Publisher Description

Comics have conquered America. From our multiplexes, where Marvel and DC movies reign supreme, to our television screens, where comics-based shows likeThe Walking Deadhave become among the most popular in cable history, to convention halls, best-seller lists, Pulitzer Prize–winning titles, and MacArthur Fellowship recipients,comics shape American culture, in ways high and low,superficial,and deeply profound. InAmerican Comics, Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber takes readers through theirincredible but little-knownhistory, starting with the Civil War and cartoonist Thomas Nast, creator of the lasting and iconic images of Uncle Sam and Santa Claus; the golden age of newspaper comic stripsand the first great superhero boom; the moral panic of the Eisenhower era, the Marvel Comics revolution, and the underground comix movement of the 1960s and '70s; andfinally into the twenty-first century, taking in the grim and gritty Dark Knights andWatchmen alongside the brilliant rise of the graphic novel byacclaimedpractitioners like Art Spiegelman and Alison Bechdel. Dauber's story shows not only how comics have changed over the decades but how American politics and culture have changed them. Throughout, he describes the origins of beloved comics, champions neglected masterpieces, and argues that we can understand how America sees itself throughwhosestories comics tell. Striking and revelatory, American Comics is a rich chronicle of the last 150 years of American history through the lens of its comic strips, political cartoons, superheroes, graphic novels, and more. FEATURING
American Splendor Archie The Avengers Kyle Baker Batman C. C. Beck Black Panther Captain America RozChast Walt Disney Will Eisner NeilGaiman BillGaines Bill Griffith Harley Quinn Jack Kirby Denis Kitchen KrazyKat Harvey Kurtzman Stan Lee Little Orphan Annie Maus Frank Miller Alan Moore Mutt and Jeff GaryPanter Peanuts DavPilkey Gail Simone Spider-Man Superman Dick Tracy WonderWart-Hog Wonder Woman The Yellow Kid Zap Comix
ANDMANY MORE OFYOURFAVORITES!

Author Biography

Jeremy Dauber is a professor of Jewish literature and American studies at Columbia University. He is the author of Jewish Comedy and The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem, both finalists for the National Jewish Book Award. He lives in New York City.

Review

"[Dauber is] a spry, humorous storyteller… [he] suggests that the story of American comics is 'right in the middle of its run'. If so, this is a very readable map of where it has been." -- Teddy Jamieson - The Herald
"Until now one could only dream of an engaging, analytic history encompassing the entire medium. That sounds like a job for Superman, but Jeremy Dauber has gotten there first…His perceptive, critical overview is enlivened by a jaunty style that bops from the political cartoons of Thomas Nast in the 1860s to the demise of an equally influential gadfly, Mad magazine, in 2018" -- Michael Saler - Wall Street Journal
"An entertaining and richly detailed new history of comics…[B]oth opinionated and frequently funny…[T]he story Dauber tells is a mighty one." -- Michael Tisserand - New York Times Book Review
"The first book about comics that covers events I was there for, where I'm not shaking my head at how wrong it is. A really good history of all the different strands of comics that came together over the last hundred and twenty years to become American Comics." -- Neil Gaimon

Review Quote

"With encyclopedic knowledge, Jeremy Dauber brilliantly excavates the story of this art form--warts and all--from its origins right up to the twenty-first century, and strikes cartoon gold. For anyone curious about a medium that's influenced and embedded itself in every part of our culture, American Comics is an essential guidebook. If you are already a connoisseur of comics, be prepared to be enlightened anew."

Details