The World Encyclopedia of Comics - Hardcover

Horn, Maurice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0877543232 ISBN 13: 9780877543237

Publisher: Chelsea House Pub, 1985

Synopsis

Book by Horn, Maurice

About this title

From Booklist:

Updating a comprehensive reference classic (originally published in 1976), this second edition adds some 200 new entries to the original 1,200 as well as revising 600 entries that appeared in the first edition. A large proportion of the new entries comes from areas of the world that were underrepresented in the 1976 edition: Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. The purpose is the same as that stated in the foreword to the first edition: "to cover the entire field of comic art in all of its aspects--artistic, cultural, sociological and commercial--on a global scale." The book's format remains largely unchanged, even though the content has been thoroughly revised.

The 31-page essay on the history of comics that focused on the U.S. in the previous edition has been updated and broadened to include coverage from all over the world. This is followed by a revised world chronology of comic art, updated through 1997, and an unchanged extended essay analyzing comics as art.

The main body of the work consists of the alphabetized entries of comic strips and the creators and producers of comics. On almost every page, Horn has inserted black-and-white relevant examples of comic strips; and in this edition, he has substituted newer or more illustrative examples of comic art. An appealing and thoroughly revised 80-page section of color comic art reproduction appears in volume 3. Revisions and expansions of other essays by the book's contributors (such as a history of newspaper syndication), a glossary, a bibliography, and several appendixes (including the Code of the Comics Magazine Association of America and the "official facsimile of excerpts from the record of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency" in 1954) follow the main entries.

The three indexes have been expanded to seven, allowing readers to access information by proper name, title, media, contributors' names, geographical location, illustrations in the book, and general subject.

Those libraries with the first edition of The World Encyclopedia of Comics should replace it with this revised version. Other academic libraries, some high-school libraries, and all but the smallest public libraries should also purchase this reference bible on a fascinating subject.

From Library Journal:

While no encyclopedia covering ongoing periodical literature can ever be truly complete, the multivolume set here, enlarged and updated from its first edition published 20 years ago, comes impressively close. Horn, an internationally recognized comics authority with several similar books to his credit, has ensured that this work offers a staggering overview, including the obvious newspaper strips and superhero tales as well as underground, independent, and international titles. While not every single comic ever printed is covered here, and while other comics histories might cover single creators or a particular company more extensively, no other publication offers such a wide and varied scope. Extensive historical data are to be found in the first half of Volume 1, and then the listings begin, reporting on writers, artists, publishers, and characters galore, all mixed together alphabetically and covering information up to December 1997. Entries are at times uneven. For example, the glowing discussion of Bill Waterson's wonderful decade-long run of Calvin and Hobbes is equal in length to that of DC's Batman, even though the latter has a 60-year publishing history. Entries can be brutal on perennial favorites (Batman is judged a "worn-out cliche," and Captain America "limps on"), and key developments are sometimes overlooked (Cap's significant resurgence under Mark Waid and John Garney in 1996 is not even mentioned). Even so, this set has appeal owing to its thorough and insightful coverage and ample illustrations and by virtue of its being the only one of its kind. Only minor differences exist between the single-volume version and the set reviewed above; the hefty tome has the same content and page count as the set, with certain reorganizations (the 80 pages of color illustrations are found together, and comics history articles are found toward the back). Either version is well recommended, but the price difference would make the single-volume work the obvious choice.?Chris Ryan, New Milford, NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chelsea House Pub
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0877543232
• ISBN 13: 9780877543237
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 215