The history of one company's romance comics and their publisher Archer St. John. It includes a short biography and interviews with the company's editors and artists. St. John's good reputation as a publisher attracted many of the top artists of the day, including Joe Kubert, Leonard Starr, and George Tuska. Benson provides an engaging account of Archer St. John, (once kidnapped by Al Capone) and his distinctive comics. Confessions is lavishly illustrated with examples of the comics and includes rare visuals from the period.
For the better part of three decades romance comics were an American institution. Nearly 6000 titles were published between 1947 and 1977, and for a time one in five comics sold in the U.S. was a romance comic. This first full-length study examines the several types of romance comics, their creators and publishing history. The author explores significant periods in the development of the genre, including the origins of Archie Comics and other teen publications, the romance comic "boom and bust" of the 1950s, and their sudden disappearance when fantasy and superhero comics began to dominate in the late 1970s.
In the late 1940s, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby ― creators of Captain America ― set the comics world on fire with the creation of a new genre that resulted in some of the best-selling American comic books of all time: the romance comics. The stories they created were exciting, innovative, and beautifully drawn, and remain a high point in both artists’ careers, even as Kirby went on to become the unrivaled King of Comics and co-creator (along with Stan Lee) of many of the most iconic characters in American history.
The best and funniest material from the bandwagon-jumping MAD imitators, with work by Jack Davis, Will Elder, Dick Ayers, Bill Everett, Jack Kirby and many more, plus expert commentary. Casual comics readers are probably familiar with the later satirical magazines that continued to be published in the '60s and '70s, such as Cracked and Sick, but the comics collected in this volume were imitations of the MAD comic book, not the magazine, and virtually unknown among all but the most die-hard collectors. For the first time, Fantagraphics is collecting the best of these comics in an unprecedented collection!
As the first encyclopedia solely devoted to the popular romance fiction genre, this resource provides a wealth of information on all aspects of the subject. Romance fiction accounts for a large share of book sales each year, and contrary to popular belief, not all of its readers are women: roughly 16 percent are men. This enormously popular genre continues to captivate people reading for pleasure, and it also commands a growing amount of academic interest. Included are alphabetically arranged reference entries on significant authors along with works, themes, and other topics. The articles are written by scholars, librarians, and industry professionals with a deep knowledge of the genre and so provide a thorough understanding of the subject. An index provides easy access to information within the entries, and bibliographies at the end of each entry, a general bibliography, and a suggested romance reading list allow for further study of the genre.
Romance novels have attracted considerable attention since their mass market debut in 1939, yet seldom has the industry itself been analyzed. Founded in 1949, Harlequin quickly gained market domination with their contemporary romances. Other publishers countered with historical romances, leading to the rise of "bodice-ripper" romances in the 1970s. The liberation of the romance novel's content during the 1980s brought a vitality to the market that was dubbed a revolution, but the real romance revolution began in the 1990s with developments in the mainstream publishing industry and continues today. This book traces the history and evolution of the romance industry, covering successful (and not so successful) trends and describing changes in romance publishing that paved the way for the many popular subgenres flooding the market in the 21st century.
Joe Kubert is one of the great comic book artists. His career literally traverses the history of comics, beginning in 1938 when he became a professional at age 12, to today as one of the greatest draftsmen working in the field. Kubert is known and respected as much for his sinewy, passionate drawing as he is for his consummate storytelling skills. Over his 70-year career in comics, he has worked as an artist, an editor, a publisher, an entrepreneur, and a cartooning auteur. The Art of Joe Kubert is a deluxe, full-color book that honors this legendary creator with beautifully reproduced artwork from every phase of his career as well as critical commentary by the book’s editor, comics historian and Kubert biographer Bill Schelly.
Focusing especially on American comic books and graphic novels from the 1930s to the present, this massive four-volume work provides a colorful yet authoritative source on the entire history of the comics medium. Comics and graphic novels have recently become big business, serving as the inspiration for blockbuster Hollywood movies such as the Iron Man series of films and the hit television drama The Walking Dead. But comics have been popular throughout the 20th century despite the significant effects of the restrictions of the Comics Code in place from the 1950s through 1970s, which prohibited the depiction of zombies and use of the word "horror," among many other rules. Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas provides students and general readers a one-stop resource for researching topics, genres, works, and artists of comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels. The comprehensive and broad coverage of this set is organized chronologically by volume. Volume 1 covers 1960 and earlier; Volume 2 covers 1960–1980; Volume 3 covers 1980–1995; and Volume 4 covers 1995 to the present. The chronological divisions give readers a sense of the evolution of comics within the larger contexts of American culture and history. The alphabetically arranged entries in each volume address topics such as comics publishing, characters, imprints, genres, themes, titles, artists, writers, and more. While special attention is paid to American comics, the entries also include coverage of British, Japanese, and European comics that have influenced illustrated storytelling of the United States or are of special interest to American readers.
A noted comics artist himself, Santiago García follows the history of the graphic novel from early nineteenth-century European sequential art, through the development of newspaper strips in the United States, to the development of the twentieth-century comic book and its subsequent crisis. He considers the aesthetic and entrepreneurial innovations that established the conditions for the rise of the graphic novel all over the world. García not only treats the formal components of the art, but also examines the cultural position of comics in various formats as a popular medium. Typically associated with children, often viewed as unedifying and even at times as a threat to moral character, comics art has come a long way. With such examples from around the world as Spain, France, Germany, and Japan, García illustrates how the graphic novel, with its increasingly global and aesthetically sophisticated profile, represents a new model for graphic narrative production that empowers authors and challenges longstanding social prejudices against comics and what they can achieve.
