Any superhero comic book fan will know about the previous three huge books celebrating the Golden Age, the Silver Age and the Bronze Age of DC Comics. Those three volumes, big as they are, were merely a small part of what the current new edition of 75 Years of DC Comics The Art of Modern Mythmaking has to offer.
This review is about the 2017 “small” edition that comes in the dimension of 10.1 x 2.1 x 13.2 inches and weighs 10 pounds.
It actually is the (much cheaper) reissue of the original “big” 2010 edition (12.5 x 3.5 x 18.2 inches and 16.9 pounds) which is already a collectible item in certain circles.
In 2011, it won the prestigious Eisner Comic Industry Award.
The author of all the Taschen DC Comics books and of the new 2017 edition is, as usual, comic book specialist, story author, Batman editor, Comic Reader editor, collector and superhero buff Paul Levitz, closely attached to DC Comics for 38 years, presenting what is widely accepted as the single most complete and impressive book on DC’s superheroes Batman, Superman and colleagues.
Coming on 720 pages with more than 2,000 pictures, drawings, panels, details, film stills, sketches and unpublished covers this is one masterpiece. Considering the sheer countless drawings that have been published since DC Comics founder Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson sold “New Fun” #1 at the American newsstands in 1935.
Paul Levitz here presents anything from comic artist to publisher biographies, detailed timelines, short but meaningful digests of the (so far) major five comic book decades from the Golden Age to the Present, the development and reinvention of significant superheroes, superhero leagues and their role in a changing American society.
And there is a free extra: The edition for the German market comes with the entire translated text in German that on 60 large-scale pages holds the entire essays of the edition, the same extra booklet is available for the respective French and Spanish editions.
A most commendable new edition that comes at a reasonable price, considering the many hours this book will keep you entertained.
Review by Dr. A. Ebert© 2017
Paul Levitz. 75 Years of DC Comics. The Art of Modern Mythmaking. Taschen, 2017, 720 p., ISBN 978-3-8365-5456-5.
