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dantastic's review against another edition
4.0
Most people think about Maus, Love and Rockets, Watchmen, and Dark Knight Returns as the big books of the 1980s. This book is a collection of essays detailing lesser known gems.
The gems range from titles I've read, like Micronauts, Robotech, and Scout, to books I've heard of but never read, like Shuriken, Neil the Horse, and Angel Love, to stuff I was totally unfamiliar with, like Meet Misty, Wimmen's Comix, and others.
The Comics Journal and Gladstone Comics are detailed. I have some Gladstone EC reprints and remember seeing their Disney books but I didn't know the nuts and bolts behind the company. It's wild that Robotech and Scout each got their own chapter. I was a little surprised there was a section on licensed comics like Micronauts and Rom, and another chapter devoted to Real War Stories and The 'Nam.
This book was a really interesting collection of essays. Like a lot of works of this type, I think they might have looked a little too deep into some of them but that goes with the territory. If the same group did a book about the 1990s, I'd definitely read it.
The gems range from titles I've read, like Micronauts, Robotech, and Scout, to books I've heard of but never read, like Shuriken, Neil the Horse, and Angel Love, to stuff I was totally unfamiliar with, like Meet Misty, Wimmen's Comix, and others.
The Comics Journal and Gladstone Comics are detailed. I have some Gladstone EC reprints and remember seeing their Disney books but I didn't know the nuts and bolts behind the company. It's wild that Robotech and Scout each got their own chapter. I was a little surprised there was a section on licensed comics like Micronauts and Rom, and another chapter devoted to Real War Stories and The 'Nam.
This book was a really interesting collection of essays. Like a lot of works of this type, I think they might have looked a little too deep into some of them but that goes with the territory. If the same group did a book about the 1990s, I'd definitely read it.
mschlat's review
3.0
When you tell the story of comic books in the 1980's, you can focus heavily on the economics. By the mid-80's, the industry had shifted focus from newsstand distribution to the direct market, meaning publishers could carry out small press runs and sell directly to the most comics-engaged customers in dedicated stores. And, by the end of the 80's, the industry was embracing the trade paperback as a means of reprinting runs and reaching the bookstore market. What resulted was an explosion of titles outside the Big 2 (Marvel and DC) and rampant experimentation.
And yet, if you talk about the most important works of the 1980's, you are probably going to start with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Moore and Gibbon's Watchmen. Both needed the direct market to exist as titles and both became popular through trade paperback sales, but they also firmly represent the superhero genre (however deconstructive Watchmen may be).
One goal of this collection (as mentioned in the subtitle) is to explore what else might be "canon", or --- more broadly --- to extend a critical eye to those works that emerged during this turbulent period and may have been overlooked. A great example is found in the first essay by Isabelle Licari-Guillaume, which explores why Elfquest has never gotten the critical acclaim it might have reached. (Spoilers: it may be due to the title's sex positivity and one of the creators' early cosplay!) Other chapters in the same vein discuss the postmodern features of DC's humor titles (by Blair Davis), the heavy female focus of some DC titles (by Aaron Kashtan), and the question of why Doug Moench's non-superhero work (released the same time as Alan Moore's) never got the same attention (in an essay by Andrew J. Kunka). I thought these approaches had the most appeal for me in envisioning what might have been.
Other essays simply take works from the 80's and apply a critical lens, not so much as an act of evangelism but analysis (examples include Alex B. Smith's discussion of the Strip AIDS USA anthology and Shiamin Kwa's discussion of some P. Craig Russell opera adaptations). Here the focus is on the works themselves (and their particular contexts), but I didn't feel like there was much reframing.
And finally, there are some essays where I wondered why the subject was covered. Brannon Costello's chapter on the Southern Knights comic books is a fascinating piece on what it meant for a comic to be set in the South, but their description of where the series goes in terms of politics ensured I would never read it. Maybe some 80's comics don't need to be revisited?
If you are interested in this, note that this is an academic work with often dense prose and sometimes challenging critical frames. I could make it through most of the pieces, but I wouldn't claim total understanding by a long shot. The essays are fairly short, and the breadth of the comics covered is quite expansive (aside from the above, there's discussion of Neil the Horse, Wimmen's Comix, Scout, the work of Carl Barks, Stewart the Rat, Robotech, Ms. Mystic, and much more.) If you remember fondly the genre explosion of the 1980's and can handle academic discussion, this might be worth perusal.
And yet, if you talk about the most important works of the 1980's, you are probably going to start with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Moore and Gibbon's Watchmen. Both needed the direct market to exist as titles and both became popular through trade paperback sales, but they also firmly represent the superhero genre (however deconstructive Watchmen may be).
One goal of this collection (as mentioned in the subtitle) is to explore what else might be "canon", or --- more broadly --- to extend a critical eye to those works that emerged during this turbulent period and may have been overlooked. A great example is found in the first essay by Isabelle Licari-Guillaume, which explores why Elfquest has never gotten the critical acclaim it might have reached. (Spoilers: it may be due to the title's sex positivity and one of the creators' early cosplay!) Other chapters in the same vein discuss the postmodern features of DC's humor titles (by Blair Davis), the heavy female focus of some DC titles (by Aaron Kashtan), and the question of why Doug Moench's non-superhero work (released the same time as Alan Moore's) never got the same attention (in an essay by Andrew J. Kunka). I thought these approaches had the most appeal for me in envisioning what might have been.
Other essays simply take works from the 80's and apply a critical lens, not so much as an act of evangelism but analysis (examples include Alex B. Smith's discussion of the Strip AIDS USA anthology and Shiamin Kwa's discussion of some P. Craig Russell opera adaptations). Here the focus is on the works themselves (and their particular contexts), but I didn't feel like there was much reframing.
And finally, there are some essays where I wondered why the subject was covered. Brannon Costello's chapter on the Southern Knights comic books is a fascinating piece on what it meant for a comic to be set in the South, but their description of where the series goes in terms of politics ensured I would never read it. Maybe some 80's comics don't need to be revisited?
If you are interested in this, note that this is an academic work with often dense prose and sometimes challenging critical frames. I could make it through most of the pieces, but I wouldn't claim total understanding by a long shot. The essays are fairly short, and the breadth of the comics covered is quite expansive (aside from the above, there's discussion of Neil the Horse, Wimmen's Comix, Scout, the work of Carl Barks, Stewart the Rat, Robotech, Ms. Mystic, and much more.) If you remember fondly the genre explosion of the 1980's and can handle academic discussion, this might be worth perusal.
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