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rebus's review against another edition
4.5
The art is magnificent, but I don't find it as satisfying as his old pen and ink work. It's also the sort of thing that, when I worked in distribution in the 80s, would probably have been best served to be a card set (it's very large even though the written content is minimal, and it's not like the painting is so great that it has to be seen at that size).
I counted around 15 or 20 names that seemed like they weren't familiar to me at all from my decade in the field, but the tales of some of my favorites were quite chilling, a sweat shop industry full of addicts and obsessives who were just as likely to die young as the guys who started the exploitative shop system were to live well into their 90s (several into their 100s). Wally Wood and Jack Cole being lost to suicide was difficult to take, and most who were alive when it was published began to be lost shortly after that (and last year Lily Rene, and just last month Al Jaffe).
Some of the exploitation wasn't as egregious as you'd think either, especially since some reparations were made prior to the massive postwar expansion of merchandise. The author complains that Siegel and Shuster were victims, but the $94K they settled for in court in 1946 would be $1.5 million today and I think any of us would take a $750K contract to create a character. From 1975 to the end of their lives they also got $20K per year--for about 20 years each, though it's not indicated if there were cost of living adjustments, likely not--which was the equivalent of $112K per year now and would have had nearly that value for a quarter of those 20 years and would have been a much higher than upper middle class wage for the entire time. That's a top 8% income, kids.
Kirby too was said to have been gypped at a 'mere' $35K per year in 1969, which would be $287K per year today. I wonder how many cartoonists make that much now. Virtually none unless they are licensed for film or TV (he wasn't selling art in old age to scratch by, as he had been very rich most of his life, unless he was foolish or dissolute about money). That's a top 3% income kids.
Carl Burgos had been screwed more than most and died young, but there's still a lot of fun information that will you surprise you about many of them (the scariest and most macabre were often quite meek). A few greats seem to be missing, but it's a pretty comprehensive survey of the pioneers of the field.
I guess we were all geeks and nerds when comics began as well.
I counted around 15 or 20 names that seemed like they weren't familiar to me at all from my decade in the field, but the tales of some of my favorites were quite chilling, a sweat shop industry full of addicts and obsessives who were just as likely to die young as the guys who started the exploitative shop system were to live well into their 90s (several into their 100s). Wally Wood and Jack Cole being lost to suicide was difficult to take, and most who were alive when it was published began to be lost shortly after that (and last year Lily Rene, and just last month Al Jaffe).
Some of the exploitation wasn't as egregious as you'd think either, especially since some reparations were made prior to the massive postwar expansion of merchandise. The author complains that Siegel and Shuster were victims, but the $94K they settled for in court in 1946 would be $1.5 million today and I think any of us would take a $750K contract to create a character. From 1975 to the end of their lives they also got $20K per year--for about 20 years each, though it's not indicated if there were cost of living adjustments, likely not--which was the equivalent of $112K per year now and would have had nearly that value for a quarter of those 20 years and would have been a much higher than upper middle class wage for the entire time. That's a top 8% income, kids.
Kirby too was said to have been gypped at a 'mere' $35K per year in 1969, which would be $287K per year today. I wonder how many cartoonists make that much now. Virtually none unless they are licensed for film or TV (he wasn't selling art in old age to scratch by, as he had been very rich most of his life, unless he was foolish or dissolute about money). That's a top 3% income kids.
Carl Burgos had been screwed more than most and died young, but there's still a lot of fun information that will you surprise you about many of them (the scariest and most macabre were often quite meek). A few greats seem to be missing, but it's a pretty comprehensive survey of the pioneers of the field.
I guess we were all geeks and nerds when comics began as well.
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