Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel
-
- 85,00 kr
-
- 85,00 kr
Publisher Description
Graphic novels have exploded off bookstore shelves into movies, college courses, and the New York Times book review, and comics historian and children’s literature specialist Stephen Weiner explains the phenomenon in this groundbreaking book—the first history of graphic novels. From the agonizing Holocaust vision of Art Spiegelman’s Maus to the teenage angst of Dan Clowes’s Ghost World, this study enters the heart of the graphic novel revolution. The complete history of this popular format is explained, from the first modern, urban autobiographical graphic novel, Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, to the dark mysteries of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, the postmodern superheroics of Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight, and breakout books such as Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis. It’s all here in this newly updated edition, which contains the must-reads, the milestones, the most recent developments, and what to look for in the future of this exciting medium.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A quickie guide to the history of comics by the author of The 101 Best Graphic Novels, this slim tome covers the usual ground in few new ways. Weiner begins with the rise of the commercial comic strip, follows the medium into comic books and superheroes, then up through the turbulent 1960s underground, and on into Will Eisner's work, the mature superheroics of the '80s, the epochal Maus and the new alternative comics. Along the way, Weiner does something unique: he describes the history of the graphic novel in the book trade. Though his facts are a little fuzzy (e.g., the first graphic novel from a mainstream publisher remains far murkier than his claim for Eisner's A Contract With God), this is a noteworthy attempt to trace the current boom in the industry and to distance thematic and commercial relatives such as Eisner, or Jules Feiffer's Tantrum. But this one diversion aside, the effort reeks of a quick cash-in. Although it purports to be history, it focuses only on what's strong in the marketplace today (e.g., Neil Gaiman, Bone, etc.), and ignores lesser known but equally available titles. And so while Weiner can put all those bestsellers in some context, his book won't take readers, buyers or librarians anywhere new. The graphic novel is, as Weiner claims, an exciting new frontier with old roots, and as such it needs a stronger treatment than this.
