- Hardcover: 287 pages
- Publisher: Harry N Abrams (September 1991)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0810938219
- ISBN-13: 978-0810938212
- Product Dimensions: 29.5 x 24.9 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.8 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #782,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
I don't even like comic books, but I was completely enthralled by this book. The hefty 300 pages of high clay-content, color-saturated pages with over 700 illustrations and detailed text covers the 50-year history of the canonical comic books company which later became one of the industry's greatest innovators. Here there be artists highly skilled at depicting mayhem with clarity and precision, and writers who unerringly touch the (popular) collective unconscious. In addition to being highly praised within the comic book community, this book has also received rave reviews from mainstream magazines such as Newsday and People.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The strongest impression one gets from this commemorative album is of the extraordinary skill with which Marvel Comics has hopped on the bandwagon throughout its 50-plus-year history. Timley Publications (Marvel's original name) started publishing superhero comics after Superman and Batman became prominent in the late 1930s (and stopped when the genre lost popularity after WW II), and romance and horror comics after competitors Prize Publications and EC Comics, respectively, popularized those genres in the late 1940s/early 1950s. When DC Comics's Justice League of America repopularized super-heroes, Marvel inaugurated its famous line of superhero comics, starting with The Fantastic Four in 1961. Daniels ( Living in Fear: The History of Horror in the Mass Media ) lays to rest the myth that Marvel publisher Lee (whose introduction is written in hyperbolic, adjective- and alliteration-laden prose) was the sole creator of those 1960s superheroes, which was Marvel's position until others in the field pushed to give proper credit to the artists who worked with Lee, especially Jack Kirby. The book does a fine job of documenting Marvel's overlooked pre-1961 background and is beautifully illustrated.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
the action behind marvel,
By "jojojo@netvision.net.il" (Petach Tikva Israel) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Marvel (Paperback)
i got the book, opened it in my car and spent half an hour fliiping through it until i realized that i had to get to the office...finished it that evening!i liked the whole concept and found out a lot (!) of interesting information about marvel, the people behind it, the philosophies, the characters. the book is easy to read and easy to use. i dropped off one star from the rating because, in the end, it is rather shallow and there were times when i wanted more information but there just wasn't any. a good read.
2.0 out of 5 stars
SERIOUS FLAWS,
This review is from: Marvel (Paperback)
THis book is a very generic portrait of Marvel, with one serious flaw: the book is edited by Marvel itself. This means that the writer, altough a real expert in comic book history, could not deal with all the subjects in a neutral way all the time. So, what we have is, generally, praise after praise for this mighty (with justice) company, but no real insight into their history. Of course, there is not space for such, since the book is crowded with magnific art from various artists and various comics. I think it lacked appendices, which could have lists of Marvel's greates artists, MArvel's greatest selling books, Marvel's greates histories. The book is also clearly outdated, since it was first published in 1992. Since then, there was the "mutiny" from the artists (Silvestri, Jim Lee and McFarlane, amongst others) who left to form their own company; the writer, altough mentions it, doesn't explain why Stan Lee, whose role in the company since 1980 is to supervise adaptations to movies and animated features, permitted such lousy adaptations as THE PUNISHER, for example. It does not touch the fact of how the artists were totally underpaid until Jim Shooter was Editor-In-Chief, nor how Lee permitted one editor after another to resign due to the sheer impossibility of editing 54 books at the same time. All in all, this book is great for the art, but for text PEter Sanderson's work, MARVEK UNIVERSE, is better.
5.0 out of 5 stars
JACK! STAN! JOE! GENE! AND FANTASTIC FOUR #51, TOO!!!,
By
This review is from: Marvel (Paperback)
MARVEL:FIVE FABULOUS DECADES is a long book with a lot of details that the average comic fan isn't interested in, but what I liked the most about it was the analysis of the work of Jack "The King" Kirby, Stan "The Man" Lee, Gene "The Dean" Colan, and INKER SUPREME Joe Sinnott!But what made an overwhelming impression on me about this book--and forced me to give it 5 stars!!!--was the surprise appearance of FANTASTIC FOUR #51--"This Man, This Monster"-- right in the middle of the book, a comic book I had never seen before, and probably one of the top 4 FANTASTIC FOUR ISSUES EVER MADE!!! BUY MARVEL:FIVE FABULOUS DECADES JUST TO GET A COPY OF FANTASTIC FOUR #51!!! EXCELSIOR!!! Chari Krishnan RESEARCHKING
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