{"id":32434,"date":"2023-05-01T19:19:19","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T23:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/?page_id=32434"},"modified":"2025-11-21T14:15:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T19:15:15","slug":"books-about-comics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/reading-list\/books-about-comics\/","title":{"rendered":"Books About Comics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

EXPLORES THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE MEDIUM<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Understanding Comics<\/strong><\/a>
Basically comics are a sequence of images based on space that have a narrative-like quality and visual direction to them. McCloud<\/strong><\/a> compares comics to film and film strips, although film is based more on time and the amount allotted when viewing each image.
It also goes into what we see in comics, and how images translate an understanding to a viewer. McCloud<\/strong><\/a> also talks about two realms that we experience: the realm of concept and the realm of the senses. The more simplistic a comic, the more personality it has because if a comic is drawn too similarly to actual reality, realism plays a part in taking away from the narrative itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS OF AMERICAN COMICS<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Men of Tomorrow<\/strong><\/a>
This history of the birth of superhero comics highlights three pivotal figures. The story begins early in the last century, on the Lower East Side, where Harry Donenfeld<\/a><\/strong> rises from the streets to become king of the \u201csmooshes\u201d\u2014soft-core magazines with titles like French Humor<\/em> and Hot Tales<\/em>. . Later, two high-school friends in Cleveland, Joe Shuster<\/a><\/strong> and Jerry Siegel<\/a><\/strong>, become avid fans of \u201cscientifiction,\u201d the new kind of literature promoted by their favorite pulp magazines. The disparate worlds of the wise guy and the geeks collide in 1938, and the result is Action Comics 1<\/em>, the debut of Superman. For Donenfeld<\/a>,<\/strong> the comics were a way to sidestep the censors. For Shuster<\/a><\/strong> and Siegel<\/a><\/strong>, they were both a calling and an eventual source of misery: the pair waged a lifelong campaign for credit and appropriate compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Ten-Cent Plague<\/a><\/strong>
After World War II, the squeaky-clean comic book superheroes of the 1940s were joined on newsstand shelves by darker, edgier anti-heroes and -heroines. Inspired by the same influences driving pulp fiction and film noir, comic books took on grittier, more adult narratives \u2014 and naturally were a hit with young readers.
It wasn’t long before parents took notice. The heated controversy over comics included book burnings and congressional hearings and were about much more than cartoons. Ten-Cent Plague<\/em> details how the controversy nearly killed the comic business but also played a key role in defining postwar pop culture. The comic-book war was one of the first and hardest-fought conflicts between young people and their parents in America.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Marvel Comics: The Untold Story<\/a> <\/strong>Tells the story of Marvel from its beginnings in 1939, with the publication of Marvel Comics No. 1, up until 2012. Its pages are filled with anecdotes and reminiscences and insider gossip. Due to the work-for-hire policy that governed Marvel, those who, like Kirby<\/a><\/strong>, created best-selling characters were solely dependent on company largesse if they hoped to receive any financial rewards other than their base salary. And Marvel’s management had no qualms about behaving nastily towards former employees; It also reveals how unprofitable the comic book industry was, until the direct sales market matured ca. 1979 \u2013 1980. Prior to that time, Marvel was resigned to selling only one of every three comic books it produced. The company was often at the mercy of distributors, some of whom would simply let stacks of comics lie fallow in their warehouses, before tearing off the covers, submitting them for credit, and then selling the cover-less comics for a 100% profit.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Comic Book Apocalypse!<\/a><\/strong> Explore the rise and fall of pre-Code comics with\u00a0500 covers revealing America’s cultural shifts, censorship, and controversy. From 1940 to 1955, American society and culture underwent dramatic changes, including the introduction of the Comics Code in October 1954, which heavily impacted comic books.The Code aimed to moderate comic content in response to public opinion, including such topics as\u00a0juvenile delinquency, wartime sentiment, teenage sex, drugs, violent crime, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FICTION THAT CELEBRATES COMICS<\/h2>\n\n\n
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The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay<\/strong><\/a>
It is New York City in 1939. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat to date: smuggling himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague. He is looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn’s own Sammy Clay, is looking for a collaborator to create the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Out of their fantasies, fears, and dreams, Joe and Sammy weave the legend of that unforgettable champion the Escapist. As the shadow of Hitler falls across Europe and the world, the Golden Age of comic books has begun.
Visit The Amazing Website Of Kavalier & Clay<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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It’s Superman!<\/strong><\/a>
\nComing of age in rural 1930s America with X-ray vision, the power to stop bullets, and the ability to fly isn\u2019t exactly every boy\u2019s story. So just how did Clark Kent, a shy farmer\u2019s son, grow up to be the Man of Steel? Follow young Clark\u2019s whirlwind journey from Kansas to New York City\u2019s Daily Planet.<\/em> This ace reporter is not the only person leading a double life in a teeming metropolis, just the only one able to leap tall buildings in a single bound\u2014a skill that comes in handy when battling powerful criminal masterminds like scheming Lex Luthor and fascist robots. But can Clark\u2019s midwestern charm save the day and win the heart of stunning, seen-it-all newspaperwoman Lois Lane? Or is that a job for Superman?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PERSONAL EXAMINATION OF COMIC BOOKS<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Supergods<\/strong><\/a>
Comic book heroes are powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence: Through them we tell the story of ourselves, our troubled history, and our starry aspirations. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Morrison<\/strong> draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero – why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are\u2026 and what we may yet become.
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COMICS ABOUT CREATORS<\/h2>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>The Joe Shuster Story:
The Artist Behind Superman<\/em><\/strong><\/a>
Everyone knows Superman, but not everyone knows the story of two youngsters from Cleveland, Ohio who created Superman. Based on archival material and original sources, “Truth, Justice, and the American Way: The Joe Shuster<\/strong> Story” tells the story of the friendship between writer Jerry Siegel<\/strong> and illustrator Joe Shuster<\/strong>, and puts it into the wider context of the American comic book industry. It also shows how creating Superman changed their lives both for the better and for the worse. It\u2019s a story not just about Superman but the history of the comic book industry as a whole.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Bill the Boy Wonder:<\/a>
The Secret Co-Creator of Batman<\/a>
<\/em><\/span><\/strong>Every Batman story is marked with the words “Batman created by Bob Kane<\/strong>.” But that isn’t the whole truth. A struggling writer named Bill Finger<\/strong> was involved from the beginning. Bill<\/strong> helped invent Batman, from concept to costume to character. He dreamed up Batman’s haunting origins, his colorful nemeses and Gotham City. Despite his brilliance, Bill<\/strong> worked in obscurity. It was only after his death that fans went to bat for Bill<\/strong>, calling for acknowledgment that he was co-creator of Batman.
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\"\"<\/a>Jack Kirby:
The Epic Life Of The King Of Comics<\/em><\/strong><\/a>
This sweeping, full-color comic book biography tells the complete life story of Jack Kirby<\/strong><\/a>, co-creator of some of the most enduring superheroes and villains of the twentieth century for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and more. Critically acclaimed graphic novelist Tom Scioli<\/strong> breathes visual life into Kirby\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> life story\u2013from his days growing up in New York during the Great Depression and discovering a love for science fiction and cartoons to his time on the frontlines in the European theatre of World War II where he experienced the type of action and adventure he\u2019d later imbue his comic pages with, and on to his world-changing collaborations at Marvel with Stan Lee<\/strong>, where the pair redefined comics as a part of pop culture.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EXPLORES THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE MEDIUM Understanding ComicsBasically comics are a sequence of images based on space that have a narrative-like quality and visual direction to them. McCloud compares comics to film and film strips, although film is based … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":32436,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-32434","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32434"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38507,"href":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32434\/revisions\/38507"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bunchofdorks.com\/twodimensionpodcast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}