9780061992100 |
(hardback) |
0061992100 |
Available:*
Library | Material Type | Call Number | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
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Searching... Library 21c | Book | 741.59 HOWE | Nonfiction | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
The defining, behind-the-scenes chronicle of one of the most extraordinary, beloved, and dominant pop cultural entities in America's history -- Marvel Comics - and the outsized personalities who made Marvel including Martin Goodman, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby.
"Sean Howe's history of Marvel makes a compulsively readable, riotous and heartbreaking version of my favorite story, that of how a bunch of weirdoes changed the world...That it's all true is just frosting on the cake."
--Jonathan Lethem
For the first time, Marvel Comics tells the stories of the men who made Marvel: Martin Goodman, the self-made publisher who forayed into comics after a get-rich-quick tip in 1939, Stan Lee, the energetic editor who would shepherd the company through thick and thin for decades and Jack Kirby, the WWII veteran who would co-create Captain America in 1940 and, twenty years later, developed with Lee the bulk of the company's marquee characters in a three-year frenzy. Incorporating more than one hundred original interviews with those who worked behind the scenes at Marvel over a seventy-year-span, Marvel Comics packs anecdotes and analysis into a gripping narrative of how a small group of people on the cusp of failure created one of the most enduring pop cultural forces in contemporary America.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The comic book publisher that spawned roughly half of Hollywood's summer franchises roils with its own melodrama in this scintillating history. Journalist Howe, editor of Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers, recounts the saga of Stan Lee and the other auteurs who broke the square-jawed-and-earnest mold to create quirky, neurotic, rough-edged superheroes with a Pop Art look, including Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, and the X-Men. Howe's exploration of the vast Marvel fictive universe, with its crazily grandiose plots and thousands of bizarre characters-the psychedelic 1970s birthed Angarr, a hippie supervillain who "blasted people with bad trips and primal screams"-is affectionate and incisive. But he focuses on the battle between the forces of art and commerce at the Marvel offices, where writers, artists, and editors wrestle for control of story arcs, titanic egos clash over copyrights, and creative oddballs confront the heartless, power-mad suits from marketing. Adroitly deploying zillions of interviews, Howe pens a colorful panorama of the comics industry and its tense mix of formulaic hackwork, cutthroat economics and poignant aesthetic pretense. Like comic books, his narrative often goes in circles; the same antagonisms keep churning away on successively grander platforms. Still, Howe paints an indelible portrait of the crass, juvenile, soulful business that captured the world's imagination. Photos. Agent: Daniel Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Howe's in-depth account of Marvel's business history, revered personalities, and pop-culturally ingrained characters boasts exhaustively researched and intricately integrated information. And loads of it, as this isn't just one story it's a bunch of knotted tales strung together. It's Stan Lee and Jack Kirby creating a pantheon of modern American superheroes. It's the rote staff changes and personnel quirks that made Marvel the company it was. It's the siren call of Hollywood cash that made it the company it is today. It's a look at the American comic-book industry as a whole over the last half-century. It's a priceless collection of anecdotes about the artists and writers reflecting and filtering the eras they worked in. The most timely strand threads through issues of creators' rights and intellectual property, an argument that's heating up today's comics climate. Casual fans may find more than they bargained for, but for the Marvel faithful, this is the definitive book on the company responsible for aligning the cosmos in their favorite fictional universe.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
Choice Review
Howe's study helps plug a huge gap in comics research--the shortage of critical appraisals of the industry. He avoids boring statistical analyses, must-be-there scholarly theory, and nondecipherable terminology, and provides a flowing narrative that intermingles the plots and characters of its comic book stories with the often unscrupulous machinations of the Marvel corporation and the disgruntlement prevalent among many of its staff. The picture Howe paints of Marvel is anything but flattering; throughout, he quotes editors, artists, and writers who call Marvel a place of stressful and broken lives, legal entanglements, firings, rude and disrespectful behavior, sabotage, betrayal, and shady deals. Sources relate how Marvel comic books transitioned into commodities for speculating investors, emphasizing quantity over quality, collectors' editions based on image rather than substance (e.g., 3-D hologram-enhanced covers), complicated storylines, overpopulation of characters, and tie-ins to movies, trading cards, and other merchandise. Howe shows the benefactors to be the owners and top management. Research for this book was exhaustive, relying on personal recollections of more than 150 Marvel-related personnel and the perusal of many comics periodicals and documents. The result is a significant contribution to both scholarship and fandom. Now, for a similar treatment of DC comics. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty, practitioners, and general readers. J. A. Lent independent scholar
Library Journal Review
In this revealing, legend-skewering tome, former Entertainment Weekly editor Howe provides a behind-the-scenes history of Marvel, from its 1939 origin, when pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman accepted a proposal to enter the burgeoning superhero comics market, to the present, when many of the company's characters are known worldwide. Delving into Marvel's inner business and editorial workings, Howe presents a parade of famed creators and creations from Jack Kirby and Captain America onward, but also devotes much space to controversy: a parallel parade of shattered loyalties, abandoned veterans, disastrous business deals, compromised creativity, and a work-for-hire business model that often meant authors and illustrators were not rewarded their ideas as well as many expected. VERDICT Howe's extensive research gives the book much detail that will fascinate comics fans, while his fast-paced, anecdotal style and business-world focus will expand his audience to general readers. There are some organizational problems and questionable statements; exact dates are often unclear; and Howe manages to misquote the most famous line in all of superhero comics. But this engaging history is recommended.-S.R. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.