Funnybooks : The Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books

Barrier, Michael

University of California Press（2014/11発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 432 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780520241183
• DDC分類 741.5973

Full Description

Funnybooks is the story of the most popular American comic books of the 1940s and 1950s, those published under the Dell label. For a time, "Dell Comics Are Good Comics" was more than a slogan - it was a simple statement of fact. Many of the stories written and drawn by people like Carl Barks (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge), John Stanley (Little Lulu), and Walt Kelly (Pogo) repay reading and rereading by educated adults even today, decades after they were published as disposable entertainment for children. Such triumphs were improbable, to say the least, because midcentury comics were so widely dismissed as trash by angry parents, indignant librarians, and even many of the people who published them. It was all but miraculous that a few great cartoonists were able to look past that nearly universal scorn and grasp the artistic potential of their medium. With clarity and enthusiasm, Barrier explains what made the best stories in the Dell comic books so special. He deftly turns a complex and detailed history into an expressive narrative sure to appeal to an audience beyond scholars and historians.

Contents

List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: "The Very Good Ones" 1. Mickey in a Magazine 2. Oskar Lebeck Meets Walt Kelly 3. Whitman, K.K., and Dell 4. Learning on the Job in L.A. 5. A Feel for Walt Kelly's Stuff 6. Animal Magnetism 7. Cartoon Conundrums 8. Carl Barks Makes His Break 9. Barks Becomes the Duck Man 10. The Workman: Gaylord DuBois 11. The Observer: John Stanley 12. "I Am a Backwoods Bumpkin" 13. "Pure Corn" at Disney's 14. Special Talents 15. Barks Masters His Medium 16. An Arena for All the Passions 17. Animal Kingdoms 18. Walt Kelly Branches Out 19. Strong-Handed Friends 20. Carl Barks: The Virtuoso 21. Walt Kelly Escapes 22. Oskar Lebeck in Exile 23. Manifest Destiny 24. Uncle Scrooge: Play Money 25. Carl Barks in Purgatory 26. The Slow Fade 27. Disasters Epilogue: Can These Bones Live? Abbreviations Notes Index