A Complete History of American Comic Books: Afterword by Steve Geppi

This book is an updated history of the American comic book by an industry insider. You’ll follow the development of comics from the first appearance of the comic book format in the Platinum Age of the 1930s to the creation of the superhero genre in the Golden Age, to the current period, where comics flourish as graphic novels and blockbuster movies. Along the way you will meet the hustlers, hucksters, hacks, and visionaries who made the American comic book what it is today. It’s an exciting journey, filled with mutants, changelings, atomized scientists, gamma-ray accidents, and supernaturally empowered heroes and villains who challenge the imagination and spark the secret identities lurking within us.

The Author: Shirrel Rhoades is a former executive vice president of Marvel Entertainment and publisher of Marvel Comics. During a forty-plus-year career, he has held executive positions with Reader’s Digest, Ladies’ Home Journal, Redbook, Harper’s, and Scholastic. He taught magazine management for seventeen years at New York University’s Center for Publishing, and he continues to consult in the magazine and comics industries.