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Comic Book History of Comics
Comic Book History of Comics: Comics For All
The medium is the message! Comics come in many forms, from all around the world. What better way to discover them than through a comic book?
The bestselling, mind-blowing graphic history of our favorite medium continues--now focusing on specific regions of the world and their contributions to the comic book art form.
The Graphic Novel! From its Swiss roots in 1835 to today's American bestseller lists, with crucial spin-offs in France and Belgium.
The British Invasion! 2000 AD had a big impact in 1986, as creators from across the pond elevated storytelling to new heights, but the British tradition stretches back much further.
Manga! Japanese artists also have a long history of graphic storytelling, but ninjas, mecha, and magical girls have taken the world by storm in recent decades, and those are only scratching the surface.
Undiscovered territory! Comics and their characters are everywhere, for everyone! From the digital revolution to comic characters in film, comics have never been more widely available, or appealed to more diverse audiences.
Now in color, with added features, including HerStory of Comics: spotlights on influential female creators and their impacts on the form.
The bestselling, mind-blowing graphic history of our favorite medium continues--now focusing on specific regions of the world and their contributions to the comic book art form.
The Graphic Novel! From its Swiss roots in 1835 to today's American bestseller lists, with crucial spin-offs in France and Belgium.
The British Invasion! 2000 AD had a big impact in 1986, as creators from across the pond elevated storytelling to new heights, but the British tradition stretches back much further.
Manga! Japanese artists also have a long history of graphic storytelling, but ninjas, mecha, and magical girls have taken the world by storm in recent decades, and those are only scratching the surface.
Undiscovered territory! Comics and their characters are everywhere, for everyone! From the digital revolution to comic characters in film, comics have never been more widely available, or appealed to more diverse audiences.
Now in color, with added features, including HerStory of Comics: spotlights on influential female creators and their impacts on the form.
104 pages, Paperback
Published July 24, 2018
About the author
Fred Van Lente
1,385 books323 followersFred Van Lente is the New York Times-bestselling author of comics as varied as Archer & Armstrong (Harvey Award nominee, Best Series), Taskmaster, MODOK's 11, Amazing Spider-Man, Conan the Avenger, Weird Detective, and Cowboys & Aliens (upon which the 2011 movie was based), as well as the novels Ten Dead Comedians and The Con Artist.
Van Lente also specializes in entertaining readers with offbeat histories with the help of his incredibly talented artists. He has written the multiple-award winning Action Philosophers!, The Comic Book History of Comics, Action Presidents! (all drawn by Ryan Dunlavey), and The Comic Book Story of Basketball with Joe Cooper (Ten Speed September 2020).
He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Crystal Skillman, and some mostly ungrateful cats.
Van Lente also specializes in entertaining readers with offbeat histories with the help of his incredibly talented artists. He has written the multiple-award winning Action Philosophers!, The Comic Book History of Comics, Action Presidents! (all drawn by Ryan Dunlavey), and The Comic Book Story of Basketball with Joe Cooper (Ten Speed September 2020).
He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Crystal Skillman, and some mostly ungrateful cats.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 11, 2020
The earlier volume was very USA-centric. This one branches out into more places. Mostly Britain, France and Japan, which is fine, because I think those are the other places where comics really developed a big market that was not totally dominated by US imports.
Censorship had some interesting effects. In the USA, worries over children seeing violence led to an abandonment of most adult themes for a long time. In France, US comics were forbidden first by the German occupiers, then by the French who wanted to foster their own market. Though they pretended it was to protect kids from violence, they actually allowed sex and violence and so plenty of stories for adults were published in all sorts of genres. In Japan after WWII, the US observers imposed censorship to keep out stories of samurai and a glorious Japanese past, thus also helping create a wider range of genres.
Each of these gets a one-page summary: India, Brazil, Nigeria, Mexico. Surely there must be more to talk about for each country. Surely there is more to Indian comics than just "Amar Chitra Katha". But one author can't know everything, so it's ok.
I hate the fact that everyone says "A Contract With God" was the first "Graphic Novel" when it isn't even a novel at all. (It is short stories.) So I was glad to learn that Bloodstar was published earlier, had the term "Graphic Novel" on the dust jacket, and really was a novel. Other early works discussed here that could rightly be called that include Rodolphe Töpffer's Monsieur Vieuxbois, and Lynd Ward's wordless "God's Man".
US comics publishers used and still use all sorts of tricks to steal copyright protections from the original authors. It is an ugly story but was in the first volume, too, and doesn't need repeating here. The part about the UK/US battles over who owns Captain Marvel, Marvelman, Shazam, etc., do belong and were interesting, though I'll never remember, or care about, the details.
Censorship had some interesting effects. In the USA, worries over children seeing violence led to an abandonment of most adult themes for a long time. In France, US comics were forbidden first by the German occupiers, then by the French who wanted to foster their own market. Though they pretended it was to protect kids from violence, they actually allowed sex and violence and so plenty of stories for adults were published in all sorts of genres. In Japan after WWII, the US observers imposed censorship to keep out stories of samurai and a glorious Japanese past, thus also helping create a wider range of genres.
Each of these gets a one-page summary: India, Brazil, Nigeria, Mexico. Surely there must be more to talk about for each country. Surely there is more to Indian comics than just "Amar Chitra Katha". But one author can't know everything, so it's ok.
I hate the fact that everyone says "A Contract With God" was the first "Graphic Novel" when it isn't even a novel at all. (It is short stories.) So I was glad to learn that Bloodstar was published earlier, had the term "Graphic Novel" on the dust jacket, and really was a novel. Other early works discussed here that could rightly be called that include Rodolphe Töpffer's Monsieur Vieuxbois, and Lynd Ward's wordless "God's Man".
US comics publishers used and still use all sorts of tricks to steal copyright protections from the original authors. It is an ugly story but was in the first volume, too, and doesn't need repeating here. The part about the UK/US battles over who owns Captain Marvel, Marvelman, Shazam, etc., do belong and were interesting, though I'll never remember, or care about, the details.
March 26, 2021
As the title suggests, this is a history of comic books and graphic novels that is presented in the form of a comic book. This book turned out to be more fascinating than I expected (and, obviously, I thought it would be interesting enough to start reading it in the first place.) The added fascination, of all places, came from the economics nerd in me (I thought that guy was dead, but apparently not.) You may wonder what economics has to do with the history of comics, but it turns out that there was a long period of learning about how the unique characteristics of comic books should influence how they were most lucratively sold. At first, comics were sold just like other magazines, but eventually people realized that the fact that these periodicals told serialized stories (and that they were potentially collectable) made them a very different kind of product. And there were booms and busts along the way.
It’s not just economists who might find something surprisingly interesting in this book, there is a colorful discussion of intellectual property law as it pertained to comics. (As well as the more visceral human-interest story of the artists who created characters that made executives and actors billions of dollars, while said artists eked out a living.) Long-story-short, this book isn’t just for those interested in how artistic styles changed, or how various popular characters came to be, though those subjects are touched upon as well. It looks at the history of comics from many angles. One learns a little about the unique Japanese, Brazilian, Mexican, and African comic book markets, and one even sees how comic books played a roll in international relations. While it’s mostly an industry (macro-)level look, there is discussion of a few who individuals who changed the industry (e.g. Alan Moore.)
This is a quick read, but packed with interesting information for those of us who are basically interested in everything. It’s well drawn as well. Check it out.
It’s not just economists who might find something surprisingly interesting in this book, there is a colorful discussion of intellectual property law as it pertained to comics. (As well as the more visceral human-interest story of the artists who created characters that made executives and actors billions of dollars, while said artists eked out a living.) Long-story-short, this book isn’t just for those interested in how artistic styles changed, or how various popular characters came to be, though those subjects are touched upon as well. It looks at the history of comics from many angles. One learns a little about the unique Japanese, Brazilian, Mexican, and African comic book markets, and one even sees how comic books played a roll in international relations. While it’s mostly an industry (macro-)level look, there is discussion of a few who individuals who changed the industry (e.g. Alan Moore.)
This is a quick read, but packed with interesting information for those of us who are basically interested in everything. It’s well drawn as well. Check it out.
August 27, 2019
More interesting and discursive than the prior volume, which was fairly well-trod comics history. This volume has more of a conversation about some points in a historical framework that is quite enthralling.
October 21, 2019
An illustrated History of Itself
A clearer more informative look at comics and their impact on entertainment and education, probably doesn't exist. I haven't read it anyway. Well done! Having been and still a comic collecting oldman, I learned a few new things. This is how a comics history should be done.
A clearer more informative look at comics and their impact on entertainment and education, probably doesn't exist. I haven't read it anyway. Well done! Having been and still a comic collecting oldman, I learned a few new things. This is how a comics history should be done.
February 17, 2024
Really informative, but it's more guided to people who are truly into the medium. I read graphic novels and comics every so often, so I didn't know most of the references or creators. I gave it a three star rating based on my experience, but I think someone going into comics or that really likes the genre will love this.
January 3, 2026
A nice and graphic telling of the history and evolution of the medium called comic, explains in a quite easy and understanding way the problems, the struggles, the events and the comic creators stories and how that affected the comic book industry that we have today. A must have book for every comic book fan, historian or someone who wants a brief, illustrated summary of the comic medium.
September 3, 2019
The history of comic book
Nice historic preservation of comic book I read yet. I followed the comic strips at 40 + years in newspapers and comic books I just love the stories that have been made and the pictures arts therein.
Nice historic preservation of comic book I read yet. I followed the comic strips at 40 + years in newspapers and comic books I just love the stories that have been made and the pictures arts therein.
January 6, 2020
Very informative about the medium! I learned so much about the history of some of my favorite artists and lines.
August 19, 2022
Lo que faltaba del volumen 1, cómic forever!!!
January 26, 2024
Good read, but dense at times
April 5, 2026
A little less focussed than the first, it does provide some additional interesting detail.
January 8, 2018
I was asked to review this book by Women Write About Comics. You can read my review here - http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2018...
August 14, 2019
This is a surprisingly dense info-comic that presents a wide variety of somewhat disparate pieces of comic book/graphic novel history. What's here is informative (especially the looks into comic art in other cultures, like Africa and Mexico; the Japan exploration was the best part of the whole book), but it doesn't feel completely connected. And the scale of the stories varies a lot - from several pages about Captain Marvel/Marvelman/Miracleman issues to a single page Wendy Pini's long-running Elfquest or 1 page of Rumiko Takahashi after 7 pages almost exclusively focused on Osamu Tezuka. I guess my complaint is really that I wanted more, which is a good problem to have. The art is good, evocative without getting too heavy into aping the styles and characters (The Legalese! two-page spread is a very impressive piece of work).
All told, this is a very informative book that manages to be entertaining as well. I would strongly recommend it to fans of comics who want to know more about the history of the medium.
All told, this is a very informative book that manages to be entertaining as well. I would strongly recommend it to fans of comics who want to know more about the history of the medium.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews