose one could always hope for impeachment. Sydney wilkinson ispulitzer prizewinning cartoonist from philadelphia and here is a cartoon that deals withgeorge w. Bush administration and the First Amendment and Second Amendment issues, all in one cartoon. And my final cartoon for you is by mark ranslem whos a local cartoonist working for the washington blade, and its the Obama White House lit up after the overfelder decision. Remember this moment. It really happened. You dont need to label white house. Everybody knows its the white house. And i know ive gone quickly through this. So if you want a slide serkts pdf version of my slide set with all the links to the cartoons, or if you want to ask me questions after the presentation, id be happy to answer them. You can grab me at lunch or in the avs, ill be around all day. But you can also contact us through our ask a Librarian Service and of the 17. 6 million prints of the library of congress, weve digitized 1. 5 million, and 1. 4 million are available to you because theyre in the Public Domain to Download Free of charge. And with that, i pass it to my colleague megan. Hi, everyone. My name is megan halesstand. Im a reference librarian in the newspaper and current periodical reading room in the library. And i have the Great Fortune of working with the comic book collection at the library. It goes along with newspapers, right . Theres actually a quite a long history of comics and newspapers. For those of you not familiar with the history of comics, most of the early comics in the 1930s actually started out as reprints of newspaper strips, some of which, you know, youve seen from sarahs presentation. What im going to talk about today is kind of the push and pull of the white house as a real place in comics and comics as an educational resource, and then comics as a fantasy, as an escape, as a, you know, an idealistic representation of what we could be. And then my colleague, jesse, will take over for that. But, you know, this is an image from a comic that we recently acquired called seeing washington. And i put it in because the comic itself functions as a tourist sort of object for dc. It features the white house, it features the library of congress. Im not gonna lie. You will hear me shamelessly plug the librarys collection and get you to come and use the collection. Theres so much here. I had a hard time picking what to actually show you. So just be aware that this is a very Selective Group of images from the librarys collection. It has about 170,000 comic book issues and about 8,000 7,000 to 8,000 titles. So were one of the largest comic book collections in the world, depending on how you count. This particular comic complished in 1957 mentions the white house as a modern location, a bomb shelter in the basent, and several rooms are open to the public. So it invites you to take a look. He you see the cover on the left. Youll see variouother well known washington landmarks. And so one of the things that i find really fascinating, and thats kind of where i nerd out is a lot of comics, particularly in this period but over the course of comics history present educational topics, present facts. You know, they are instructive and engaging. Theres even a whole series thats designed to theres a number of series that are designed to be representations of contemporary events and historical peach, among other things. So i wanted to kind of highlight that because this is all happing at the same time where were ei oh, heres two of e series that feature biographical sketches. Theyre called true comics, treasure test of fun and facts, they often, you know, did a biography of individuals. Here you have lly madison, the treasure est issue features a number of esidential wives. The comics also feature president s. And well get to that in a little bit. But, you know, i wanted to ow the diversity the subjects here because it really isnt just one thing in all of these. Theres a wide range, and it sometimes seems competing with itself. The so true comics, 19 freun, Treasure Chest of fun and fact, 1956. So youre seeing a really broad range, date range. This continues, even into now where theres biographies of president s and other, you know, comic renditions of real events that i find particularly fascinating. So at the same time that all of this is being accomplished, you also have things like action comics, superman, batman. This particular issue from 1958 shows superman in the white house. And so theres this tension here between superman as a fictitious character and then a real place of the white house. And so you get that intersection of the real and the fictitious in here that actually comes out quite a bit in comic books from this period. Its not explicitly depicted here in this particular image, but the words itself call it out. And so i think one of the things as sarah mentioned, you know, the image of the white house is already well established by this point. People know what that means visually. They know that when it says white house, it implies the presidency, democracy, American Political Institution, all of those kinds of things. And so it didnt enneed to be represented here in orde for people to be able to envision that. At the same time this is a slhtly later issue, superman becomes the esent. So, again, li implication of the white house and surm, the hes actually having an identity crisis on the right panel here. It says im an antirich man, a poor man, a regular man or the president of the United States. And so its actually kind of interesting. And i think theres a lot more here that i did not have time to take a look at. You know, i didnt focus on the presidency in comics. During this period, theres also biographies of president s, you know, the other factual series feature biographies of president s or other political figures. So that could ahole other presentation. Again, action comics, here superman is defendine president in the white house. And so what youll see a depiction of the white house here explicitly, d then superman rushes in to save democracy or in is case the president. And so, you know, youve seen three different ways that superman here has interacted with the white house and the presidency, all within a fairly short amount of time which i was very interesting to me, and thats why im highlighting it. There were many other images of the white house in comics that i was able to find. This issue kind of goes a little bit in a different direction where the white house serves as a backdrop for a takeover by aliens. And so theres this juxtaposition you might not be able to see it very well, but the figures in the front are called dancers. And theres i dont know what the right word is here. Its ancient, i guess or unsophisticated thats used here in contrast with the white house as a sophisticated, you know, american location, but its also slightly critical. The text at the bottom oh, yes, the mandirectly knows that the white house is only a plaster shell, not power in and of itself, but he knows too that ours is a nation where image is often included positive fact in which the president of an office can create its sorry, own movement and its own right its own might and its own right. And so i found that very interesting because its kind of explicitly being critical of the American Political Institution while simultaneously using it to represent the thing that weve known that we know about the white house and the visual vobulary that comes through over time. So hi to include this one beusit is hilarious to me, and i pe you enjoy it. Vampire in the white house. E thing cant touch on in this particular talk is th history of the comi publishing and why you get specific subject matter at specificim. This particular youll see you can see a lilestamp sized item next to the z, and thatsoms code of authority seal. And so the comics Code Authority really changed what people saw in comic books, and one of the reasons why a lot of the slides im showing you are from the 50s is because superheros kind of fell out of faaor, other genre comics rose to the surface. And one of those were sort of educational comics. This particular one is just i think its hillaryious. It references back to e. C. Comics, originally started as educational comics. One of the first publications by its publisher, bill gaines, was a pictoreial of the new testament and a pictoreial of the old testament. But later people come to associate his publications with the comics Code Authority, you know, horror, battle of horror, crypt of the and other various, like, horror series, and this actually, image, calls back to that which found really interestin this whole camp sort of image, i think that theres a lot that can be talked about here. But you gethe explicit representation of the white house, the mention of the lawn, and then the three various enties in which we know and talk about the white house and the presidency and th administration. You have White House Administration and the naming of the president alat the same time. And so its really talking in more broad terms about what the white house means as a larger symbol, and, you know, kind of how that engages. I am running out of time. Okay. So he climbs out of his coffin. This is in the 80s so were moving to the 80s. Theres a comics kind of turned darker in the 80s. You get batman, the reenvisioning of batman and the publication wahmen which watchmen was particularly critical of, you know, organized government. And it ki of lls into question some of the assumptions that were previously made as comics were only for children. These comics were not for chdren. Heres a panel from watchmen. The figures tually span disappears the entire crowd standing in front of the white house. And so you get the white house asa backdrop of power to this individual. And theres a whole other talk in at one in and of itself i wanted to include why the la man as well because its actually paially set in dc. Its a series where theres only one man on earth, in the end, a virus has wiped everybody else out, and his mother happens to be a member of the u. S. House of representis. So hes going he to find his mother whtheres something ing there that im not 100 su about. Nt to know more. So you may be fali with r. T. , started 1941, one of the longnning series. So you see the various ways in whh the white housand the presidency is represented across a wide variety of comics. You have historical fact comics, you have superhero comics, you have gag comics. And so i wanted to highlight the differences there. My colleague jesse is going to get a little bit more into more recent comics which is why i didnt actually include them here today. But the i want to invite you to come to my reading room, to come talk to me about comics. I, like sarah, will be here all day. This is something that im particularly excited about. And, you know, would love to talk to you more. So thank you. Good morning. So how did i get on this stage . So i was a scholar at the Library Center and the kluge center. But before that, im also a washington d. C. Historian who my actual thesis is slavery inside the white house. Ive written two books about this, most recent book was the invisible untold story of African American slaves in the white house, and i am currently in preproduction for the documentary based on that book which i hope to have the documentary finished by next year. But before all of that, i was a comic book nerd. So i spent a lot of time in my time at the library of congress trying to go through their comic book collection. I also have an expertise in the depiction of African Americans in comic books in the United States. Ive done presentations on that, to dc comics and Marvel Comics, going through their own collections and showing how they represent African Americans in thr own art form. And more cely, ive been writing for both dc and marvel. Ive written two black panther bksfor marvel. Ive writtea couple of comic books for dc, including a superman comic book. I was really interested in seeing some of that material. Im picking where we just left off. Its interesting that many of the current form of comic books which are mostly superhero comic books are never actually based in washington, but they make the u. S. Government part of their story line. Now, weve seen we saw in the 80s, for example captain america coming to washington d. C. To save president reagan who had been turned into a snake creature. Captain america saves him. So weve seen the depiction of esidents repeatedly throughout superhero comic books. But the only president who admitted that he was a comic bofan was barack and so the comic industry just took it and ran, where you just saw depictof back obama in comic books repeat lid. Ample, president obama says he was a fan of spiderman. So literally on inauguration day, they were ready to have peter parker in washington d. C. So he could meet president obama. So they actually did this isnt the actual cover of the comic book. They did a special printing to put barack obama on the cover of the comic book. And they make sure that they did tra story where spiderman to meet president obama. But you will see othe depictions of the white use this comes from a one shot ks. Called caamera who will wield the shield where you have the current captain america, steve rogers, coming inside the white house, inside e oval office and havi a conversation wrack obama about who should be the next caamera because rogers is stepping down. Now, the choice actually ends up being hipaner at that time from world war ii named buckie who through the magic of comic books survives world war ii, becomes a russian assassin, then an American Hero and then becomes captain america. Ironically, about two years later, Marvel Comics decides that theyre going to introduce the first African American captain america who becomes sam wilson who is the first captain america in continuity right now and will be the captain america featured in next years captain america four new world order, the marvel cinematic universe movie. And just ironically in february, i will be writing a book about this new captain america that will be available at bostores everywhere, just dc comics also makes sure they get inthe barack obama craziness because they have barack obamhere in the white house calling out superman to come america. Superman happens to be, like on another planet at this me, and things are going crazy in washington. So they put president in the White House Press room, saying superman, where are you . , but dc goes even further and turns barack obama into an actual superhero. They actually turn barack obama into superman. So dc universe, we know about all the multiple universes now because of spiderman and because of all the Different Things that they do to the mack universe, but dc comics was the first comic book company to introduce alternate earth. So in one alternate earth, in fact, earth 23, the president is actually calvin ellis who happens to be a krip tonian, an African American krip tonian who was a Community Organizer and becomes a senator and then is elected president , happens to look just like barack obama. Well, what actually happened was the comic book artist writer, grant morrison, debuts the character in another comic book and literally im just drawing barack obama in a superman outfit. Dc says thats a great idea, but you cant really use Barack Obamas name. They renamed him calvin ellis, and literally put him inside the white house as the president. But since this is an alternate universe, calvin ellis, his brainiac is the computer that runs the white house while hes acting as superman. So dc literally incorporated barack obama as a part of their superhero universe, and this character still exists to this d it is still being used by dc comics. Other comic books involved in this as well. You see young blood which is the brainchild an artist named rold you see savage dragon which wa one of the author creator of savage dragon, tuly was one of thcoc book creators to literally endorse barack obama at his comic book creation, savage dragon, endorse barack obama during the actual president ial election, and, of course, after barack obama won, savage dragon gets in, invited to the white house, which you see in this issue. Im glad we brought up r. T. Comics because you see here, even in the r. T. Comics we see a new depiction of the interior of the white house, the oval office with barack obama, inviting veronica to help solve some of the spending crisis of course, by more spending. Now, comic books are not just fictional. Several comic books that also are nonfictional. In fact, thats one of the biggest trends in comic books today, especially following behind john lewis march to show more nonfiction. So there are several comic books out there atwere that use the white house an the presidency to depict the actual reality of whats going on in the United States. Here arsome examples here from blue water where th actually did biographical comic books of barack obama, Michelle Obama and even bo. Bo got his own comic book. Now, i dont want to make it seem like all nsof the white e and president obama were. This is of my favorite sequences from a comic book called secret wawhich were w eing the marvel cinematic untaing to adapt. Just to set this , president obama is working inside the white house, inside the oval anfinds nick fury uninvited, just shows up ine oval office. Now, i know fothose of you who are marvel cinemati universe fans, youre looking this creature and saying thats not jackson. Well, for us older comic book readers, we know that the first depiction of mctheory on film was actually david hassel hoff. So this is the david hassel hoff version of mcfury, the original one. And mcfury shows up in the white house to inform the newly elected president obama that a erican super villains as terrorist. So hees to inform president obama of exactly whats, and, of course the esent is not that someone shows up unvieted in his office and tells him how to and hetells him he tells fury that if you dont at le respect the office, you dont u respect the office, but nt, with comic book continuity, nick fury has been around since world war ii. He reminds him of the lists of president s that hes already met which includes eisenhower, truman, kennedy, reagan, johnson, nixon. So hes, like, dude, youre new. Why would i even respect you at this point . So this was a comic book artist and writer who were talking about how new and possibly naive president ama would be when he first started at the white house. Dc comics does the same where they depict president obama in office trying figure out how a u. S. President would actually respond to the first muslim to serve as a green lantern. So you see highway these comic book writers and artists are trying to use the white house and the presidency to deal with modern problems, not just fictional problems, bumodern problems. , and we move forward President Trump. So with President Trump, he also appears in several different comic books in several different ways. You see from some artuses as being depicted as a superhersee here on the giant side, super leader up. Thisis probmet to be more satirithan anything else because his partner is actually Vladimir Putin. Is is President Trump and Vladimir Putin depicted a Superhero Team. You actually have some alnon fiction comic books that are done using President Trump, using words that President Trump himself has said with different art thats being presented by the comic book, the unquotable trump is one of those books. I want no quid pro quo is another example that you see. Now, one of the things we have to keep in mind is that comic books are usually written and drawn six months in advance. So by the time you see the issue on the news stand, its about six months away from what the artist was looking and seeing and what the writer intended. So they also made sure, just like they did with president obama, that they d particular nonyou fiction biographies of president s so you see the political biographicalversion of donald trump, the graphic novel which tells the history of President Trump. You also see a current version of that same the same company did one for president joe biden, and for the first time, for the vice president. Normally the president is the focus of the artist and e writers b you we see that for both, thcurrent esent and vice president. But that doesnt mean th they also did not get into the superhero world. So yohad trumps titans which depicts President Trump as a gunwielding American Patriot superhero, and, of course, you have bidens titans which shows him wearing, of course, his signature sunglasses and a more slicked out xmen look. So this you get to see all of these current and different depictions of the president using the white house, using the presidency. And we can just continue to expect to see more as we move forward because this is an art form i think thats going to continue to last for a while. Amazing. I get an opportunity now to field questions from you. There will be microphones to so before you start asking your question, please wait for the microphone to come to you. Let me get things started as microphones come to the back of the room with a question for you, sarah. Megan and jesse, feel free to jump in. But with them moving into the white house reminded me of an introduction to both the white house as public space and private home. Could you say a little bit about that i dont want to call it attention, but that dual identity in what youve seen . In editorial cartoons, theres no dual identity, theres no white house is private space, other than heres a new president arriving at the white house. Its a public space only, and editorial cartoons, imagination, of course, we know the president lives in the white house, but as far as i can tell, its really just the public aspect of the presidency. And thats the purpose of the editor yar cartoon, right . The purpose of an editorial cartoon is to express an opinion and sway you towards the Artists Point of view. Theyre not going to do, oh, theres a new president , happy days, somebody else is moving into the white house. No. Theres problems in america. This poor sucker just took this job and has to deal with it. Let me come to the room for questions. Please just give me a quick hand if you have questions for any of our panel. I see one in the middle of the front row. Here we go. Right here. Please. Thank you very much. Just a quick question. If we have a lot of the comics recently due to trump and biden, obama, but in the earlier years of comics, were real president s featured, you know, not actual president s and not sure when the comics really started, being popular that you start to see them in there, but im just curious when they started appearing . Im not sure who would that would be me probably. Well start with you. Yeah. What i didnt show were so in the librarys collection, we have a comic called jfk. And its by the publisher dell. I believe its early 60s. Dont quote me on that one. But its a biography, and its very similar to the biographies that you have seen that are being published by bluewater and the other ones that are coming out where it gives a little back story, it gives, you know, the rise to the presidency, and then, you know, it looks to the future. And theres one for lbj. Reagan actually appears on covers and in references to reagan appear in various things. I havent seen a straight up comic biography of him yet. That doesnt mean its not out there. Doesnt mean its not out there. But, no, certainly in the 50s, 60s, and even in the 70s, the particular publisher dell was doing those kind of comics where its straight up a comic biography, and it kind of ties into some of that educational aspect that is sort of attention with comic books. And if you want to talk fiction, around world war ii was when we were shifting from the weird science and western comic books to the superhero style comic books we see today. And with the original Dc Superhero Team which wasnt the Justice League, it was actually the Justice Society, you actually saw depictions of president Franklin Roosevelt who is actually, according to dc continuity, a member of the Justice Society as the man who actually formed the team of d. C. Superheros during world war ii. So if you go back to the original Justice Society comic books that depict world war ii, youll see quite a few depictions of both president roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and president truman which in d. C. Continuity around the time of the bombing of japan was when this super team broke up. But d. C. Comics which, of course, is much older than Marvel Comics. Marvel comics is still like the new kid on the block if you look at the d. C. Timeline. They were depicts president s as far back as president roosevelt as part of their fictional universe. Some of these comics make up a president , they invent someone to be president. Of course when they do that, you can pretty much be sure that a president is going to be like assassinated or something. Usually when theres a real life president involved in the storyline, of course, the president will always be rescued, and that storyline will probably be continued later on. So you will see in superhero comic books the reallife president showing up going all the way back to world war ii. Other questions . I see one on this side. Right here at the end of the row. There you are. I have a question that ive always been fascinated by and probably in my own head. And it relates to political cartoons. And i always remember when political cartoonists were national figures. If we want to read the news, we read the paper. If we wanted to get opinion, we would read columns. If we wanted to get some forecasting, wed go to the cartoons. Even here i noticed a few cartoons that hinted or implicit by the political cartoonist of what might be coming down the road. Has anybody studied why and how those i thought brilliant political analysts were able i remember you could almost skip reading pretty look at the cartoon and it could be the smartest person on the block. Is there a history behind it . Editorial cartoonists and political cartoonists are journalists. Traditionally, they were part of the newsroom and not so much anymore and our current Washington Post editorial cartoonist lives in halifax, canada. He is a great guy and wonderful artist, but does he have his nose on whats happening in washington . No. Not any more than he can in the 24 hour news cycle. When journalists occupy the newsroom, they are part of an on the spot back in a time when we werent living in the 24 hour and when news was a bit slower and information traveled less quickly and perhaps accurately. We noticed that with her block. He called World War Two in 1935. Was he prissy and . Was present in the fact that he was paying attention. He was paying attention to the dynamics and how they sifted in europe and how the nature of hitler was changing alliances, so he was reading it, yes. He was reading it with an awareness of power struggles and shifts. That happens a lot less, because there isnt that interaction with journalists. When herblock won his first surprise , it was bradley and bernstein for their coverage of the watergate breakin. How could they do that . They worked together. How could herblock call out nixon three days after the breakin . It is so strong in this country that he could express his opinion that nixon was involved. They couldnt write it down until they had evidence that it was true. That is the difference. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. Great panel. I want to ask about a next question. I see one in the back. Thank you. Great panel. I want to ask about the American Foreign policy. It is always seen as power for american president s. Im curious about the correlation between Foreign Policy and what we see in comic books. Is there a correlation that president s are more often to be put depicted . Dc9 11 or more what are commonly seen as popular foreignpolicy engagements . D. C. President s depicted with more controversial engagements are less so. Are there any correlations you want to point out . One of the things we saw, especially around 9 11 was great sensitivity in the comic book industry, because at that time, marvel and d. C. Were the two main publishers based in new york. They were very careful around that time of what they did and did not say around 911. I am trying to remember, but i dont really remember many depictions of president bush during that time in any major comic books. One of the things we did see and refill. It is what is going on in history and seeing a reflection in comic books. Back in the 80s with president reagan coming down, you saw the Superhero TeamJustice League, which started out as the Justice League of america. They were americanbased heroes, because Justice League international and welcoming in heroes from around the world where the focus was no longer just the u. S. Their focus was protecting the planet earth. The original focus was like superman. Truth justice, apple pie and u. S. You see this thing where marvel in the 80s, the main Superhero Team, spiderman and the ventures were made up of American Heroes. As you go through the 80s and 90s, you see more international euros come involved, like depicted in the movie black widow. She is russian and not american. You start seeing more of an international focus. In current comic books, you see a backlash to some of it. In the Justice League in the early 2000s, the country decides to form its own Superhero Team called the ultramarines, because the Justice League no longer protects america. Their focus is the entire world, so there is a backlash. You will see the same thing that happens over the entire comic book industry whether it is marvel, d. C. And you will see more of a homeland look as we get to more modern times. In the past, we worry about the entire planet. Now, we are worried about the entire planet, but we have to consider ourselves with our borders and homeland itself, as well. I havent researched that particular topic. One of the things i do find is that there is definitely a correlation between what happens in the external world and what happens in the comic books. The engagement between comic book characters and story line with news and other contemporary pop culture is definitely there in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Im trying to think of a good example and i cant come up with one that is representative, but comic books are talking to Everything Else going on. Im sure that there would be something. Keep in mind, it is usually six months behind whatever is actually happening in the news. Comic books do not address whats on the nightly news. Its going to be six months before the leaders actually read it. There is this big gap and they go for large issues. They are not issues that can possibly change in the next six months. That is the job of an editorial cartoonist. Is the white house evoked when editorial cartoonists discuss International Issues . The white house is evoked by cartoonists a minute amount, so to begin with, it is usually the personality of the president , but when there is an International Issues, absolutely. How the president handles them is always addressed. We have time for one more question, then we will come. I understand about editorial cartoons and cartoonists. Kenny talk about how some cartoon strips become editorials . I am thinking back in the day of walt kellys pogo and i followed as a young child the 1960 election in his comic strip , then you have humphrey and George Wallace and all of these other figures that were were explained to me what was going on. That is Something Like doonesbury who is also topical. I understand that later he appeared on the editorial page, because that is more honest and what it was very often. What about the evolution of cartoons in editorials . Comic strips were editorialized from the beginning. In 1895, the first comic strip character, the yellow kid commented on the campaign. We think of doom is very being the incipient and its just not true. What happened over time was that the comic strips are generally more geared towards entertainment. The library of congress has a great series on simon j mullarkey is Joseph Mccarthy and attacks mccarthyism. We have examples of original art by gary and his team. We also have little out there. Have him in the 1960s where he became very political and we have a series of comic strip drawings about joan baez as joni phony. We have Ronald Reagan weeping, because he is losing his president ial campaign. Of course, little annie often addressed current politics. We think of comic strip artists as shying away from politics. In general, they do. It is more about social commentary, but there are comic strip artists who took on politics directly. While kelly was definitely one of them. Are panels will be here through the break and we will continue this conversation. There will be a short break before 11 00 panel. Please join me in thanking our wonderful panel. [ applause ] hi, everybody. Afternoon. Im john obrien from the department of english and im happy to kick things off. Todays lecture is part of English Department lecture se k