We love to laugh.
Even with such sorrow and suffering in the world.
So we turn to Dan Mazur and Alexander Danner’s Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present (Thames & Hudson, $39.95), Comprehensive and lushly illustrated, the first global history of comics from the late 1960s to the present day is groundbreaking in both its scope and level of detail. Whether called manga, bandes dessinées, fumetti, tebeos or historietas, comics are an essential part of the universal human desire to tell stories with pictures.
Chronicling the last five decades of comics around the world, This landmark volume is the first to integrate the story of comics in Europe, Asia, and the Americas in an all-inclusive account, told from a global perspective. Mazur and Danner begin their survey in 1968, a key year in comics’ shift from an endeavor driven by commercial potential into a means of self-expression respected not just as entertainment, but also as art. The book traces the evolution of comics over fifty years and across five continents, up to the emergence of the global, digital scene that is prevalent today and that is the medium’s likely future.
Comics covers a wide range of artists, styles, and movements, including Marvel and DC superheroes; R. Crumb, the Underground movement, and manga powerhouse Osamu Tezuka; politically charged Italian fumetti and sexually charged ladies’ manga (or josei); the Francophone technique of ligne claire; sci-fi; Métal Hurlant; the pioneering Japanese alternative journal Garo; the graphic memoir and the graphic novel; and the moment comics made the jump from page to web page.
Featuring the best-known artists and writers–from Jack Kirby, Hergé, and Moebius to Katsuhiro Otomo, Neil Gaiman, and Alan Moore–Comics also introduces readers to creators they may not yet have encountered, such as Andrea Pazienza, the Fort Thunder collective and Fabrice Neaud.
We love to laugh.