Donald Duck, one of the most iconic characters ever created by Walt Disney Studios, has maintained his place in global pop culture through his complex, multifaceted personality. Over the decades, Donald has transcended his beginnings as a secondary character to become an international icon in both animation and comics. This new Taschen XXL title is […]
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Category: Comic Book Culture
Marvel Comics Library. Avengers Vol. 2. 1965–1967 by Christopher Priest (ed.) (2024)
Again, a second installment of TASCHEN’s oversized book on a particular Marvel comic line continues the excellent analysis and development of its respective part one. Here, it is The Avengers Vol. 2 retrospective that covers the years 1965 to 1967. Not such a long time, but the Avengers would change a lot over that period, […]
Superevil: Villains in Silver Age Superhero Comics by Anke Marie Bock (2023)
Any comic book fan probably can easily name more than a handful of superheroes of the Silver Age, the time from roughly the mid-1950s until the early 1970s. And to know the superheroes also means to know their antagonists, featured in the endless battles of Batman/The Joker, Thor/Loki, The Flash/Po-Siden, or Spiderman/Green Goblin where the […]
Copyright Vigilantes: Intellectual Property and the Hollywood Superhero by Ezra Claverie (2024)
A typical feature of the many (recent) blockbuster superhero movies is the concept they all share; they are not simply a continuation or reinterpretation of stories from comic books published decades ago. But there is more than meets the eye, according to author Ezra Claverie, a writer who for some years has published in Journal […]
Captain America and the American Journey, 1940-2022 by Richard A. Hall (2024)
When the powerful alliance of superheroes named The Avengers were called by Marvel Comics (or rather, by S.H.I.E.L.D.), each member represented certain traits, powers, mindsets and even ideologies. The “Sentinel of Liberty,” a nickname (turned nom-de-guerre at various occasions on countless missions) for Captain America, unlike other superheroes of the Golden Age, did not simply exist […]
Secondary Action Heroes of Golden Age Comics by Lou Mougin (2023)
When in the 1930s and early 1940s comic books became very popular and promised good profits for its publishers, the market was soon flooded with various sorts of adventures at the newsstands. The comic book stories would take place on far away planets, on the American frontier of colonial America, in the West, in exotic […]
Blockheads, Beagles, and Sweet Babboos: New Perspectives on Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts by Michelle
The fame and the legend of the Peanuts started on October 2, 1950, and the newspaper comic strip became a success almost immediately: at its peak, it ran in more than 2,600 newspapers simultaneously and made Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy household names. 1952 saw the first edition of the Peanuts in paperback editions, where […]
Marvel Comics Library. Silver Surfer. Vol.1. 1968–1970 by Stan Lee, John Buscema, Douglas Wolk (2023
Marvel invented many great and impressive superheroes. Some were allowed their own comic book series; some ran for years or even decades. Compared to other Marvel characters and exclusive series, the Silver Surfer, main actor of the XXL title at hand, archived legendary status after a very short (comic book) lifetime. He was around for […]
The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Nicholas Carnes and Lilly J. Goren (eds.) (2022)
Marvel Comics, or rather, Marvel Entertainment as the corporation now has expanded into various companies responsible for diverse media enterprises, started out as one of many American comic book publishers. The many story arcs, story backgrounds, locations, family trees and so forth developed originally by Marvel‘s artists are by now complicated and span hundreds of […]