I spent most of the week a few weeks ago reading the prelim exams of a woman who was proposing to write her Ph. D. in consumer science — her interests were similar to those in this comic, but different in that I am about four hundred times more cynical than she is about consumerism in general, and I don’t believe in buying things if I can help it.
A lot of the info in this comic comes from a book I’ve been reading called No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920 by T. J. Jackson Lears. I am not really a history person per se, but I really enjoy the description of the ideas — it knocks me out that you can actually pinpoint the time and mechanism at and by which our society became what it is. You can probably tell that I enjoyed this, because there are so many words. As I told some friends who were hanging around while I was inking it, I meant to edit it…and accidentally added more words. I’ll be back next week to talk about another fascinating consequence of consumer culture.
This comic was really fun to draw. For some reason, I loved drawing Mr. Chomsky, and Ford also came out well. I also enjoy the last two panels.
This comic is filed under HC79.C63 L86 2010, for Economic history and conditions — Special topics, A-Z — Consumer demand. Consumers. Consumption. For other, somewhat related comics, click here.