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Download 75 Years Of DC Comics The Art Of Modern Mythmaking Paul Levitz Benedikt Taschen 0000383651981 Books

Product details Hardcover 720 pages Publisher Taschen America; 2nd edition (November 18, 2010) Language English ISBN-10 383651981X

75 Years Of DC Comics The Art Of Modern Mythmaking Paul Levitz Benedikt Taschen 0000383651981 Books Reviews

• Over the past several decades, my bookshelf has filled up with publications that cover the long history of the Comic Book and the big two publishers. This newest tribute to the history of DC Comics, '75 Years of DC Comics The Art of Modern Mythmaking', quite literally, crushes them all. It will also crush your lap and test your strength if you try to hold it up to read it! This tomb is MASSIVE! Nearly sixteen inches tall, 12 inches wide, 3 inches thick and weighs a metric ton! Well, perhaps not quite that much but it will feel like it after holding it for a short period of time!
  
  The hardcover comes shrink-wrapped in a sturdy cardboard slipcase, matching the artwork on the wraparound cover. The box even conveniently comes with a side handle. Although you will need both hands to carry this monster around.
  
  Yes, this is a very pricey book. As one who has a collection of like publications, I can assure you this book is worth every penny. Inside, the rarity of images and artwork along with the high production values, the quality of the print and page stock is well above the norm. For example, for each era of comic history (The Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, etc), that chapter begins with a two page spread highlighting the name of the era with thick, high gloss, corresponding color foil pages. Each era also includes a four page, pull-open timeline highlighting key events in both the fictional DC Comic universe and the real world of the comic book industry.
  
  The author, Paul Levitz, a man who has spent his entire adult life working for the company, first as a young freelance writer in the 1970s, then later as publisher until 2010, was the right choice to chronicle this retrospective. If he had not seen it all, he certainly heard it all. I really enjoy how the text, the ongoing historical telling throughout the book is laid out for the reader...a grand intro for each era then as one or two paragraph antidotes accompanying the images or photos. For example, here's a cover of a very significant Green Lantern issue in the 1970s and why it is so considered, while next to it will be a short bio and tribute to a particular creator who worked on said issue. In fact, the creator tributes in this book are part of the true joys of reading through DC's history. That list is long and deep and for once a book of this kind goes to great lengths to credit more than just the typical top 20 or so names from the company's storied past. Beyond the names most adult fans of the genre already know about (The Bob Kanes, Jack Kirbys and Carmine Infantinoes) we find tributes to writers and artists less well known but just as important to the success of DC Comics and the Comic Book industry in general over the decades (Will Eisner, Sheldon Mayer, Jack Cole, Mort Weisinger, Curt Swan, Wally Wood, Gil Kane, Bernie Wrightson, Alex Toth), including many of the modern era's top talent (Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Mike Grell, Frank Miller, Bruce Timm, Alex Ross, Darwyn Cooke, Jim Lee, Geoff Johns) . The list of reference is long!
  
  Running the business of DC Comics over the decades covers territory far beyond the comic book itself. Inside you will also find just as many rare images and stories about DC characters in TV, film, animation, toys and games, parades, commercials, stage productions and many other forms of marketing in the past 75 years.
  
  This hardcover clearly cost a pretty penny to produce and import. As a tip for any fan on the fence about pulling the trigger on this big purchase...I would not bet this edition will be available for a any significant amount of time. Once it is sold out, it is very likely to become a collectible prize and rise in value. 's introductory price is a bargain. In fact I would say is losing money on the shipping cost of this book alone.
  
  Yep, highly recommended, but you will need to get creative on finding shelf space for this thing! I will add personal photos of the book to help give a better look at its inner awesomeness.
• I was not able to snag a copy of the first printing of this book, which sold out quickly.
  At twice the size of this new edition, that tremendous volume is literally a coffee table
  book that is as big as a coffee table! Although reduced in size, this tome still weighs in
  at nearly 10 pounds! DC's Publisher, author Paul Levitz has been there since his teens.
  Even in it's smaller format, it's a treasure trove of history, trivia and spectacular artwork.
  I only have two critiques...
  1. In this smaller version the art and copy can often be extremely difficult to view or read.
  2. Once again, I had problems with shipping. And the upper corners were bent!
  But due to the massive weight of this book, I decided to keep it instead of returning it.
  I wish would demand that their shippers take better care of the items they deliver.
• Let me start off by disclosing that I'm really more of a book collector than a comics guy. Exploring the world of comics is something I look forward to doing in the future, but right now I really don't know much. I do know spectacular books, however, and this book is clearly that. This is not just huge, it is sophisticated in a dozen other ways. Let me just run through a quick list of superlatives here
  
  1) This is a cloth-covered hardback. Cloth is harder and harder to get nowadays, and it really harkens back to the days of better book binding. This book is so massive you will need to assure that it is properly supported while you are perusing it, but the book meets you half-way by giving you a bona fide binding.
  
  2) Paper quality is first-rate. Each section (Black Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, etc.) is divided by ultra-thick metallic paper of corresponding color. This is a totally innovative flourish, it really upgrades the book's sophistication. The colors used in reproduction of graphics and covers are almost certainly perfect and true; this is something for which Taschen is known. There are also numerous fold-out pages with chronologies of the characters and the innovators of these comics.
  
  3)The book has a thick paper dust jacket. Since we are talking about an almost-certain valuable collectable here, I suggest getting the dust jacket into a Brodart mylar cover protector. You can buy it by the roll, or perhaps your local librarian will help you out. You'll be glad you made the effort to protect your investment. The book has a gorgeous ribbon book mark built in. There are indexes galore for you comics scholars and geeks.
  
  4)Even for a comics novice like myself, the orgy of spectacular comics images is truly amazing. Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman...dozens more. I spent half a day just flipping through the pages. Your kids will certainly fighting over this massive tome some day unless you specify who gets it in your will!
  
  I have several of the Taschen "XL" titles, and I never cease to be amazed. They are all great. Taschen has blown the doors off the publishing industry in recent years with these "XL" titles and many other creative publication efforts. They generate one fabulous book after another, and the price points make almost all of them inevitable purchases for me. I just wish Taschen was an American company. (They have US facilities, but they are German.) It begs the question, however Why can't American manufacturers of products progress so innovatively ?
  
  Taschen is iconic in my mind because they have entered their market with the idea of blowing off all constraints and preconceptions. Their only habit is experimentation, trying new things. They are revolutionary publishers in an era where many people are predicting the imminent demise of the book. Taschen should be a role model for all industries and manufacturers because of their emphasis on audacity and innovation, with a loyalty to traditional aspects of quality and value. The Taschens (a husband and wife who own and run the company) are the first people I would chose to take with me to a foreign galaxy for purposes of establishing an economic infrastructure on some remote planet. They look to precedent only for purposes of bettering it.
• A smaller version of the first huge release, a taschen tradition. I'll say the reduction in size erases the effect of seeing comics pages in what could've been the size of the original art but it still has enough value, and for sure a practicality now. Even though it's made by corporate approval, enough is said so that it does not feel like a Stalinesque coverup of what was done to Superman's creators or what Bob Kane did to the actual Batman creators.
  
  Basically, in a way that the taschen Marvel book is not, the DC comics is about a company that has had almost practically the same characters from the start of the comic book to the modern world.