Wonder Woman and Her the Oueer Intersection of Scientific Huthoritq and Mass Culture Searching High and Low: Introducing Wonder Woman

A commercial medium often assumed to exist solely for a juvenile and "lowbrow" audience, comic books have been largely ignored by academic scholarship. There are some exceptions within the fields of American studies-for instance, the work of Thomas Inge-popular culture studies, where writers gather in a Comic Arts subdivision of the Popular Culture Association, and cultural studies, with work by writers such as British author Martin Barker. But most contemporary scholars working in the history of science, technol';;; ogy, and medicine would probably not expect an argument that U.S. comic books have a place within the twentieth-century history of science, technology, and medicine. Nevertheless, they do; and one comic in particular, Wonder Woman, will show us how. One of seven U.S. comic books to enjoy continuous publication since the medium's 1940S inception, Wonder Woman's monthly stories presently are distributed by the media conglomerate DC Comics/Time Warner. The comic sells in every English-speaking nation and is translated for ,c. export to numerous countries, including Japan, Indonesia, Spain, Mexico, France, and Germany. In addition to (~her" comic book appearances, this amazon body floats globally throughout commodity culture in commercial tie-ins