Temmen en verontrusten: de atoombom in de stripverhalen. Blake en Mortimer en Tom Poes (1946-1960)

Abstract

To reassure or to disturb: Comic stories about the atom bomb in the Netherlands 1946-1960 This article analyses some very popular comic stories, published 1946-1960, by Marten Toonder and Edgar Jacobs about the atomic bomb, attempting to understand what kind of insight they provided their audience into the frightening new phenomenon. Borrowing from H. Arendt and J. Bruner the idea of narrative as a dialectic of the established and the possible, I attempt to show how both authors related the new weapon to the well-known world their stories departed from. Jacobs' goal was to reassure the reader in the end, turning the possible into the established. Toonder, on the other hand, provides only a seeming resolution. While bringing his heroes safely home, he leaves his readers deeply disturbed.