Ich freue mich sehr, den folgenden Panel zu moderieren mit dem Titel Hall of Fame. following panel with the title hall of fame and we have two speakers who will present digitally which is why I'm switching to English because they're joining us from the United States and Canada and I'm very happy and honored to introduce Trina Robbins to you. Trina Robbins calls herself a retired underground cartoonist and current comics herstorian. And she has been writing graphic novels, books, and comics, many of them with Jewish subjects for about half a century, which is extremely impressive if you really think about that time frame. Her subjects have ranged from the Eisner-nominated Aminia Dieden, her adaptation of her father's Yiddish book, to her graphic biography of Holocaust survivor Lily Renee, and her own teenage superheroine Go-Girl. She has won Eisner Awards and was introduced into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Wizard World Hall of Legends in 2017. She has been taking Yiddish classes for about five years and according to her still can't hold a conversation in Yiddish which I don't think is true her talk is titled babes in arms Lily Renee and the women cartoonist of World War two which is also the title of her book and I'm going to give it over to Trina very happy to have you and very excited for your talk. Thank you. Okay. It was the best of times. Left their jobs to fight overseas. 19 million women took their places in offices and factories, doing what women had never done before. Driving trucks and buses, manufacturing bombs and weapons, making ships and planes and flying those planes. And here is a good example. Deb volunteers for home defense. You can see a lot. Go on to the next picture please next please thank you here's here's a woman in his shoes for the duration overnight she has manned the pumps it's hard to believe that women never pumped gas before but here we are and you see it's an ad for beer um you can really see what is going on in a country by looking at the ads. One more, please. And here is Sally who works in a shell factory. So they made the ships and planes. They flew the planes and they drew comics. Next picture, please. Okay. This is Barbara Hall, and she obviously drew comics. The still young field of comic books, with its predominantly action stories aimed at young boys, employed mostly men. But as in every other industry, this all changed in 1941. The comic book industry employed young men of draft age. Soon the comics publishers were sending out a call for cartoonists to fill their empty drawing tables, and so many talented women answered the call that there were more women drawing comics in the 1940s than ever before. I'm going to just pick four of these women to talk about rather than all of them. This is, as I said, Barbara Hall. Can we have the next picture? And this is the Girl Commandos drawn by Barbara Hall. The Girl Commandos was a group of women, a United Nations of women fighting the Axis, led by a British woman. They were from every country, a British woman, a Chinese woman, a Russian, an American, and a Dutch woman. Okay, as I say, like their male comic book counterparts, these women fought the Axis. And like the real-life heroines of the times, they flew planes, engaged in espionage, and fought in the military alongside other women. The women in these comics could take care of themselves, and they didn't need to be rescued by some guy. Can we have the next picture please? This is Jill Elgin and next picture. And again this is the girl commandos as drawn by Jill Elgin. She took it over from Barbara Hall. And I don't know if you noticed, but they're wearing different outfits. She changed their outfits. But there they are, United Nations of Women. Okay, next picture, please. Ah, this is Fran Hopper. Okay, I'm getting into the women who drew for Fiction House. Fiction House was a comic book publisher that published more women during the war than any of the other publishers, and all of the publishers were publishing women. women. This is Fran Hopper, and she's wearing her, at the time, boyfriend, later her husband's hat. He was in the Navy. He was a doctor. He was in the Navy, and Fran Hopper, when she went to work for Fiction House, was an art student who really thought that it was just going to be a summer job, and she stayed on and became one of the cartoonists of Fiction House. Next picture, please. This is Jane Martin as drawn by Fran Hopper. If you look very carefully at the bottom towards the left, you can see that she has signed her name, which clarifies, a lot of people think that these women all use pseudonyms, but she is signing her name Fran Hopper. Jane Martin had been a flying nurse at this point, though. This is one that Fran Haber drew in 1946. So she's not a nurse anymore. All the women who had been superheroines got more daytime kind of ordinary jobs. And so she works now for a flying company, for a plane company, demonstrating their planes. Can we get to the next, please? This is Lily Renee. And here she is at her desk at Fiction House Comics. Lily Renee. Her story reads like one of the comics she illustrated. Her story reads like one of the comics she illustrated. Young Lily Renee was a talented teenage Jewish girl in Vienna when the Nazis marched into Austria in 1938. And we see the next picture, please. This is Lily. She's 16. This is 1937, before the Nazis marched in. Let's see the next picture. This is her Nazi passport. In 1939, she escaped to England via Kindertransport, an arrangement that England made with Germany to save Jewish children in Nazi-occupied countries. If the children could get sponsors in England, the Nazis would allow them to leave. The train that took Lily to England was one of the last tender transport trains. Later that year, England declared war on Germany and Lilly lost all contact with her parents who of course had to stay behind. Meanwhile, Lilly's parents had escaped to America and were searching for her. They finally found her and she sailed to America. The family had lost everything to the Nazis and were living hand-to-mouth when Lily's mother saw an ad in the paper. A comic book company named Fiction House was looking for artists. Lily got the job. She has told me about what it was like when she brought her portfolio to the waiting room. All of the other job applicants were men and they were all staring at her. What is this girl doing here? She was 18. So Lily became one of the best comic artists at Fiction House illustrating the horror fantasy title, Werewolf Hunters, and the science fiction series, The Lost World. She also drew strong, capable, and beautiful women like Jane Martin, the Nazi battling flying nurse. Fran Hopper, who I had showed earlier, took Jane Martin over from Lily when Lily stopped drawing Jane Martin and went on to Senorita Rio. She's most well known for her character, beautiful Senorita Rio, who found Nazis to fight in South America as late as 1947. Can we have the next picture, please? Ah, this is Jane Martin that she started with. Look at her. This is a beautiful panel. Look at the composition and the colors. Next, please. And here is Senorita Rio. Senorita Rio was, by day, she was a nightclub entertainer. Actually, at night, she was a nightclub entertainer actually at night she was a nightclub entertainer but in reality she worked for the secret service and you can see the two Senorita Rios here at the top you see her in costume at the bottom I'm not sure if you can read this, but it's wonderful. She's on a train and these two Nazis behind her. One is saying, but who is that beautiful frow line? And the other one says, beautiful mine hair, but deadly as the cobra. She poses as a dancer for our men, but I know her as Senorita Rio. So this is what she's most famous for is drawing Senorita Rio and it's exquisitely fitting that the girl who escaped persecution by the Nazis should have wound up fighting them with pen and ink and that's exactly what she did. Can we have the next picture? Oh, let's go back to the other one first. I haven't, sorry, haven't gotten to this. Can we go back to the last pic? That's right. Thank you. Well, the bubble burst when the war ended. Our boys came home expecting their old jobs back, and they got them. The women were sent back home to the kitchen. Next, please. In every respect, look, there he is. He's still in his uniform. I love this picture. It's so perfect. It says everything. He's still in his uniform. And she's suddenly, instead of wearing in those earlier pictures, she was wearing a uniform, working in factories and gas stations. And now she's wearing a frilly apron. And she's wiping a pot. And look at, she loves him him he loves her so much look at all those hearts he loves her because she's wearing a frilly apron and we're wiping a pot uh you know the ads show so clearly what was going on in the country. Next picture, please. So the women were still, they weren't completely fired yet. They were still allowed to draw comics, but they were no longer doing the wonderful heroines, courageous heroines fighting Nazis. Instead, it was okay for them to draw teenage comics about teenage girls. This is by Fran Hopper. It's Patsy Walker. Next, please. And this is by Fran Hopper. It's Patsy Walker. Next, please. And this is by Lily Renee, Kitty. So they are, you know, the art is lovely, but they're just, they're cute, inoffensive teenagers. They're no longer strong, courageous women. And the last image, please. strong, courageous women. And the last image, please. The other thing that women could still draw were romance comics. And it's really interesting about romance comics. This is by Lily Renee again, Was I Too Young for Love? And you can see the the door the door of the red car in the first picture she has signed her name Lily Renee so again as I mentioned before the women did sign their own names and they didn't have to use men's names um the interesting thing about love comics as I said about the ads how they reflected what was going on in the country at the time, the same thing was happening in comic books. Love comics started, romance comics started in 1947 after the war. And the whole message in all of the romance comics was that no matter what you do, no matter who you are, you won't find true happiness until you meet the right man, get married, and settle down and have kids, because that was what the country was pushing. You don't, and they said it, the way they said it was, you don't have to work anymore. Of course, they couldn't work anymore because they weren't being hired anymore. So they said, you can come go back to the kitchen. Aren't you happy wiping pots and pans? And that's what the romance comics were really about. were really about. But all the courageous, wonderful, brave women disappeared. And by 1950s, by the 1950s, Senorita Rio and all her beautiful battling sisters were gone forever. Lily kept on as an artist, of course. She don't stop drawing, but she stopped drawing comics. She did a lot of other things. She did jewelry. She actually wrote plays. And she became a fine artist. And I'll tell you more about Lily when we have questions and answers. You can turn this off. That's the last image. Thank you so much, Trina. We will have the Q&A after both of your talks, which brings me to presenting or introducing Jeff McLaughlin to you, who is a professor of philosophy at Thompson Rivers University in Kamploops in British Columbia in Canada. And his main teaching interest for the past 30 years has been applied ethics. However, his research tends to be either about pop culture or the Holocaust. Amongst his edited book publications are Conversations with Stan Lee and two volumes of memoirs by Holocaust survivor and educator Vera Schiff. A collection of essays by scholars entitled Nuff Said the Philosophies of Stan Lee is forthcoming. And his talk is titled Connecting Lines, Stan Lee's Philosophies in World War II. Please welcome Jeff. And yeah, the stage is yours. Thank you very much. I'm going to share my screen here. So hopefully this will work. There we go. So first of all, thanks for inviting me. And I wish I was there. And I'm sure you're having a wonderful time. And I wish I was there. And I'm sure you're having a wonderful time. Just to let you know that I will be in Graz in about three and a half weeks. Recording in progress. And if any of you want to reach out and go for a coffee or say hello, I'm happy. I would love to meet you. And I'm sure we can share email addresses and so on. So hopefully you can see the screen here. And what I would like to start off with is a quick overview of Stanley's beginnings in comics and then how he became to make commentaries about various important matters, TO MAKE COMMENTARIES ABOUT VARIOUS IMPORTANT MATTERS, INCLUDING MANY OF THOSE THAT ARE BEING DISCUSSED AT THIS CONFERENCE. SO BORN STANLEY MARTIN LEIBER IN NEW YORK TO ROMANIAN JEWISH PARENTS ON DECEMBER 28, 1922. WE HAVE PICT my pictures that are working here and not moving over. There we go. So here's a cute little Stanley. And so Sam was born in 1922 and nine years later comes along his younger brother, Larry, who actually still does live in Manhattan. So there are the two boys and the family. And there is a young and rather dapper-dressed young Stan Lieber at the time. So in 1940, he's offered a job as an office boy at Timely Comics by his cousin by marriage. And here his role is to get coffee and get lunch and do a little bit of proofreading for editor Joe Simon and art director Jack Kirby. You all probably know that Simon and Kirby create Captain America and this particular first issue appears in December 1940. And what is notable about this is that this is almost one year to the date that the Americans enter into the war. And so they haven't entered into the war yet, but we do have Captain America punching Adolf Hitler, which is significant, obviously. So Simon and Kirby create these characters and Jack and Joe are brought into a situation whereby royalties become an issue with them and they are moonlighting on the side with DC Comics and this is going to become a turning point in Stan Lieber's, soon to be Stan Lee's, life. So issue number three, Stanley Lieber, who said that he kept his name because he wanted to keep Stanley Lieber for when he wrote the all-time American novel, as it were. And this is the first time we see a publication where we have his name used as Stan Lee. Well, while this is going on, as I mentioned, there's a falling out between Simon and Kirby and the individuals at Timely, notably Martin Goodman and Robert Solomon. And what happens is that they are fired and Stanley is appointed as the editor at age 18. And one of the first people that he hires in that particular role is a gentleman by the name of Al Jaffe, who passed away just three weeks ago at the wonderful age of 102. As you can see here, Al Jaffe is most notable for his work with Mad Magazine. And I wanted to tell a cute little story here. I asked Al if he had any or learned any words of wisdom from Stan. I wanted to ask him, did he pick up anything from Stan so I could include it in my forthcoming book? And Al's response was, no, I didn't learn anything from Stan. He learned it all from me. You know, so that made me laugh. I laughed quite hard about that, knowing, you know, in the good heart and good nature in which it was said. So 1942 comes along. The war is going on and Stan decides to enlist in November of 1942, as I said, and when asked why he enlisted, he said, quote, it was the kind of war you were a son of a bitch if you didn't get into it. It was too important not to fight. Well, he had hoped to be involved in installing communication lines for the troops in Europe. Instead, he was designated as a playwright along with eight others. He would freelance writing comics still, but in the army he would write training film scripts, do educational posters, and create illustrated textbooks. He liked to talk about how he did these posters to help those enlisted. And his favorite one was about venereal disease, and it was, VD, not for me. So one notable example that he was involved in is going to be explained in a moment. But here are some pictures of Stan in his uniform. Handsome fellow there. Showing off a little bit. And as I said, as a playwright, he was in charge of doing these mostly writings to try and improve things, especially with manuals. And in a speech he gave to a group of teachers, I believe in 1977, he talks about one example. And we have the text up here on the screen. He says the finance department was having a big problem. They weren't turning out finance officers fast enough. The curriculum was dull, and the instructors weren't, in some cases, all that good. And it was posing a big morale problem because there'd be guys overseas in foxholes getting shot at, comes payday and they wouldn't get paid because there weren't enough payroll officers to be in their area and to reach them in time. I've always felt you can learn anything by reading a book, so I got the manual. And I rewrote the manual using a cartoon character whom I dubbed Fiscal Freddy. And the manual became The Adventures of Fiscal Freddy, who was trapped in all these payroll forms and getting on to the next one involved having to complete the first one and move forward. I think we were able to cut the training period from six months to eight weeks. Excuse the typo I just see there. So here is a little sketch of fiscal Freddie that Stan did many years later. So let's jump two decades ahead into the 1960s. Rose did when he was a kid. By chatting with the readers about upcoming comics and what's going behind the scenes and so on, he thought that he would be able to develop a closer-knit community. He had a captive audience and he wants to build this community. He calls this column Stan's Soapbox and with it he will tell readers what he actually thinks. Important topics such as racism, bigotry, and other social injustices are briefly explored and so I'm going to share with you a few of these. Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today. But unlike a team of costume supervillains, they can't be halted with a punch in the snout or a zap from a ray gun. The only way to destroy them is to expose them, to reveal them for the insidious evils that they really are. But although anyone has the right to dislike another individual, it is totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race, to despise an entire nation, to vilify an entire religion. Sooner or later, we must learn to judge each other on our own merits. Sooner or later, if man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance. That's November 1968. From time to time, we receive letters from readers who wonder why there's so much moralizing in our mags. They take great pains to point out that comics are supposed to be escapist reading and nothing more, but somehow I can't see it that way. It seems to me that a story without a message, however subliminal, is like a man without a soul. In fact, even the most escapist literature of all, old-time fairy tales and heroic legends, contained moral and philosophical points of view. The last one. Bear with me, gang. It's philosophy time again. None of us is all that different from each other. We all want essentially the same things out of life. that different from each other. We all want essentially the same things out of life. A measure of security, some fun, some romance, friendship, and the respect of our contemporaries. That goes for Indians, Chinese, Russians, Jews, Arabs, Catholics, Protestants, Blacks, Browns, Whites, and green-skinned hulks. So why don't we all stop wasting time hating the other guys and look in the mirror, mister, that other guy is you. And this is from February 1980. Let's jump ahead again, this time three and a half decades. three and a half decades. Dina Babbitt is or was, I should say she passed away in 2009, was an Auschwitz survivor. As an artist, she was forced by Dr. Mengele to paint examples from his medical experiments because he found the photographs did not always capture what he wanted. And what happened, and this is where we're going to connect Stan into the story, is that the Auschwitz Memorial Museum had bought six of her watercolors of Roma and in 1963, sorry, they bought these watercolors in 1963 and they bought one more in 1973. The officials at the Auschwitz Memorial Museum asked Dana to verify that they were hers and she did so. However, they did not offer to return them to her, stating that they were important evidence and part of the cultural heritage of the world. Much later, in 2002, the return of these watercolors was brought up in the American House of Representatives and in the Senate. And then legendary comic artist Neil Adams got involved. Neil Adams, as you well know, had fought for comic book artist rights before and was going to draw a story about her work. And here are some newspaper headlines that I thought I would share with you. So this is the New York Times, and what is interesting is the actual lead here, so of these different papers. So here we have history claims her artwork but she wants it back. And we can see in the bottom there, if you can't read it, Dina Babbitt, Holocaust survivor in Felton, California at work on a new portrait of a gypsy woman, Roma Orsenti. She had Peyton in 1944 at Auschwitz. Here is a German newspaper article about the same story. newspaper article about the same story. And here is one from Israel. These are some of the watercolors that we were talking about momentarily. And with this colors that we were talking about momentarily. And with this information that is brought forward and made more public with the involvement of Neil Adams and others, we have quite a campaign that is put together. And if you go onto the New York Times website, for example, you can find a small animated video of a story that Neal Adams created called The Last Outrage, the Dina Babbitt story. Here we have another sample from the New York Times along with one of the pages that Neil Adams had created. And again, these are all available online. You can also see by the headline, Comic book idols rallied to aid a Holocaust artist. So with this rally, what are we talking about? Well, we're talking about asking the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to return these particular works. Now, you may have noticed in the previous slides that we have pictures of Dina with the images. I'll explain that momentarily. So, gentlemen, attached below, please find the mass petitions by 450 cartoonists, artists, and comic book writers from around the world. Knowing of the Snow White mural that Mrs. Babbitt painted in the children's barracks in Auschwitz in 1944, and knowing of her long career as a cartoon animator, these individuals feel a special sense of attachment and concern. In case you're not familiar with the names of the individuals, it goes on to say that, for example, they include some of the most important influential figures, including Stan Lee. Well, this is sent off, and unfortunately, there is no response, or rather, there is a response, and it is to the negative. Meanwhile, flash forward again, another decade as it were, and now we're talking 2018, a book comes out, as you can see by the title there, it's called We Spoke Out, Comic Book Artists and the Holocaust. And within this book, it's a collection of comic book stories that have the Holocaust as a theme, as it were. And the foreword and the afterword are by Stan Lee. And Stan is going to mention and talk about the impact and the significance of the work that Dina Babbitt did and why it should be returned. And I'll show you a closer excerpt of this. As for the images Dina created in Auschwitz, seven of those portraits somehow survived and are being held by the Auschwitz State Museum. Dina's family wants them back and they have every right to get them back. Surely they should be allowed to keep this one piece of the life that the Nazis ripped from her. Those of us who work in the world of comic books and cartoons bear a special obligation to raise our voices in support of the Babbitt family's effort. When others were in need, Dina stood up for them. Today we must stand up for Dina's legacy. for Dina's legacy. Unfortunately, what did result is that the museum sent Dina reproductions of her work. They still have the originals. And what is significant, I think, about Stan's writing this piece as of afterward, as was pointed out to me by Raphael Modev, who put the book together, is that this is probably one of the last pieces of writing that Stan did, because he would then pass away later in the year in November. So ultimately, to conclude, a very brief presentation here. I just wanted to say that Stan's work and words and aims show the potential comics art form and the industry and the people in the industry that they can entertain as well as inform and educate and as well authenticate and validate the human condition. So thank you very much. Thank you so much, Jeff. That was wonderful. I'm sorry that I missed some of it because I had to let my housekeeper in. That was fantastic. I agree. I agree. Thank you so much. I'm going to open the floor for questions here before I bring in my own questions. But if anybody wants to start from the room. But if anybody wants to start from the room. If nobody wants to. Oh, yeah, great. Hello. Thank you. Is this on? Yeah. Okay. Yes. Okay. Hello. Thank you for the lectures. Both are great. My question is to Mr. Robbins. I'm a comic book author myself and also do lectures. And one of the lectures I do is about the Jewish influence of comic books. many of the Austrian Jewish people who had influence like you know it's of Austrian descendants like Jack Kirby and Will Eisner and Bill Finger and so on but I have to say I was ashamed that I've never heard in my life about Lily René so I'm very very grateful for this information and my question is are you aware of any other important, maybe also female artists of Jewish descent who were important in this area you've covered? And maybe also of Austrian descent, but mostly about the Jewishness. From the 1940s? Actually, I don't. I'm sorry. Lily was, she was amazing. You know, I mean, you're not going to find too many people who escaped from the Nazis at the age of 17 and got to America by 18 and started drawing comics. Lily had never drawn comics before. Jeff, could you show, could you hold up my book? Thank you. I'm trying to get it so it doesn't. This is, if you try to get it so it doesn't focus. Yeah, right. Maybe you hold it back. If you hold it next to your head, maybe. Oh, yes, try that. Hold it next to your head, maybe. Oh, yes, try that. There we go. This is a graphic novel that I wrote about Lily Renee, which you can, I'm sure you can still find it. I think it's from 2017. It's meant for young readers, but lots of grown-up readers really like it. It's 2011. 2011. Oh, my goodness. Really early. Okay. Lily lived to be 101, by the way, just like Al Jaffe made it to 102. I wonder if there isn't something about comics that results in longevity. Can I ask you a question, Trina? Please. Lily returned to Vienna. Did she ever talk about why she returned or how it was to return? What it was like? She only returned very briefly. She lived in New York. And in fact, when they did go back to Vienna, well, she went back several times because she also, as you may know, when she was 98, she went back for an exhibit and also to receive an award from the city. That was, to me, very interesting to receive an award from the city that originally wanted to kill her, you know. But the first time she went back, which was many, many years ago, she actually pretended not to know German because she was still so very, you know, upset by how she and the Jews had been treated. But she went back again when she was 98 and there was an exhibit at the Jewish Museum in Vienna called Six with a Pencil, I believe is the name. And it was six Jewish artists who had had to flee the Nazis and all found fame in their adopted countries. in their adopted countries. Perhaps the individual who asked the question earlier could contact them, the museum that you mentioned in Vienna, they might have more information about the exhibition. Also the Vienna Cultural, I think it's called the vienna cultural exchange or the austrian cultural exchange they have um they they got the exhibit after it went it left vienna yeah thank you i will do that thank you for the tip okay i have a question um The first one is for Trina. You were talking about women's writers using male pseudonyms. And then you also mentioned that there was a shift to be observed from depicting women as courageous, powerful women to teenage girls. Yeah. When exactly did that shift happen and how did it affect the standing of the woman in the arts? And did it have anything to do with the pseudonyms or with this fear of women's writers trying to raise their voices? Well, as you know, they did not have pseudonyms. That's really a myth. Oh. No, none of them had pseudonyms. It's a myth that women had to have pseudonyms, male pseudonyms. It just simply was not true. They all signed their work with their names. The shift from women being beautiful, courageous women who could take care of themselves and fight back to becoming just cute teenage girls happened almost right after the war, really. I would say that by 1946, all of the wonderful, courageous women were gone from the pages of comic books. Okay, great. Thank you. Are there any more questions from the audience yeah great hello um i wanted to ask uh whether it was mostly female creators that created those wonderful strong fighting women or if that's um a character that had been done before or by men also these um let's see the um the ones uh drawn by Barbara Hall and Jill Elgin. They were specifically created by the women. But Señorita Rio had originally been created, been drawn by Bob Lubbers, so a male. But when Lily took it over, she totally made it hers you know and the character changed a lot she she had always been beautiful you know and and strong and fighting fighting the nazis but she just she became more so she became really connected with lily lily has said that it was her own fantasy that she was drawing that she you know that and through senorita rio she could fight the nazis Any more questions? I do have another one. I may just jump in. A question for Jeff. Thank you very much for your talk as well. I have a question concerning Stan's soapbox that you mentioned. I'm interested in where this column was published and even more so who the target audience was. You mentioned one example from 1980, I think, if I'm not mistaken, bringing up the other. And that was shortly after Edward Said published Orientalism in 1978. shortly after Edward Said published Orientalism in 1978. Yeah, who was the target audience and did his educational attempts reach what he intended them to do in society? Thanks for the questions. The soapbox columns were at the back of every comic book so when you were a reader um you would go in the last page or so you might have letters to the editor and beside the letters to the editor when you would have uh stan soapbox. As I alluded to, most of the time it was a version of advertising, you know, using Stan's approach of saying, hey, you know, this is what's coming up. But, you know, trying to make a connection saying, oh, this is what, you know, Jolly Joe Senate is up to these days, and so on and so forth, building that community there. So he's tried to, I think, and I know when I was reading these as a kid myself, is that, you know, making you feel like you belong, and that you're part of this community and you know things about these people that other people don't know. So it's not just, you know, a comic, but in fact, as Trina is talking about, there's a name there and who is this person that is actually doing this? this. In terms of the educational outcome, I think the answer to that has to be a resounding yes. I use comics when I'm teaching philosophy. I will use them, you know, on one side of the table, I'll have an essay about something. And then on the other side, I might have, you know, on one side of the table, I'll have an essay about something. And then on the other side, I might have, you know, a particular graphic novel that is talking about the very same material, same ideas, just as we use any art form to express ourselves in these ways. And as Trina pointed out, you know, reflect and mirror back some of the societal issues that are going on. Thank you so much. Oh, I do want to say that I'm glad you brought up the point about the other. When reviewing these, that stuck out to me as well, especially when he had quotation marks around it. So I was quite taken aback by that. I was like, wow, that's significant. Yeah, which is why I was wondering whether this was directed towards an in-group as it was. Like you said, this chosen in-group of people who have purchased the text already. this chosen in-group of people who have purchased the text already. But he used that space in a very specific strategic way as well, which I, yeah, I'm also surprised by. Yeah. And as you point out, you know, typically the reader is going to be a young male. And there are other soapboxes where he will talk about being more inclusive and he will have sometimes parents and sometimes teachers writing in saying that, you know, why aren't you talking about, you know, more black issues? Or, you know, why don't you have a black character? You know, and you know where that went yeah but that's such an interesting way of using paratext as yeah a very specific medium to to communicate about uh political issues as well yeah yeah i mean it's not you know comic book art per se by any means you know and but it's attached to it and it is part of the package, I think. Yes. Thank you. I'd like to point out about Stan. I had a really interesting experience with him. I think it was 1977 when I went. I was in New York and I visited actually Marie Severin who was a friend in Marvel but I took my seven year old daughter and we went to also see Stan to talk with him and I said my daughter has a question for you and my daughter who's a seven year old feminist said why aren't there any women superheroes and he reached up he had a spinner rack that said hey kids comics with marvel he reached up and he took issue number one of ms marvel down and he accordioned his six foot whatever frame down to my daughter's size and handed her the first issue of Ms. Marvel and said, there is now. And this says it all to me about Stan. And years, many, many years later, I think about a year before he died, I ran into him at a San Diego convention and reminded him of that. And it made him very happy. Thank you for sharing. Oh yeah, we do have a question. I think the final question. Yes, I have a question for Trina. It's an honor to have you today. And I'm curious if you were familiar with these comics that you showed us today by Barbara Hall. If you were familiar with this comics as you started to draw your comics in the 70s? Yes, I was. I didn't know as much about it as I know now. You know, I've done a lot of research. And I've spoken, I spoke with Barbara Hall before she died. Never met Jill Elgin. She's kind of a mystery woman. She went on to illustrate children's books. But I did know about them, yes. And at the time, I mean, when I first discovered the Girl Commandos, I did not know they had been drawn by women. Barbara Hall used to sign her work, B. Hall, not necessarily because it sounded male. It was just an initial, our first initial. One more question. Oh, yeah. The very back. Hi. I have another question for Trina. I was wondering, in the depiction of female superheroes, if there was any difference in how they were depicted in comparison to male superheroes? Was there different tropeses or was there any difference or were they depicted the same? You mean during the war? Yes. In the 40s, right? Yes. Well, actually, very often they wore skirts, but, you know, above the knee. But really women were wearing short skirts during the war. I mean, you saw in that one picture of the girl commandos, how they're dressed in little gray uniforms. Really cute. I mean, very different compared to during the 80s and 90s. There was really a terrible period in comics when women were wearing tiny little Brazilian bikini outfits. And it was absolutely not being read by women because the art was so insulting to women. But during the war, judging from the letter columns, a lot of women were reading columns. And a lot of women who were in the military were reading columns. Thank you. And about the way that the women and their storylines were crafted, was that also similar to the ones of men? Or was there sort of different tropes? Like did the superheroes ever go off and marry and have kids because they were women or was that not something that happened? During the war, there was no propaganda about getting married and having kids. During the war, it was all about fighting the bad guys, fighting the Axis. The whole thing about finding yourself, finding true love and getting married and having a family came after the war. And it really is definitely subtle propaganda. But I don't think it was planned. I have to say this. It just, comics reflect the era in which they're being written and drawn and published. It isn't like they all got together and said, let's change everything. It just, it changed because that was the, that was what was in the air, you know. Thank you. Thank you so much for the information. Okay. Thank you so much again to the both of you. This was a wonderful experience having you online. I wish you great rest of your days. And yeah, thank you for the questions from the audience. And again, let's show. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Jeff, I'm sorry that I missed part of what you said because it was so interesting. It was fascinating. We can talk later. Yes, I'd love to. Enjoy the rest of the conference. We will. Have a great day. Yes, I'd love to. Enjoy the rest of the conference. Have a great day. Yes, everyone, enjoy the conference. Thank you. Thank you.