I can be an adult and still like comics.

Being an adult and a comics fan go hand-in-hand

It was the summer of 1945, during the height of New York’s newspaper delivery strike affecting millions of readers, when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia took to the WNYC airwaves and read aloud for his paperless listeners one section of the paper: the comics.

Dick Tracy. Little Orphan Annie. Providing his own sound effects, the mayor acted out the day’s strips with all the vocal verve of Patton Oswalt. The twist was, although this public service was ostensibly for the “kiddies,” his act — complete with his own asides of political moralizing — was aimed, too, at the grown-ups.

What La Guardia knew: Adults have been a vital part of a comics-reading American audience at least since strips began appearing in U.S. newspapers at the end of the 19th century. And as the Library of Congress has noted, comics readership served a “social function” among grown-ups. Which is why Bill Maher’s latest double-down claim over the weekend — that comics aren’t for adults — comes across as a head-scratcher.

When did having an escapist hobby — be it comics or sci-fi/fantasy films, the Super Bowl or Star Wars, vintage movies or old comedy recordings — mean you had betrayed your adulthood?

Last November, Maher and his Real Time writers used the death of Marvel editor Stan Lee as a springboard for a rant against comic books and comicbook film adaptations. The editorial, which was titled Adulting and was published on Maher’s blog, said: “The problem is, we’re using our smarts on stupid stuff. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important.”

That editorial predictably drew the ire of many comics fans, including filmmaker and past Maher guest Kevin Smith, who spoke up for the creative contributions of Lee.

Last Friday, Maher clapped back during the New Rules monologue segment that concludes each episode of his HBO show. The bit was savvy in some aspects, and he and his writers had some genuinely hilarious lines. But perhaps the larger point is that Maher and his writers know that pop-culture properties with rabid fandoms represent juicy red meat for gleeful takedowns — even when the editorial’s premise doesn’t fully pass the smell test.

A decade ago, I interviewed Maher and Stan Lee separately. Lee said he followed his own taste and curiosity about what would make a compelling comicbook story. Maher claimed it was difficult to overestimate just how stupid the American voter could be.

Those words illuminated how they thought of their audience and motivations as writers and performers.

Lee wanted his readers to stop and feel what his characters felt — to identify with their challenges and flaws.

Maher wants his viewers to stop and think — to recognize the flaws in our leadership and culture and, in his view, think critically.

Maher says he has “nothing against comic books” — after all, he did appear in Shane Black’s adaptation Iron Man 3.

His larger point — about being a fully engaged adult in dire times — feels born out of his frustrations with the U.S. electorate, rather than a hatred of comics.

The reality might be that Americans spend billions of dollars annually on superhero and space movies and video games, but Maher seems to be imploring a nostalgia-loving culture not to escape our political reality.

And so, when crafting a rant against comic books, the clichés about geek fans (their obsession with cosplay, their throwback-to-childhood clothes, their dependence on parents’ basements) are simply the easiest targets.

Some people will never be fans of your hobby or passion. So what?

I know that the first comic book I intellectually loved as a kid also made me stop and think, too. It sometimes was like reading George Carlin in pictorial form.

And it had the same effect on generations of readers who grew to appreciate all types of satire — such fans turned comedy practitioners as Judd Apatow, Lewis Black and Stephen Colbert.

That comic book was MAD magazine.

MAD, born out of the Eisenhower era, reached millions of readers by the Nixon administration, before enduring a gradual decline in circulation.

Without MAD, many comedy experts have said, there might well be no Saturday Night Live or The Simpsons, no The Daily Show or Last Week Tonight — perhaps even no culture fully prepared to appreciate Maher’s Politically Incorrect or Real Time.

MAD writers, artists and editors showed readers how to question authority with a sly smile and subversive truth. And arguably their wisest sleight of hand was that MAD never openly aspired to be high satiric “literature.”

Yet by flying the pirate flag of Stupidity, MAD could safely hide a sly sociopolitical intelligence in its hull.

To discover this comic book felt like joining a club — and many adults didn’t forget the password just because they had graduated from adolescence.

MAD mascot Alfred E. Neuman likes to say, “What, me worry?” and perhaps comics fans shouldn’t worry so much about detractors like Maher and his writers.

Better to share the giddy joy in the margins, where MAD’s Aragones has long toiled — even when onceculturally marginalized comics fans eventually become the pop mainstream.

After all, MAD also taught young Americans not to believe everything they see on TV.