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No hero similar to Superman could have appeared in communist Poland, as he represented the power of individualism and followed his own feelings of justice. Meanwhile, the communists expected one to act in a collectivity fully subordinate to the official government. This deficiency was compensated by superhero parodies. One should firstly enumerate the TV film Hydrozagadka, about a hero, who had no drawn equivalent, though he was a mockery of the comic book poetics and of the simplifications it conveys. After the communist system fell, other superhero parodies appeared, such as Ratman, Strain, Milkyman and Wilq. Also, Likwidator by Ryszard Dąbrowski constituted irreverent and mischievous comment to political events in Poland. Only later did serious superhero stories essays appear: Bler by Rafał Szłapa, Biały Orzeł by Adam Kmiołek and Jan Hardy by Jakub Kijuc. These authors take their heroes very seriously but readers can find much irony in the stories.

The text is an attempt to present what a postmodern picture book for children is. The main thesis indicates the tendency to break the traditional discourse, inscribed in children’s books. Ear-lier it was used mainly in parodies of this type of literature. Authors such as Edward Gorey, Ruth Krauss, and Maurice Sendak, may be considered precursors of post-modern picture books. Contem-porary artists using similar poetics are Raymond Briggs, Chris Van Allsburg, David Wiesner, and Jon Scieszka. Their characteristic features of narration are references to other works, the strategy of unmasking the fictionality of the message and the idea of revealing the materiality of the book. The issue of metafiction came to the fore in theoretical considerations about post-modern picture books from 2018. This kind of academic research can be considered as a manifestation of a broader tendency to constitute a new relationship between the recipient and the text of culture, excluding the naive reception of the reader.

Artykuł przedstawia zarys dziejów komiksu w Polsce od 1956 roku po współczesność, stawia tezy dotyczące przyczyn zachodzących wówczas zmian, odnosi się krytycznie do ocen ówczesnego dorobku komiksowego Szyłak outlines the history of the comic book in Poland since 1956 and tries to account for the shifts that marked the development of this form of cultural production. He also presents a critical perspective on the evaluation of comic books in the past.