The sounds silently echo off the walls of Hill Memorial Library.
Super Stories: A Brief History of Comics is the newest LSU Libraries Special Collection’s exhibit on display at the Hill Library until Oct. 20.
“We believed the exhibit would be something different to bring in visitors who haven’t ever used the collections before,” said Leah Wood Jewett, exhibitions coordinator.
The comics displayed on the first and second floor are just the tip of the collection’s iceberg.
University graduate William Morton Bowlus collected more than 7,000 comic books and related materials until his untimely death in his late 20s because of Marfan syndrome.
His mother, Martha Bowlus, donated the collection to LSU Libraries to honor William’s memory.
After months of cataloging the comics into the LSU special collections and gathering the research for the exhibit, “Super Stories” opened to the public June 25.
The exhibit does more than feature the comic book as an art form. It presents comic books as a medium much like novels and films.
“As a popular culture medium, comic books reflect society and have a certain level of influence on the culture from which they were created,” Jewett said.
The first floor displays tell the basic history of the industry highlighting the Golden Age when Superman reigned supreme and the Silver Age when superhero teams like The Fantastic Four came into the strip. There is an emphasis on the publishing heavyweights including EC, Marvel and DC comics.
Up, up and away to the second floor, the displays go deeper into various underlying concepts hidden within the entertaining dialogue. Some of the topics included are race and ethnicity, censorship, gender and nuclear warfare.
For students short on change for a comic book or the recent superhero flick, there is always the “Super Heroes” exhibit, which is free and open to the public.
The Hill Library is open Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays to 1 p.m. The exhibit will be on display until Oct. 20.
—–Contact Morgan Ford at [email protected]