Hillary Chute’s enthusiastic history of comic books and “graphic novels” (Hillary doesn’t like that term) presents all the major players: DC Comics and MARVEL Comics, R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman’s work about the Holocaust and 9/11 to Keiji Nakazawa’s work covering Heroshima to Alison Bechdel’s ground-breaking Fun Home. Hillary Chute explores all the various genres in the contemporary comic book world. Why Comics? provides plenty of artwork to illustrate Hillary Chute’s analysis. She makes some educated guesses about where comics are likely to go next. I found Why Comics? provocative and informative. If you have any interest in comic books and graphic novels, this book will delight you! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Foreword: One Point of View By Gary Panter xi
Introduction: Comics for Grown-Ups? 1
Why Disaster? 33
Why Superheroes? 69
Why Sex? 103
Why the Suburbs? 141
Why Cities? 175
Why Punk? 207
Why Illness & Disability? 239
Why Girls? 275
Why War? 309
Why Queer? 349
Coda: Why Fans? 389
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 413
BIBLIOGRAPHY 417
INDEX 437
Too bad if she doesn’t like the term graphic novels! And just who is she to write about that medium?
Bob, Hillary Chute is a college professor. She’s interviewed most of the key figures in Comics. I found WHY COMICS? very detailed and full of information.
I remember subscribing to Brenda Starr and archie comics. I think Starr only lasted a year
My dad used to work at the straw board in KS, where they pulped comics, newspapers, etc to make new paper. He used to bring home comics to his younger siblings. Oh, how I wish he’d saved some
Maggie, I wish my mother hadn’t “cleaned out” my comics collection while I was at Summer Camp. I had a lot of the early MARVEL issues by Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby.
All of our mothers tossed comic books. And baseball cards. We could have been billionaires.
Patti, you are so right! Hillary Chute points out the first SUPERMAN comic–ACTION COMICS #1–recently sold for $3.2 million!
My brother was an early collector of DC and Marvel. Too bad he didn’t keep them.
I like FUN HOME a lot, including the musical version.
Jeff, FUN HOME is coming to Buffalo as part of our musicals package. Katie has seen FUN HOME and loved it. I’ve listened to the soundtrack. Great stuff!
I have to confess that I didn’t like stuff like Superman etc but I adored Robert Crumb – bought everything I could find in London in the 70s and 80s (went there at least three times a year to buy SF).
And I’ve collected MAD Magazine – started buying it in 1962 as a student (for a time there even was a German edition!) and got the first years on a set of CDs.
PS:
And strangely enough I also liked Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse etc …
Wolf, I loved MAD as a kid. It made fun of “regular” comics. Later, MAD got into political and social satire.
This sounds like a dissertation from a non-collector! She is kind of cute, though!
Bob, WHY COMICS? is well researched!
George, I still read and collect comic-books though my interest is chiefly in traditional A4-size comics that we read as kids, though we don’t get them easily now. I started my collection with a stack of 40 DC and Marvel comics that a US-based uncle gifted me when I was in primary school. I’d read WHY COMICS? for my keen interest in the medium.
Prashant, you’ll enjoy WHY COMICS? and you’ll learn a lot about the history of this artform.