The New Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Stories: From Crumb to Clowes - Hardcover

Callahan, Bob

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1588341836 ISBN 13: 9781588341839

Publisher: Smithsonian Books, 2004

Synopsis

A panorama of some of the most creative and subversive art of our times, this one-of-a-kind anthology celebrates the artistry and insight of comic book art, graphic novels, and graphic journalism from the 1960s to the present. Classics such as R. Crumb's I Remember the Sixties, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's Spider-Man saga “The Final Chapter,” and Dan Clowes's Caricature are featured, plus new sequences of work by Chris Ware and Ben Katchor created exclusively for this volume.

The book is divided into four main galleries: Underground Comics, Silver Age Super Heroes, A Raw Generation, and Dark Fiction and Deep Fantasy, and includes a special supplement of four-color work by Lynda Barry and others as well. In his lively introduction, Bob Callahan celebrates the achievements of American comic book art from the late 1930s to the present. An indispensable collection.

About this title

About the Author

Bob Callahan is editor of The New Comics Anthology, the original Kollected Krazy Kat (with Bill Blackbeard), and, with Art Spiegelman, the Neon Lit Graphic Novel Library. The author of The Dark Hotel, he lives in Berkely, CA.

From Publishers Weekly

The first Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics was and remains an invaluable resource for comics readers, collecting excellent and rare works with precision and wit. This new volume is neither precise nor witty, and actually performs a disservice to comics readers and historians. Under the aegis of collecting both mainstream and "alternative" comics from the mid-1960s to the present, Callahan has included such artists as Ben Katchor, Frank Miller, Joe Kubert and Chris Ware. With a book like this, insiders will inevitably make "how come so-and-so wasn't included" arguments. In this case, though, absences and inclusions will cause readers to question the core value of this volume. Callahan purports to cover the scope of comics from the last 40 or so years, but leaves out hugely influential figures in contemporary comics, including Mark Beyer, Aline Kominsky, Julie Doucet, Phoebe Gloeckner (there's a severe dearth of female cartoonists), Howard Chaykin, Chester Brown, Todd McFarlane, S. Clay Wilson, Dave Sim and many, many others. Instead, there are minor works by minor cartoonists like Rick Geary, Melinda Gebbie and Frank Stack, and jumbled or inconsequential work from great cartoonists like Gilbert Hernandez, Kaz, Joe Sacco, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Neither a definitive anthology nor a helpful resource, this is a haphazard grab bag of some good comics, numerous dubious achievements and some downright mysteries.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Smithsonian Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1588341836
• ISBN 13: 9781588341839
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400