1965 : Perception -- 1966 : Caped crusaders, masked invaders -- 1967 : After the gold rush -- 1968 : A hazy shade of winter -- 1969 : Bad moon rising

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! Kurt Mitchell and editor Roy Thomas composed this volume about the "Golden Age" of the comic book industry, a five-year period that presented the earliest adventures of such iconic super-heroes as Batman, Captain Marvel, Superman, and Wonder Woman. It was a time when America's entry into World War II was presaged by the arrival of such patriotic do-gooders as Will Eisner's Uncle Sam, Harry Shorten and Irv Novick's The Shield, and Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Captain America. It was when teenage culture found expression in a fumbling red-haired high school student named Archie Andrews. But most of all, the first five years of the 1940s was the age of the "packagers" when studios headed by men like Harry A Chesler, Will Eisner, and Jerry Iger churned out material for a plethora of new comic book companies that published the entire gamut of genres, from funny animal stories to crime tales to jungle sagas to science-fiction adventures. These are just a few of the events chronicled in this exhaustive, full-color hardcover. Taken together, American Comic Book Chronicles forms a cohesive, linear overview of the entire landscape of comics history, sure to be an invaluable resource for ANY comic book enthusiast!

Graphic Novels, Cartoons and Comics.

The American Comic Book Chronicles is an ambitious new series of FULL-COLOR HARDCOVERS, where TwoMorrows' top authors document every decade of comic book history from the 1940s to today! John Wells leads off with the first of two volumes on the 1960s, covering all the pivotal moments and behind-the-scenes details of comics in the JFK and Beatles era! You'll get a year-by-year account of the most significant publications, notable creators, and impactful trends, including: DC Comics' rebirth of Green Lantern, Hawkman, and others, and the launch of Justice League of America and multiple earths! Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's transformation of superhero comics with the debut of Marvel' Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Hulk, X-Men, Avengers, and other iconic characters! Plus Batman gets a "new look", the Blue Beetle is revamped at Charlton Comics, and Creepy #1 brings horror back to comic book form, just as Harvey's "kid" comics are booming! These are just a few of the events chronicled in this exhaustive, full-color hardcover. Taken together, the series forms a cohesive, linear overview of the entire landscape of comics history, sure to be an invaluable resource for ANY comic book enthusiast!

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! At long last, this 1945-49 volume covers the comic book industry during the aftermath of World War II, when scores of writers and artists returned from foreign battlefields to resume their careers. It was a period when readers began turning away from the escapist entertainment offered by super-heroes in favor of other genres, like the grittier, more brutal crime comics. It was a time when Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created Young Romance, inaugurating a golden age of romance comics. And it was during this five-year period that Timely and National Comics capitalized on the popularity of Westerns, that Bill Gaines plotted a new course for EC Comics in the wake of his father's death, and that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster first sued for the rights to Superman. These are just a few of the events chronicled in this exhaustive, full-color hardcover, further documenting the ACBC series' cohesive, linear overview of the entire landscape of comics history! By Richard J. Arndt and Kurt F. Mitchell, with Keith Dallas.

1950 : Variety on the newstand -- 1951 : Before the storm -- 1952 : Expansion -- 1953 : EC soars, Fawcett crashes -- 1954 : Comics in crisis -- 1955 : Censored! -- 1956 : Birth of the silver age -- 1957 : Turbulence and transition -- 1958 : National takes the lead -- 1959 : The silver age gains traction

The 1990s was the decade when Marvel Comics sold 8.1 million copies of an issue of the X-Men, saw its superstar creators form their own company, cloned Spider-Man, and went bankrupt. It was when Superman died, Batman had his back broken, and the runaway success of Neil Gaiman's Sandman led to DC Comics' Vertigo line of adult comic books. It was the decade of gimmicky covers, skimpy costumes, and mega-crossovers. But most of all, the 1990s was the decade when companies like Image, Valiant and Malibu published million-selling comic books before the industry experienced a shocking and rapid collapse! These are just a few of the events chronicled in this exhaustive, full-color hardcover.

Tales to Astonish tells the spectacular life and times of Jack Kirby, the legendary forefather of American comic books. In the 1960's, Kirby joined with Stan Lee to develop many of our best-known and most beloved superheroes, including the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, the Avengers, and the Silver Surfer. Ronin Ro chronicles Kirby's poverty-stricken origins in New York's Lower East Side, his early commercial triumphs and failures, his renowned partnership with Lee, and his revolutionary artistic innovations, tracing the comic book industry from its inauspicious beginnings to its sensational successes. Ronin Ro lives in New York City and is the author of Gangsta: Merchandising the Rhymes of Violence, the award-winning international bestseller Have Gun Will Travel, and the novel Street Sweeper. He has written for Vanity Fair, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Herald, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and Spin. "Ro cleanly lays out Kirby's story...He does well by the facts."-The Onion "Ro deftly handles Kirby's relationships...Tales to Astonish celebrates the stubbornness that kept Kirby, a superhero of comic books in his own right, creative as if against his will."-San Francisco Chronicle Also available: HC 1-58234-345-4 $24.95

This book explores how the heroes and villains of popular comic books—and the creators of these icons of our culture—reflect the American experience out of which they sprang, and how they have achieved relevance by adapting to, and perhaps influencing, the evolving American character. Multiple generations have thrilled to the exploits of the heroes and villains of American comic books. These imaginary characters permeate our culture—even Americans who have never read a comic book grasp what the most well-known examples represent. But these comic book characters, and their creators, do more than simply thrill: they make us consider who we are and who we aspire to be. Icons of the American Comic Book: From Captain America to Wonder Woman contains 100 entries that provide historical background, explore the impact of the comic-book character on American culture, and summarize what is iconic about the subject of the entry. Each entry also lists essential works, suggests further readings, and contains at least one sidebar that provides entertaining and often quirky insight not covered in the main entry. This two-volume work examines fascinating subjects, such as how the superhero concept embodied the essence of American culture in the 1930s; and the ways in which comic book icons have evolved to reflect changing circumstances, values, and attitudes regarding cultural diversity. The book's coverage extends beyond just characters, as it also includes entries devoted to creators, publishers, titles, and even comic book related phenomena that have had enduring significance.

Fans and scholars have long regarded the 1980s as a significant turning point in the history of comics in the United States, but most critical discussions of the period still focus on books from prominent creators such as Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and Art Spiegelman, eclipsing the work of others who also played a key role in shaping comics as we know them today. The Other 1980s offers a more complicated and multivalent picture of this robust era of ambitious comics publishing. The twenty essays in The Other 1980s illuminate many works hailed as innovative in their day that have nonetheless fallen from critical view, partly because they challenge the contours of conventional comics studies scholarship: open-ended serials that eschew the graphic-novel format beloved by literature departments; sprawling superhero narratives with no connection to corporate universes; offbeat and abandoned experiments by major publishers, including Marvel and DC; idiosyncratic and experimental independent comics; unusual genre exercises filtered through deeply personal sensibilities; and oft-neglected offshoots of the classic “underground” comics movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The collection also offers original examinations of the ways in which the fans and critics of the day engaged with creators and publishers, establishing the groundwork for much of the contemporary critical and academic discourse on comics. By uncovering creators and works long ignored by scholars, The Other 1980s revises standard histories of this major period and offers a more nuanced understanding of the context from which the iconic comics of the 1980s emerged.