Customer Reviews

The Comic Strip Century: Celebrating 100 Years of an American Art Form

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If anyone out there recalls a magnificent comic-strip anthology called THE SMITHSONIAN COLLECTION OF NEWSPAPER COMICS...well, consider this the unofficial sequel. (Both were compiled by Bill Blackbeard.) Though the 2 books in this set are both 9x12, the dailies and Sundays still needed to be reduced in size to fit the page, resulting in teeny-tiny lettering...and that's the only possible quibble anyone could have over these lush, lavish, color-drenched volumes which use all of our vaunted Modern Technology to achieve glorious reproduction quality on a half-century's worth of the greatest works of this woefully-unappreciated medium: it's a staggering, colossal achievement. Reading these, one is continually delighted if not astounded less by the individual artists' narrative and rendering skills (which is considerable) than by the unbound, unfettered, totally free rein of invention and imagination our daily newspapers once contained on the comics page. COMIC STRIP CENTURY features all the giants (Segar, Caniff, Capp, King, McCay, Outcault, Willard, etc) as well as continuities of many brilliant-but-neglected strips like 'Minute Movies', 'Heiji' and 'The Bungle Family'. How I envy the Gen-X reader who picks up these books and discovers this unforgettable universe for the first time...he or she will never be satisfied with 'Dilbert' or 'The Lockhorns' again! Highest recommendation.

Back in 1995 there was a newsletter entitled: "The Kitchen Sink Press" which sold tons of books and other items that related to hip kids and adults that took their comics and comix real serious. This beautiful two volume set was sold in a slipcase and contained 480 pages that are presented almost all IN FULL COLOR for $79.95 (big bucks back then) and it was worth every penny of that price.

A few essays are found upon the first 32 pages of volume one and the book enters Hogan's Alley in 1896 on page 35. We there meet up with the Yellow Kid, Happy Hooligan, Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, Mutt & Jeff, The Gumps, Barney Google, The Katzenjammer Kids, Polly and her Pals, Gasoline Alley ending at 1929. Their are dailes (in black and white) and Sunday (full page and full color) cartoons on every page and much of this material has not been reprinted in any other book I have come across in the last 40+ years of buying these collections so to describe this as a feast for the eyes would be putting it mildly. This is really a treasure chest of comics from the golden age of America's newspapers. There a hundreds of different comic strips to be found in volume one.

The second book starts up at 1928 with Little Orphan Annie into the 1930's with Blondie, Terry and the Pirates, Henry, Dick Tracy, Hejji (a little known strip from Dr, Seuss) Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Felix The Cat, Captain Easy, Mickey Mouse, Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon, Superman, Batman, Sad Sack, Li'l Abner and Pogo. The modern age of comics (1950 onwards) is represented by Peanuts, Dennis The Menace, B.C. Wizard of Id, Bloom County, Doonsbury, Ernie, Ziggy, Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Ziggy and Shoe. There are hundreds of other titles I did not mention here that are found in these two fine volumes that if I included them here I would die of a stroke trying to type them all!

I have seen a few books about the subject of comic strips and this one of the biggest collections of material found in one place that I have ever come across and it's a high-quality ride for the entire journey. With 480 pages over the span of these two books (of course) not every strip printed and published made space in these volumes but, this is about as close as it's ever going to be for having so much all in one place.

This one get's my highest rating: FIVE STARS!