Creator: Brian “Box” Brown
First Second Books, 2023
This somewhat depressing title was published last year. Here is the promotional copy:
Brian “Box” Brown brings history and culture to life through his comics. In his new graphic novel, he unravels how marketing that targeted children in the 1980s has shaped adults in the present.
Powered by the advent of television and super-charged by the deregulation era of the 1980s, media companies and toy manufacturers joined forces to dominate the psyches of American children. But what are the consequences when a developing brain is saturated with the same kind of marketing bombardment found in Red Scare propaganda?
Brian “Box” Brown’s The He-Man Effect shows how corporate manipulation brought muscular, accessory-stuffed action figures to dizzying heights in the 1980s and beyond. Bringing beloved brands like He-Man, Transformers, My Little Pony, and even Mickey Mouse himself into the spotlight, this graphic history exposes a world with no rules and no concern for results beyond profit.
The He-Man Effect is a look at the bleak world of advertising to children. It is a comic describing an advertising dystopia involving corporations seeding childhoods with consumerism, triggered by media deregulation in the Reagan era.
This might seem quite ordinary today, where consumers completely expect cross-promotion of toys with media. It would not be quite right to see a movie like Thunderbolts* about to be released by Marvel Studios without a host of action figures and other toys, masks and costumes, birthday cakes and backpacks, all for the consumption of children and not a few adults.
But why do we expect it? The roots of this consumer behaviour were set down in the 1980s, and involved a great deal of cynical psychology. It is disorientating to see the memories of childhood cut apart with precision in the autopsy which is this title, and the entrails revealed for their gory purpose. Deregulation allowed toy companies to fuse advertising and children’s television. The sad thing about the title is how obvious in retrospect it was that many of us experienced a childhood of commercial exploitation masked as wonderment. (And it persists. There is a great deal of nostalgia for the toys of youth. Online shopping forums like eBay sell obscure Micronaut vintage characters for exorbitant amounts of money, cashing in on Gen X’s desire for mementos.)
Much of this is accredited by the title’s creator, Brian “Box” Brown, to industrial designer Roger Sweet (Roger Sweet – Wikipedia ). Toy giant Mattel belatedly realised it had missed an opportunity in declining to manufacture and sell Star Wars -themed products, and so at Mattels’ behest Mr Sweet came up with a hulking blonde good guy with a sword and loincloth. It worked marvellously.
The cartoonish art is a contrast to the predatory themes. Simple line drawings make good diagrams. The influence of Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) is obvious. The rubbery art seems entirely appropriate when telling the tale of mass-produced plastic toys. The narrative features cartoon drawings many characters readers would recognise: He-Man and his sister She-Ra from Masters of the Universe; Transformers; many characters from Star Wars; a brief cameo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Avengers, and many other heroes from Marvel and DC Comics. (Obviously, they do not interact in a fictional way. The art features representations of toys played with by kids.)
Mr Brown’s first release was in 2014, concerning someone who was once the world’s most famous professional wrestler: André the Giant: Life and Legend, in 2018, Mr Brown released Is This Guy For Real? The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman. This title received an Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work. In 2019, Mr Brown released Cannabis: The Illegalization of Weed in America. (Mr Brown is a subject matter expert on the legalisation of cannabis.) In 2020, Mr Brown released the fictional satire Child Star. In 2023, Mr Brown released (in conjunction with security expert Andrew S. Weiss) Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin (a title we will review later this year). The He-Man Effect is a compelling addition to a dynamic creative career.
