From Publishers Weekly
Founder and former director of the International Cartoon Museum of Art, Walker here presents a survey of postwar strips that made it to the big time of daily syndication, as well as of their creators. Strip illustrations (210 in color, 776 in all) range from Little Orphan Annie collecting scrap metal to help the war effort, to Doonesbury's Zonker parodying interactive media by losing his punchline to a computer error. Walker, who since 1984 "has been part of the creative team that produces Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois," orients the book toward hugely popular strips like the still-running Peanuts, B.C. and Garfield and cubicle-based smash Dilbert, and thus ends up giving more of a history of American taste than of the entire form. Still, readers will be happy to rediscover the likes of '80s media tweaker John Darling; genre strips like the western Red Ryder (1938-64), '50s sci-fi Twin Earths and the adventure strip Steve Canyon; and Walt Kelly's ever-influential Pogo. Proceeding chronologically, Walker notes the effects of the invention of television, the politics of syndication, and the means of racial integration, and offers biographical profiles tracking the careers of all the names less familiar to us than the characters-the cartoonists. The whole feels a little too accepting of the dictates of syndication for a mass audience, but it is a solid account of the way various artists have worked within that system.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
"Happiness is a warm puppy."-Lucy Van Pelt, Peanuts, April 25, 1960
Newspaper comics arrive in millions of homes each day and make families laugh out loud. They're not only funny-they also reflect their times. In this collection, cartoon authority Brian Walker has amassed more than a half-century of strips-more than 700 illustrations-including scores of rare examples provided by the artists themselves. Featured cartoonists include Walt Kelly (Pogo), Charles Schulz (Peanuts), Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury), Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes), Scott Adams (Dilbert), and Patrick McDonnell (Mutts), along with many more.
Organized by decade, with biographical profiles and descriptions of different genres and themes, The Comics is both comprehensive and graphically stunning. Taken as a whole, this humorous compendium is a classic survey of American culture since 1945.
