20th century comic books
A01=Michael Barrier
american comics
animation graphic design
art
artistic potential
artists
Author_Michael Barrier
business
business history
carl barks
cartoonists
Category=AKLC
comic book history
comic books
comic history
comic studies
comics
dell comics
disney
donald duck
entertainment industry
enthusiasm
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
john stanley
literary
literary criticism
little lulu
midcentury comics
pogo
retrospective
uncle scrooge
walt kelly
Product details
- ISBN 9780520241183
- Weight: 726g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 27 Nov 2014
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Funnybooks is the story of the most popular American comic books of the 1940s and 1950s, those published under the Dell label. For a time, "Dell Comics Are Good Comics" was more than a slogan - it was a simple statement of fact. Many of the stories written and drawn by people like Carl Barks (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge), John Stanley (Little Lulu), and Walt Kelly (Pogo) repay reading and rereading by educated adults even today, decades after they were published as disposable entertainment for children. Such triumphs were improbable, to say the least, because midcentury comics were so widely dismissed as trash by angry parents, indignant librarians, and even many of the people who published them. It was all but miraculous that a few great cartoonists were able to look past that nearly universal scorn and grasp the artistic potential of their medium. With clarity and enthusiasm, Barrier explains what made the best stories in the Dell comic books so special. He deftly turns a complex and detailed history into an expressive narrative sure to appeal to an audience beyond scholars and historians.
Michael Barrier is the author of Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age and The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney. He is also coeditor (with Martin Williams) of A Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics and coauthor (with Harvey Kurtzman) of From Aargh! to Zap! Harvey Kurtzman's Visual History of the Comics.
