DC Comics : Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes

In 1935, popular culture was transformed forever when DC published its first book of all-new, all-original comic material. To the delight of millions of kids everywhere, the modern comic book was born.

With the introduction of Superman in 1938. DC Comics made history again, this time with the publication of the first super hero comic book. To this day, the Man of Steel remains the most recognized and celebrated hero in the world. Inspired by its innovative early success, DC went on to create legions of other superheores--Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and dozens more of the most popular comic book characters ever created.

In the sixty years since the first super heroes were created, the artists, writers, and editors of DC Comics have been developing, refining and extending the reach of their comic book characters. The DC fictional world has branched into a worldwide profusion of entertainment formats: books, toys, movies, radio, television, video games, and an online computer network.

Here, for the very first time, is the complete story of America's favorite heroes and their talented, dedicated creators. In over 100 short and spirited essays, author Les Daniels offers remarkable new anecdotes about the company's history, traces the complex genealogies of the characters, describes behind-the-scenes politics that influence the stories, and interviews dozens of artists and writers--the real stars of his engrossing tales. The reader can open the book anywhere and become immersed immediately in the fantasy world of high adventure and magical mayhem.

Daniels (Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, LJ 10/1/91) has produced an institutional history, and as such it is fatally flawed. Far too much space is spent on the recent Batman and Superman films, television series, and marketing schemes, while the revolutionary Neil Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow series merits a mere two pages. The Teen Titans, DC's answer to the popular Marvel X-Men, gets short shrift as well. Despite the terrific reproductions of art and novelty items (including a 1954 book entitled The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis), this will prove nostalgic for those who have thrown out their comics, but of little use to collectors or students. In contrast, Harvey's (The Art of the Funnies, LJ 8/94) scholarly study ignores corporate boundaries and attempts to situate the comic book in terms of its evolution from the comic strip to the world of publishing as a whole. Comic books became an entrenched medium during World War II, when they were popular with soldiers who enjoyed the often lurid, sexy detective stories as well as the comparatively cleaner Westerns and superheroes. Harvey details the sea change brought upon comics by the institution of the Comics Code in 1954, which put horror and detective stories out of business and ushered in the primacy of superheroes. He also engages in close, critical readings of the art itself, focusing on the development of the vocabulary of panel, layout, story, and style, and the relationship between writer and artist during various stages of comic book history. In addition, he pays close attention to the masters, including Will Eisner (who merits only two mentions in Daniels's book), Gil Kane, Frank Miller, and Robert Crumb. The reproductions are ample and illustrate the points made in the text, not the other way around. Highly recommended for collections in popular culture and the history of publishing.?Adam Mazmanian, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.