We all love comics. That’s why we're reading/writing this article. Because comics are awesome. And there's always so much to talk about within the medium. But look, internet articles and YouTube video series about comic book history and craft can only cover so much. At a certain point, if you want to really learn some stuff, you’re going to have to pick up a real book. One of those serious ones that have a distinct lack of Batman in them. I love learning more about comics, and if you want to become someone who can talk at length about Spider-Man's real history as much as his fictional story, or who can analyze a bad panel layout and figure out how to fix it, here's a little summer reading for you.
Source: amazon.com
10. Words for Pictures
Brian Michael Bendis was one of the best comic book writers of the previous decade.
Torso, Ultimate Spider-Man, Alias, and Powers are absolutely fantastic comics that can teach you a lot just by reading them. But you can learn even more from his 2014 book, Words for Pictures: The Art and Business of Writing Comics and Graphic Novels, which reads like a textbook for comics making.
Bendis teaches a yearly class on comic book making at Portland State University. It’s designed to help students learn the basics from a professional, and this book feels like a readable version of said class. It includes not only long chapters from Bendis, but "guest lecture" bits from other notable and talented creators, as well. It's the medium’s best modern teaching tool, and the most up-to-date book on the subject that I could put on this list.
Well worth a read, especially if you want to make your own comics.
Source: spiderfan.org
9. Comic Wars
Marvel Comics' bankruptcy is one of the most important real-life moments in comic book history. And it’s also one of the most surprising.
Looking at them now, it's shocking to imagine that the entire company almost went under within the last 30 years. But they did. And Dan Raviv's book analyzes the hell out of it.
Perelman, Icahn, Perlmutter, Arad…All are depicted in detailed fashion and with crazy skill. The book was released in 2002, years before Marvel found their way back to world renown, which prevents it from coming off with a navel gaze-y "Oh, look at their struggles before they made it" attitude. Marvel was still scrapping when it was written and when it was released. And this is at its heart a book on business, not comics. It's the business of comics, but it's boardrooms and bankers, not capes and tights.
But for someone who wants to be able to understand Marvel's darkest chapter to its true core, this is a must-read.
Source: npr.com
8. The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture
NPR correspondent and Bat-historian Glen Weldon crafted a book about Batman that looks at the fictional character as if he were a historical empire. His rises and falls, his impact, the narrative that guides him.
The book is partly about the dark knight himself and partly about the Nerd pop culture boom that has swung out into the spotlight in recent years. Most of the books on this list limit their focus to certain time periods or people or companies, but this is the only one that focuses on a character.
That's because Batman is such an enduring and significant character, such an important pop-cultural figure, such a gosh-darn icon, that a full book about that very subject wasn't just inevitable, it was necessary. Understanding Batman is, to an extent, understanding superheroes as a whole.
It's a stepping stone on the path to a full understanding of geek culture and all its best (and worst) qualities.
Source: amazon.com
7. The Ten-Cent Plague
The great comic book scare of the Fifties was one of the most important moments in comic book history.
It's a story of bright young creators who were crushed by fear mongering and scapegoating. A story of how a medium was repressed for decades when it tried to grow. And David Hajdu's book captures that story and time period better than anything else. It's a long story, and one that needs to be viewed from many angles to get the complete picture.
This book succeeds at balancing everything that happened while keeping the story and characters real and relatable. People like Bill Gaines and Stan Lee get to shine, and the time period is very much a character. The backdrop of the Red Scare and the post-war American atmosphere really do craft a perfectly insane picture.
A time that is both bitterly, ironically funny and depressingly heartless and cruel.
Source: wikipedia.com
6. Kirby: King of Comics
Jack Kirby is arguably the most important and influential single person in the history of comic books.
The way comics look, feel, and read today is hallmarked handily with Kirby. The title of this book is not hyperbole, Jack Kirby is the King of Comics. If anything, that's underselling it.
Kirby: King of Comics is half biography and half art book. It's giant. And beautiful. This thing makes me drool. If you don't personally get why Kirby is revered, take a look at some of these pages. There's a Darkseid sketch in there that's one of the greatest things I've maybe ever seen. The book was written by Mark Evanier, one of – if not the – greatest comic book historians of all time and it feels like it.
I’ve always struggled to appreciate Kirby personally. And then I read this book. I struggle no longer. This thing is important and necessary, and it’s the best account of Kirby as a man and an icon I've ever read.
Source: sequart.com
5. Understanding Comics
Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is an absolute masterpiece unlike any other.
If you've ever read a comic book in your life, this is something you need to own. McCloud is a wonderful writer and artist, but his greatest function is as a professor. The book's points are taught not with overt narration, but spouted by a cartoonish avatar of McCloud himself. It really is a guided tour of how comics work.
Also, this book actually blew my mind the first time I read it. There are tiny little things about how comics work that pass under your eye, and Understanding Comics likes to drag them out and rub your face in how cool they are. It's truly special, and one of those things you need to read.
In addition, McCloud's two follow ups, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, are also good, although they fall short of the first. Reinventing Comics is a neat experiment, but it’s become dated since its inception. Making Comics is also good, but there are better tutorials out there, some of which are on this list.
Source: amazon.com
4. The Great Comic Book Heroes
Jules Feiffer is easily one of the most important people in the history of comic books.
In the Fifties, the editor for DC comics was in love with the out-of-fashion comics characters from the Golden Age, and he wanted to bring them back. He combined those old-school characters with his deep love of science fiction, and birthed the Silver Age of Comics.
Barry Allen? Hal Jordan? Ray Palmer? All of them exist because of Feiffer's love of comics. In 1965, Feiffer wrote a long-form essay about the superheroes of the Forties. It's one of the earliest critical pieces on superheroes and was written by a guy who reinvented the genre.
It's a fascinating cultural artifact, and one of the few histories of the genre written before the pop art revolution of the late Sixties brought superheroes back to relevance.
Source: comicsalliance.com
3. Marvel Comics: The Untold Story
An amazing read, if not necessarily a fun one.
Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story is an in-depth examination of the history of Marvel Comics, from beginning to present. Don't go into this one looking for a book about specific stories from the comics, this isn't a history of the Marvel universe, it's about the business and the people behind those pages. And it’s an incredibly balanced account.
No one comes off looking like a villain, but no one comes out as a hero either. The struggles between Stan and Jack, Jim Shooter's reign, Heroes Reborn, Marvel Knights, Perlmutter…it's all broken down, step by step. I will warn you its "there are no real heroes" approach will leave you having less fun with comics for a little while afterwards. Seeing how the sausage is made (and historically has been made for so much time) tends to have that effect on people.
But if you like Marvel Comics and want the deepest understanding possible about their long history, this is the book for you. It's really good.
Source: amazon.com
2. Supergods
Grant Morrison is one of the most revolutionary comic book writers of all time, and also one of the most unique.
His world views are deeply built around the ideas of magic and metafiction. And Supergods is a book written about the nature of superheroes set in exactly that world view. The book summarizes long stretches of comic book history from Morrison's strange and fascinating perspective.
What do comic books say about us? What do our heroes have in common with those of the ancient Greeks or Romans? Morrison looks at these things, at first from a fan and outsider's perspective. Then, once he catches up to the point at which his own career started, as an insider and professional. It becomes part autobiography and part philosophical treatise on the medium. But it's all engaging and engrossing and fascinating to its very core.
This is easily one of my favorite books on this list. It's just so good, you can't put it down.
Source: comicsalliance.com
1. The Comic Book History of Comics
If you only choose one book from this list to pick up, please do make it this one.
Fred van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey are both brilliant comics creators and the best educational comics creators in the business. Their first edu-tainment, Action Philosophers – a history of philosophy – is legendarily great, and their follow-up is one of my favorite comics ever. Originally published as Comic Book Comics, the work is a textbook on comic book history, running the reader from the invention of the newspaper cartoon to the digital landscape of the current day.
And all the while, it's interesting and entertaining and really funny. Really funny. This thing will crack you up and teach you a lot. It's not crazy in-depth about all of its subjects, but it's more detailed than most other overviews, and it has a penchant for using anecdotes to make its points, instead of simply blazing through every event.
It's drop-dead perfect, and you really should give it the time of day.
So there you have it, folks, a nice-and-pretty summer reading list for you. Get a stack, give "˜em a read, have some fun. Books are rad. I'm gonna go start one right now. Reading Rainbow and whatnot!
