Customer Reviews

Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics

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Growing up in the 60s & 70s, I wasn't much enamored of comic strips appearing in the newspaper with a scant few exceptions. Newspaper comics were awfully stale if not comatose at the time; they smell even worse now. In light of this reality, thank God I found this book 20 years ago. To me, this mammoth oversized anthology of color and b/w strips (mostly vintage 1895-1950) was and is an education, a revelation and a door to a separate reality. Who knew that such fully realized, utterly compelling and unique works of art were once commonplace features in our daily and Sunday newspapers? Compiler Bill Blackbeard provides minimal but insightful commentary, which only underscores his good taste as the majority of SMITHSONIAN is devoted to the actual comics themselves. Wherever possible, he provides continuities of strips to give the reader not only a fuller flavor of the individual storylines and the era they appeared in, but each strip's particular dynamic with its audience. What's also impressive is the sheer number of titles sampled. Among the weightier excerpts are Popeye, Moon Mullins, Wash Tubbs/Capt. Easy, Barney Google, Polly and her Pals, Krazy Kat...but many of the lightly-skimmed properties are just as good. Set aside their enormous entertainment value and what you may find most impressive is how starkly individual each strip creator is; what ends up on the page is the sum total of one man's creative & emotional being, distorted through a prism of fantasy or slapstick or melodrama. Your net gain as reader: 336 pages of the kind of joyous, crazy, all-elbows-and-graceful-despite-it art that can only emerge from forms that the Arbiters of Taste don't take very seriously. Splendid as this book is the first time 'round, it continues to enrich you, always revealing more with every subsequent re-reading. Out of print for a while but readily available through the online auction services; I also hear it's being reissued soon. By the way, the other mandatory strip anthologies are the 'sequel' to this one (COMIC STRIP CENTURY), an important predecessor (Robinson's THE COMICS) and the entire run of Rick Marschall's NEMO magazine; happily, there is next to no duplication of strips reprinted between all of them (apparently the archivist's code of honor). If this book floors you like it did me, seek them out and flabbergast further.

The "Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics" is a giant, heavy hardcover book that is just bursting with great comic strips. We bought this as a present for my Granddad in 1984, but you can be sure that I got far more use out of it than he did. Every visit to their house had me pouring over these old comics.

Comic strips of the golden age where very different from the tiny, three panel strips we have today. Huge, multi-page full-color adventures were the norm. "Little Nemo in Slumberland" is a burst of eye-candy. Windsor McCay had imagination and talent. "Thimble Theater Staring Popeye" was another favorite of mine. E.C. Segar's Sailor is very different, and much improved, from the spinach-eather we have now.

Other great strips in here are "The Yellow Kid," "Gasoline Alley," "Barney Google," "Moon Mullins," "Buster Brown" and the list goes on. This book is a treasure.