Product Description

Most people's perception of comicbooks is one of superheroes like Spider-Man and Batman. But it belies an art form that is not unique to the UK and USA. Practically every country in the world has its own thriving comicbook industry. In some countries like France, they are a highly regarded form of expression - The Ninth Art. While in Japan, comics are so integral to its culture and society that it would be impossible to imagine the country without them. The cultural impact of comics cannot be underestimated. Did you know that sales of Mexico's leading comic outstrip those of the country's bestselling daily newspaper by six to one? Or that comicbooks are often used to convey a very serious message (only recently a comic featuring Superman was distributed to 500,000 children in Kosovo to teach them how to spot and avoid land mines)? Arranged geographically, the book assesses the medium in every major area of the world, discussing the history of the genre, the comics and characters, the publishers, creators and artists. Regions covered include the UK and United States, central Europe (France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy), Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Japan and Asia, Africa, India, Central and South America, and Australasia. Including key feature spreads and a wealth of colour images - many of them unseen - this book is the first of its kind to provide a global snapshot of an often-underrated art form.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #327329 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Comics International, #190, November, 2005
...Great anecdotes, masses of names, titles, facts and figures and rarely seen imagery... A remarkable achievement, colourful and sharply designed...

www.downthetubes.net, 19 September 2005
...A very entertaining insight... the sheer variety of featured creators and creations is simply astonishing... Packed with stunning imagery...

From the Author
The cover is drawn by New Zealand cartoonist Roger Langridge and the book has an extensive foreword by Dave Gibbons. This is essential reading for anyone even remotely interested in comics and is guaranteed to surprise and inform even the most die-hard fan.

Customer Reviews

An alternative history of comics around the world
Fat, glossy, stuffed with illustrations and useful potted biographies, this is intended as a globe-spanning primer on comics and the creators behind them. Inevitably some of the information here will be common knowledge to anyone with a passing acquaintance with the medium, but other areas - Indian comics, for example - are unfamiliar to all but a few.

Equally inevitably, there are omissions and typos: you will search the index in vain for any mention of Jim Steranko or John Buscema (*TIP for the editors of any revised edition: any creator whose name is big enough to feature in the title of a book should be an automatic candidate for at least a mention*) or Marcus Morris, founder and editor of The Eagle, although at least he and it are both covered in the text.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the book is how it favours the rare and esoteric over the popular and mainstream, and it is this that is both its biggest strength and weakness: it sacrifices several pages on the biggest American comics success story of the 1960s, Marvel Comics (covered in a skimpy two pages), in order to allocate another American publisher with a more 'alternative' line-up, Fantagraphics, a generous six pages. Unbalanced? Undoubtedly. Unfair? Perhaps, but the shelves are groaning under the weight of superhero-oriented surveys.

That apart, this is a fun read and a good primer for anyone wanting to learn about the history and diversity of comics. Just don't make the mistake of assuming that "essential" means "definitive".

A great overview of the world's comics
This is a thoroughly absorbing overview of World Comics from former Comics International associate editor Tim Pilcher and Les Cartoonistes Dangereux co-founder, Brad Brooks. I think it offers a terrific global snapshot of the the world's comic industries from the obvious -- America, UK , France and Japan -- to the esoteric -- Malaysia, Hong Kong, Kenya and Turkey.

There are some omissions -- apparently, there simply wasn't space to include every country, and web comics, spannning all borders, get only limited coverage -- I found this a very entertaining book. While I'm familiar with some French, Italian, Norwegianand Australian titles, for example, it came as a surprise to learn of enthusiastic comics publishing in India - now being exploited by the new Virgin Comics company - and Africa, and the sheer variety of featured creators and creations is simply astonishing.

The book is also useful as a "starting point" when it comes to exploring some countries output. With Japanese manga, for example, there are some very useful recommendations when it comes to identifying the quality among the quantity.

It's also interesting to learn how comics are regarded in different countries. While British comics generally remain the province of children, in France they are regarded as "The Ninth Art".

Fingers crossed, there will be an updated volume at some point!