In terms of "comic books" I think it can be a complicated problem of 
culture, perception and behavior. I attended a lecture in 
the "Neighborhood House" in Setauket, NY which Mr. Edward Rutsch would 
have liked to have been at, a noted industrial archaeologist, but instead 
we watched the film he was in about urban industrial archaeology. On the 
table were different brochures and literature, e.g., then the local Bronx 
Historical Society's "new" yearly canoe trip on the Bronx River, now about 
to become a "Blueway" alongside the "Greenway", a small river the British 
King George once erroneously ordered Admiral Cornwallis to sail up and 
route the rebels in White Plains (perhaps exposed to too much arsenic from 
Cornwallis' wig). One "comic book" told the early story of Puerto Rico's 
role and noted persons, drawn up by a local high school in the 
Bicentennial to illustrate Puerto Rican influence in the history of the 
early republic, which I gave to a native who went to work for their press 
in NYC. It was produced during the bicentennial.

Another revelation for example connected to the "bicentennial" in 
particular was the revelation that Aaron Burr was in Tishomingo, 
Mississippi, after the duel with Alexander Hamilton in the Hasbrouck 
Heights of New Jersey which resulted in Hamilton's demise, I once 
discussed with the Shelby County, Tennessee historian working there in 
Mississippi on the Tenn-Tom Barge Canal. Alexander Hamilton's house in NYC 
is still a preservation conundrum awaiting a "permanent" site.

I'm not sure if the blanketing of schools with comic books to rival fire 
department literature is anyway to deter "looters" in NYC. The 
one "looting" case I was informed of, involved an innocent minority 
adolescent who had neither motive or means from such an "opportunity".