American Comics: A History
By Jeremy Dauber
Comics have conquered America. From the movies, where Marvel and DC films reign supreme, to television, where comics-based shows like The Walking Dead have become among the most popular in cable history, to convention halls, best-seller lists, Pulitzer Prize-winning titles, and MacArthur Fellowship recipients, comics shape American culture, in ways high and low, superficial, and deeply profound. In American Comics, Jeremy Dauber, the Atran Professor of Yiddish Literature, Language, and Culture, takes readers through the fascinating, but little-known history of the medium. He starts with the Civil War and cartoonist Thomas Nast, creator of the iconic images of Uncle Sam and Santa Claus; then moves on to the golden age of newspaper comic strips and the first great superhero boom; the moral panic of the Eisenhower era, the Marvel Comics revolution, and the underground comix movement of the 1960s and ‘70s; and, finally, into the 21st century, taking in the grim, gritty Dark Knights and Watchmen, alongside the rise of the graphic novel by acclaimed practitioners like Art Spiegelman and Alison Bechdel.
Read a Columbia News interview with Professor Dauber about the book.
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