Idea For Blog Post

[Johnny Triangles]

I was thinking Brian should do a post recommending some good books about comics. Right now I'm reading Tales to Astonish by Ronin Ro discussing the life of Jack Kirby and his early Marvel days.

[Brian Cronin]

That's a good book.

-Brian

[Nitz the Bloody]

Sounds like a good idea, T.. I'd also cite Les Daniels' books on Marvel and DC respectively; they aren't deep social commetary or criticism, but together they give a very solid foundation of American comics history.

[Johnny Triangles]

Sounds like a good idea, T.. I'd also cite Les Daniels' books on Marvel and DC respectively; they aren't deep social commetary or criticism, but together they give a very solid foundation of American comics history.


I'm going to look for those in my public library. Thanks.

I have Jules Feiffer's classic book on superheroes on hold at the library too. I forget the name of the book, but it's the source of the speech David Carradine uses in Kill Bill about how CLark Kent is Superman's insulting parody of humanity.

[Omar Karindu]

All in Color for a Dime
Panel One: Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers
The Comic-Book Makers
The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay[/UL]

[Greg Hatcher]

You'd probably get better results here than if we posted something. What Omar said, plus Feiffer, plus...

Men of Tomorrow and The Comic Book Heroes by Gerard Jones
Shop Talk by Will Eisner
Evanier's three books -- Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life, Wertham Was Right! and Superheroes In My Pants
And any of the fine products put out by TwoMorrows Press (http://twomorrows.com/) -- I'm partial to the artist retrospectives but I imagine most fans could find SOMETHING there they'd like. I believe they also did Kimota! The Miracleman Companion, which is a remarkable tale of how incredibly snarled up the business side of comics can get.

And it's worth trolling eBay for the original Stan Lee books Origins of Marvel Comics and Son of Origins of Marvel Comics. Kind of the grade-school version of Marvel history but fun reads.

[Nitz the Bloody]

I picked up a recent book called " Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre " which details the precursors to superhero comics ( mythology, 1800's science fiction, pulp magazines, etc. ), as well as the different ages of the genre. I really thought it was great, and would reccomend it strongly; it's only about one aspect of comics, but it deals with that aspect in great depth.