IV 
118TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 598 
Recognizing the immense capacity of the popular arts to bring people together, 
inspire creativity and imagination, promote critical thinking, and instill 
the universal values of truth, justice, and equality. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 18, 2023 
Mr. ROBERT GARCIA of California submitted the following resolution; which 
was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Accountability 
RESOLUTION 
Recognizing the immense capacity of the popular arts to 
bring people together, inspire creativity and imagination, 
promote critical thinking, and instill the universal values 
of truth, justice, and equality. 
Whereas nearly 5,000,000 Americans work in the arts and 
cultural production industry; 
Whereas the overall arts economy represents approximately 
4.5 percent of the gross domestic product of the United 
States, or just over $1,000,000,000,000; 
Whereas both creation and production of new content across 
every sphere of the popular arts industry would not be 
possible without union labor and every artist, creator, 
and worker in the popular arts industry deserves well- 
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•HRES 598 IH 
paying wages, representation, and to have the dignity of 
their work protected; 
Whereas, since the debut of the television industry, the num-
ber of traditional television and home video viewers has 
grown over time to 5,400,000,000 in 2022 and has cre-
ated $94,000,000,000 in global revenue; 
Whereas the global comic book industry today is worth more 
than $9,210,000,000; 
Whereas 
the 
gaming 
industry 
is 
worth 
more 
than 
$300,000,000,000 with approximately 3,000,000,000 
people worldwide playing video games and the global 
Esports audience set to rise above half a billion by 2024; 
Whereas fantasy books, along with science fiction, generate 
nearly $600,000,000 in sales each year in the United 
States and fantasy audiobooks hold the largest share of 
sales among all audiobook categories; 
Whereas hundreds of annual Comic Cons all across the 
United States have attracted upwards of 250,000 visitors 
to individual conventions; 
Whereas Comic Cons inject tourism and foster enormous 
growth, with the largest conventions injecting upwards of 
$100,000,000 into their local economies; 
Whereas the lineage of comics and other visual popular arts 
has been traced by academics to word-image texts that 
evolved from cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, 
Mayan carvings, illuminated manuscripts, the Bayeux 
Tapestry, early woodcut printing, the serial illustrations 
of William Hogarth and Rodolphe To¨pffer, and the 
engravings of William Blake; 
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•HRES 598 IH 
Whereas superheroes entered the world of comic books in 
1938 with the release of ‘‘Action Comics No. 1’’ and the 
debut of ‘‘Superman’’; 
Whereas works include Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, 
‘‘Maus’’ (1980–1986), which won the Pulitzer Prize and 
Congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis’ National 
Book Award-winning ‘‘March’’ which was, itself, inspired 
by a 1958 comic ‘‘Martin Luther King and the Mont-
gomery Story’’; 
Whereas the most valuable comic book to-date remains the 
first edition of ‘‘Action Comics’’, considered by many to 
be the first proper comic book to come into existence, 
which was sold for $3,200,000 in 2022 after going for 10 
cents a piece in 1938; 
Whereas, in 2020, graphic novels made up 67 percent of the 
children’s book market in the United States; 
Whereas comic books and the popular arts are a valuable lit-
erary tool for helping educate millions of children allow-
ing them to learn English and other languages; and 
Whereas the Library of Congress has more than 140,000 
issues of about 13,000 comic-book titles and is the larg-
est comic book collection in the world: Now, therefore, be 
it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) recognizes the immense capacity of the pop-
ular arts to bring people together, inspire creativity 
and imagination, promote critical thinking, and in-
still the universal values of truth, justice, and equal-
ity; 
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•HRES 598 IH 
(2) honors the unique impact of the popular 
arts on generations of Americans and the broader 
global community; and 
(3) recognizes the importance of promoting the 
popular arts to broader audiences and advancing in-
creased representation within all forms of the pop-
ular arts. 
Æ 
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