More than 500 strips take the reader through the comics history of the first half of the 20th century. A brief chapter on each decade gives the reader a frame of reference, and biographies of the most important artists are included.

This bibliography collects, organizes, and annotates the most important information sources in the comics area: books, periodicals, and library collections.

Winner of the Best Book Award in Comics History from the Grand Comics Database Honorable Mention, 2019-2020 Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize The term “graphic novel” was first coined in 1964, but it wouldn’t be broadly used until the 1980s, when graphic novels such as Watchmen and Maus achieved commercial success and critical acclaim. What happened in the intervening years, after the graphic novel was conceptualized yet before it was widely recognized? Dreaming the Graphic Novel examines how notions of the graphic novel began to coalesce in the 1970s, a time of great change for American comics, with declining sales of mainstream periodicals, the arrival of specialty comics stores, and (at least initially) a thriving underground comix scene. Surveying the eclectic array of long comics narratives that emerged from this fertile period, Paul Williams investigates many texts that have fallen out of graphic novel history. As he demonstrates, the question of what makes a text a ‘graphic novel’ was the subject of fierce debate among fans, creators, and publishers, inspiring arguments about the literariness of comics that are still taking place among scholars today. Unearthing a treasure trove of fanzines, adverts, and unpublished letters, Dreaming the Graphic Novel gives readers an exciting inside look at a pivotal moment in the art form’s development.

This is the most comprehensive dictionary available on comic art produced around the world. The catalog provides detailed information about more than 60,000 cataloged books, magazines, scrapbooks, fanzines, comic books, and other materials in the Michigan State University Libraries, America's premiere library comics collection. The catalog lists both comics and works about comics. Each book or serial is listed by title, with entries as appropriate under author, subject, and series. Besides the traditional books and magazines, significant collections of microfilm, sound recordings, vertical files, and realia (mainly T-shirts) are included. Comics and related materials are grouped by nationality (e.g., French comics) and genre (e.g., funny animal comics). Several times larger than any previously published bibliography, list, or catalog on the comic arts, this unique international dictionary catalog is indispensible for all scholars and students of comics and the broad field of popular culture.

"Mit dose kids, society is nix!" So said the Inspector about the Katzenjammer kids, but he could have been speaking of all comic strips in their formative years at the turn of the last century. From the very first color Sunday supplement, comics were a driving force in newspaper sales, even though their crude and often offensive content placed them in a whirl of controversy. Sunday comics presented a wild parody of the world and the culture that surrounded them. Society didn't stand a chance. These are the origins of the American comic strip, born at a time when there were no set styles or formats, when artistic anarchy helped spawn a new medium. Here are the earliest offerings from known greats like R. F. Outcault, George McManus, Winsor McCay, and George Herriman, along with the creations of more than fifty other superb cartoonists; over 150 Sunday comics dating from 1895 to 1915.

Collect the greatest fantasy comic strips from the earliest days of comics. The dawn of the 20th century saw of technological advances that were only dreamed of decades before. One such advance was four-color printing, which brought to life stories inspired by both the technology of the time and the children's fiction enjoyed by a burgeoning middle class. This confluence brought about a unique genre within a new art form--the Fantasy Comic Strip. These pages were a Sunday staple for less than two decades, soon replaced by humorous family comics that more closely mirrored the modern society. But from 1900 to 1915, American newspapers offered some of the most fascinating comics ever printed. And while Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland is known worldwide, many of the great fantasy comics have virtually vanished -- until now. Presented here in the original size and colors are the complete comics of Lyonel Feininger--The Kin-der-Kids and Wee Willie Winkie's World, along with the complete adventures of: The Explorigator by Henry Grant Dart; Nibsy the Newsboy by George McManus; Naughty Pete by Charles Forbell, plus full-color Dream of the Rarebit Fiend Sundays by Winsor McCay. With dozens more fantastical Sundays from, John Gruelle, Gustave Verbeek, Herbert Crowley, John R. Neill and others.

Designing was done ad lib on the day, doodling in 3D or acting out nonsense in the studio. So this book is a collection of images, some factual, some descriptive, but many just suggestive, a record of the feeling of making the film rather than a definitive handbook. Book jacket.