[.ca] Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (ISBN 193311231X)

The Golden Age in 100Magenta+100 Yellow:
As the author says in his the Introduction 'Comic Book Culture' is basically a picture book and as such I'm pleased to have a copy. Goulart's history of comics Golden Age, roughly mid Thirties to the late Forties, is adequate though you can read more in his previous book 'Over 50 Years of American Comic Books' but it is the four hundred covers reproduced that I think will interest readers more. Page after page of superheroes battling crime and or evil in dazzling 100 Magenta plus 100 Yellow, that's the printers term for the vibrant red that the comics biz could not do without. All these covers had to compete on the newsstand and the more 100Y+100M the better it seems, page 130 has the cover of The Human Torch (1943) leaping off the page, it couldn't get any brighter. I have always been rather critical of Collector Press books, they always seem a bit over designed but this one is great, each of the sixteen chapters starts on a spread one page of which is a huge color blow-up of part of a picture, many of the spreads just have covers and captions on them and the designers have resisted the temptation to angle or overlap the covers. The typography, layouts and printing are excellent. There are two chapters devoted to some of the great comic artists of the period, Everett, Fine, Patenaude, Kirby, Schomburg, Ricca and Cole. The last chapter has a (very) brief look at what is called "Good girl art", presenting heroines in as provocative a way as possible and you can't get more provocative than Matt Baker's April 1948 cover of Phantom Lady, sales must have soared! If you want to see more covers have a look at the two volume 'The Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books' by Ernst and Mary Gerber, more than 21,000 beautifully printed on gloss paper (another two volumes covers 7,000 Marvel comics).

Nice illustrated history:
A beautifully presented coffee table book showcasing the earliest days of a true american art form - the comic book! The grouping of comic covers by theme and by artist work well and highlight some truly great pieces! Popular culture at it's finest!

A superb historical survey of comic book heroes & writers.:
Comic book collectors, researchers, and fans will appreciate this reflection on the rogues, heroes and creators of comics in Comic Book Culture, a visual celebration of the Golden Age of comic books from the 1930s to the 1940s. Goulart explains and traces the changes of the comic art form, using his extensive collection as a foundation for examples which are colorful and which celebrate the history of comics. The full-page comic book reproductions are striking and the history and commentary involving.