Superman versus the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate
This book tells a group of intertwining stories that culminate in the historic 1947 collision of the Superman Radio Show and the Ku Klux Klan. It is the story of the two Cleveland teenagers who invented Superman as a defender of the little guy and the New York wheeler-dealers who made him a major media force. It is …
The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider’s Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan
Otaku: Nerd; geek or fanboy. Originates from a polite second-person pronoun meaning “your home” in Japanese. Since the 1980s it’s been used to refer to people who are really into Japanese pop-culture, such as anime, manga, and videogames. A whole generation, previously marginalized with labels such as geek and nerd, are now calling themselves otaku with pride. …
In The Origins of Comics: From William Hogarth to Winsor McCay, Thierry Smolderen presents a cultural landscape whose narrative differs in many ways from those presented by other historians of the comic strip. Rather than beginning his inquiry with the popularly accepted “sequential art” definition of the comic strip, Smolderen instead wishes to engage with the historical dimensions …
This title explores Wonder Woman’s history from her earliest origins to her most recent transformations. The book traces her evolution through comic books, graphic novels, television and merchandise and includes interviews with famous “Wonder Woman” writers and artists, and original …
Among the many accomplishments in art and literature by Genevan Rodolphe Töpffer (1799-1846), his virtual invention of the comic strip, or graphic novel, stands out as the most surprising, curious, and to us, after a century inundated by comic strips, by far the most significant.This volume is the first English-language version of the Töpffer comics oeuvre and includes …
Trina Robbins updates her seminal historical survey of female cartoonists for the 21st century ― when female cartoonists such as Alison Bechdel, Lynda Barry, and Kate Beaton are at perhaps their highest profile. With the 1896 publication of Rose O’Neill’s comic strip The Old Subscriber Calls, in Truth Magazine, American women entered the field of comics, and they …
American Comic Book Chronicles: 1965-69 (American Comic Book Chronicles Hc)
The American Comic Book Chronicles continues its ambitious series of full-color hardcovers where TwoMorrows’ top authors document every decade of comic book history from the 1940s to today! John Wells headlines this second volume on the 1960s, covering all the pivotal moments and behind-the-scenes details of comics during the stormy cultural upheaval of 1965-1969. You’ll get a year-by-year …
The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art
When many think of comic books the first thing that comes to mind are caped crusaders and spandex-wearing super-heroes. Perhaps, inevitably, these images are of white men (and more rarely, women). It was not until the 1970s that African American superheroes such as Luke Cage, Blade, and others emerged. But as this exciting new collection reveals, these superhero …
It’s easy to name a superhero–Superman, Batman, Thor, Spiderman, the Green Lantern, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rorschach, Wolverine–but it’s not so easy to define what a superhero is. Buffy has superpowers, but she doesn’t have a costume. Batman has a costume, but doesn’t have superpowers. What is the role of power and superpower? And what are supervillains and …
Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal
In many ways, twentieth-century America was the land of superheroes and science fiction. From Superman and Batman to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, these pop-culture juggernauts, with their “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men,” thrilled readers and audiences—and simultaneously embodied a host of our dreams and fears about modern life and the onrushing future.But …