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Comics International, #190, November, 2005
...Great anecdotes, masses of names, titles, facts and figures and rarely seen imagery... A remarkable achievement, colourful and sharply designed...
www.downthetubes.net, 19 September 2005
...A very entertaining insight... the sheer variety of featured creators and creations is simply astonishing... Packed with stunning imagery...
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Fat, glossy, stuffed with illustrations and useful potted biographies, this is intended as a globe-spanning primer on comics and the creators behind them. Inevitably some of the information here will be common knowledge to anyone with a passing acquaintance with the medium, but other areas - Indian comics, for example - are unfamiliar to all but a few.
Equally inevitably, there are omissions and typos: you will search the index in vain for any mention of Jim Steranko or John Buscema (*TIP for the editors of any revised edition: any creator whose name is big enough to feature in the title of a book should be an automatic candidate for at least a mention*) or Marcus Morris, founder and editor of The Eagle, although at least he and it are both covered in the text.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the book is how it favours the rare and esoteric over the popular and mainstream, and it is this that is both its biggest strength and weakness: it sacrifices several pages on the biggest American comics success story of the 1960s, Marvel Comics (covered in a skimpy two pages), in order to allocate another American publisher with a more 'alternative' line-up, Fantagraphics, a generous six pages. Unbalanced? Undoubtedly. Unfair? Perhaps, but the shelves are groaning under the weight of superhero-oriented surveys.
That apart, this is a fun read and a good primer for anyone wanting to learn about the history and diversity of comics. Just don't make the mistake of assuming that "essential" means "definitive".
Equally inevitably, there are omissions and typos: you will search the index in vain for any mention of Jim Steranko or John Buscema (*TIP for the editors of any revised edition: any creator whose name is big enough to feature in the title of a book should be an automatic candidate for at least a mention*) or Marcus Morris, founder and editor of The Eagle, although at least he and it are both covered in the text.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the book is how it favours the rare and esoteric over the popular and mainstream, and it is this that is both its biggest strength and weakness: it sacrifices several pages on the biggest American comics success story of the 1960s, Marvel Comics (covered in a skimpy two pages), in order to allocate another American publisher with a more 'alternative' line-up, Fantagraphics, a generous six pages. Unbalanced? Undoubtedly. Unfair? Perhaps, but the shelves are groaning under the weight of superhero-oriented surveys.
That apart, this is a fun read and a good primer for anyone wanting to learn about the history and diversity of comics. Just don't make the mistake of assuming that "essential" means "definitive".
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a thoroughly absorbing overview of World Comics from former Comics International associate editor Tim Pilcher and Les Cartoonistes Dangereux co-founder, Brad Brooks. I think it offers a terrific global snapshot of the the world's comic industries from the obvious -- America, UK , France and Japan -- to the esoteric -- Malaysia, Hong Kong, Kenya and Turkey.
There are some omissions -- apparently, there simply wasn't space to include every country, and web comics, spannning all borders, get only limited coverage -- I found this a very entertaining book. While I'm familiar with some French, Italian, Norwegianand Australian titles, for example, it came as a surprise to learn of enthusiastic comics publishing in India - now being exploited by the new Virgin Comics company - and Africa, and the sheer variety of featured creators and creations is simply astonishing.
The book is also useful as a "starting point" when it comes to exploring some countries output. With Japanese manga, for example, there are some very useful recommendations when it comes to identifying the quality among the quantity.
It's also interesting to learn how comics are regarded in different countries. While British comics generally remain the province of children, in France they are regarded as "The Ninth Art".
Fingers crossed, there will be an updated volume at some point!
Format:Paperback
I mostly bought this book as I heard it contains information about my favourite manga, From Eroica With Love. I'm glad I did, though, as I found it all very interesting, with plenty of information of lots of things I enjoyed reading and learning about. I'm not very knowledgeable in the field, but the things I do know sounded about right. However, as the author joked (or so I assume, though it wasn't very funny) about the way the main character in From Eroica With Love dresses, that does make me a bit concerned if there are other jokes I'm missing. However, nice with glossy pages and so on, so I will give it a fairly high rating anyway.
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