Robert Kirkman's Secret History of Comics

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The Trials of Superman” episode examines the comic book origins of Superman and the legal aftermath that plagued its creators, Joe Shuster (Blaine Anderson) and Jerry Siegel (Brendan Taylor).

When I wrote the original version of Read ‘em and Weep with Kevin O’Neill he liked to work on it in a crowded London pub. Because the energy level was so high, it inspired his best work. So he’d be shouting absolute gems of dialogue across a crowded and noisy bar to me and I’d be laughing my head off as I hastily scribbled them down, often on serviettes or scraps of paper. Then desperately trying to decipher my handwriting the next morning. Yes, I’m one of those people who can’t always read his own handwriting. The end result is in Read ‘em and Weep Book One: Serial Killer (start reading it for free here ) and Book Two: Goodnight, John-Boy . Kevin Smith, perhaps best known for creating the View Askewniverse and appearing as Silent Bob in multiple movies including Clerks (1994) and Dogma (1999), he’s also a well-known comic book creator, having written for both Marvel and DC Comics. The comics world feels unique, with its own internal logic, but watching these episodes, it seems like the stories being told naturally lent themselves to being told to a more mainstream audience. Did you find that to be the case on your end? Comics have taken over pop culture now, and Kirkman’s series really gets to the stories that are the heart of why that is. “The stories that are behind the scenes that go into the creation of these comics are just as interesting if not more so than the comics themselves. Once you see what people are behind these comics, and how much effort and love and passion has gone into them, you’ll see why this is a medium that drives all of pop culture right now. It’s great.”Although there have been several comic book documentaries in the past on television, most of them try to contain a nearly century old medium into a two or three hour narrative. But with The Secret History spread out over six parts, this is a deeper dive into comics lore than many mainstream audiences have ever seen. We got the chance to chat with Kirkman about the series, which is now about halfway through its initial run.

Darren Cullen who, AFAIK, is alone of a younger generation, producing strongly anti-war comics and films such as the brilliant Action Man: Battlefield Casualties. His film is hated by the Daily Mail and The Sun, and that’s a compliment I’m truly envious of! All of this book’s research and content is very welcome, and it comes at a good time. Sean Howe’s recent Marvel Comics: The Untold Story(2012) provided an authoritative history of Marvel comic books; this book expands our understanding of the publishing industry context in which those comics were produced, and it gives us an unprecedented portfolio of non-comic book art from some notable comic book artists. Patty Jenkins, the director of 2017’s Wonder Woman which broke the record for the biggest grossing live-action film directed by a woman and became the highest grossing film of the summer. Winner of the Popular Culture Association's Ray and Pat Browne Award for Best Book in Popular or American CultureIn 1843, Töpffer formalised his thoughts on the picture story in his Essay on Physiognomics: "To construct a picture-story does not mean you must set yourself up as a master craftsman, to draw out every potential from your material—often down to the dregs! It does not mean you just devise caricatures with a pencil naturally frivolous. Nor is it simply to dramatize a proverb or illustrate a pun. You must actually invent some kind of play, where the parts are arranged by plan and form a satisfactory whole. You do not merely pen a joke or put a refrain in couplets. You make a book: good or bad, sober or silly, crazy or sound in sense." [14] [15] [16] Panels from the illustrated story Some of the Mysteries of Loan and Discount, featuring Ally Sloper (1867). Did you know that the first ever comic book was created in Glasgow?". Archived from the original on 2013-12-27 . Retrieved 2012-12-17. Tony Esmond for encouraging numerous comic creators and keeping British comics alive in so many incredible ways. Dennis Gifford (2013). Peter Hunt (ed.). International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. Routledge. pp.239–241. ISBN 9781134879946.

Somewhere along the line the emphasis changed from comedy to drama, like the Superman and Superboy comic books I so enjoyed as a teenager in the 1960s. I don't read comics anymore but I suppose few if any are meant to be funny nowadays. Although they probably all contain humor. It’s actually very easy to rewrite the history of comics.” Spurgeon said. “It happens all the time. You rewrite history by putting people on these lists. That history failed Angoulême is a terrible, cynical argument to make. The listmakers weren’t even asked to look at history. They were asked to survey the present. Zero for 30 is a dismal reading of the present.”Hirsch ends his history with the rise of Marvel. The saga has continued into the present day, however, with the superheroes invented by Marvel and its rival, DC Comics, dominating Hollywood, once again offering the world a questionable image of the United States and perhaps the way our culture views itself. Pulp Empire does not elaborate on this latest chapter. Rather, its alternately admiring and adversarial—not to mention obsessive—comic book history documents, with passion and disappointment, one fan’s discovery that his idol has two faces and feet of clay. The Battle readers who were into Charley’s War when they were just nine or ten years old but who had the foresight to recognise its importance and make it a success long before it was ever noticed by adults. Interesting evolution, the name "comics" was derived years ago from strips in newspapers being funny, or "comic." As a kid in the 1950s I recall looking forward to the Sunday paper each week to read the comic strips. And then came comic books, again with the focus on funny stories.

Our whole team got together and started pitching ideas. I think there was at some point, a list of maybe 12 or 15 different subjects that we could explore. We started looking at what kind of eye witness kinds of things that we could get, and what kind of first-hand accounts that we could get. While surviving works of these periods, such as Francis Barlow's A True Narrative of the Horrid Hellish Popish Plot (c. 1682) as well as The Punishments of Lemuel Gulliver and A Rake's Progress by William Hogarth (1726), can be seen to establish a narrative over a number of images, it wasn't until the 19th century that the elements of such works began to crystallise into the comic strip. Two books stand out above all the others I consulted. Hidden History: The Secret History of the First World War and Prolonging the Agony: How the Anglo-American Establishment Deliberately Extended WW1 by Three-and-a-Half Years by Gerry Docherty and Jim MacGregor. Ignored by the media and the establishment, their books are game-changers. There is no answer to the charges against the establishment they raise, except ‘guilty’. And their books and documentaries about their work are now known world-wide. That kind of narrowed things down for us a little bit. I really wanted to do a Steve Ditko episode, for instance, but that's very problematic, because he is so extremely press shy. We couldn't really figure out a way into that that wouldn't have been just copying Jonathan Ross's brilliant In Search of Steve Ditko piece that he did for the BBC. It was a long process, but in certain cases, it was, "Hey, we can get this person, or we can get that person, and it'll be really fascinating to have them talking on the subject." Who was Martin Goodman? The answer from a business point of view is quite fascinating, and the book effectively presents a man with a narrow sense of opportunity, a fairly good head for selling magazines, and a dogged determination to keep publishing.

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What do you think of this amazing documentary series? Are you hoping for a season two? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments. In fact the one bright light to this whole affair is that Bondoux’s blind spot to women’s contributions to comics history may end up costing FIBD more than just their reputation. As author Bart Beaty pointed out, the Grand Prix winner stands for more than just merit. It’s risky for any festival to ignore 50% of the population when it comes to its greatest prize. Webcomics have grown in popularity since the mid-1990s. Since the inception of the World Wide Web, artists have been able to self-publish comics on the Internet for a low cost. Hosting providers specifically designed for webcomics, such as Keenspot and Modern Tales, allow for a type of syndication of webcomics. Scott McCloud described in 2000 how creators of online comics can revolutionize the medium by embracing the digital space and making use of techniques such as infinite canvas. Webcomics became more prolific in the early 2000s, as respected comics awards such as the Eagle and Eisner Awards started adding categories for digital comics. [30] See also [ edit ]